The last time we saw a Joe Shea exhibit in Santa Barbara it was for his first solo show at the AFS Gallery last year. At that time Holly Mackay from Art From Scrap had the foresight to ask him about doing a follow up show.  As I have mentioned in previous posts, Joe is one of the great artists who has had to leave Santa Barbara to look for a place where he could support himself with his art. So  Joe had the idea of having idea of getting two of his cohorts from the Halley Collective involved in the show, Larry Mills and Tanner Goldbeck. As I’ve been reporting for the last week or so, the show is called “Thrice” and will happen this Saturday at the AFS Gallery from 6 – 10pm.

I’ve been milking this upcoming show for a week in part because there is a definite “getting the band back together” sort of feeling associated with this particular group of artists. It is hard to know when  you will ever be able to see these guys together again in Santa Barbara, so you had better take full advantage of it. And for those of us who really care about contemporary art in Santa Barbara, this has all the makings of a show that you’ll be talking about when you reminisce about “the good ol’ days”.

J. Shea9, the last of the three artists I’m profiling in the run up to the show, is a reoccurring name on this blog despite the fact that he now lives in Portland, Oregon. In fact, one of the very reasons I started this blog was out of frustration that I had missed one of his shows in town a few years ago. I was sad that there wasn’t a reliable source of information for exhibits with the kind of art I was actually interested in. In Santa Barbara you’ll never have a hard time finding pretty landscape paintings, but if you want to find something that is utterly original and unique…well, you really have to hunt it down.

And that is one of the things that makes Shea’s art so special and why I was so sad to have missed his show. When standing in a room full of Joe Shea creations, its almost as if you have been transported into some Gulliver’s Travels parallel universe. There is a mythic other-worldliness that is ripe with grandeur and purpose. Yet, the figures are recognizable enough to identify with, and they suggest some sort of strange narrative which we might begin to piece together.  This simultaneous strangeness and familiarity is in part a result of Shea’s use of recycled materials which show up in various shapes and sizes throughout so much of his work. Being able to identify a watchband or spray can suggests the evolution of a new species of post-humans, reveling in whatever it is that we left behind.

J. Shea9 and another “Haley Collective” accomplice,  Yoskay Yamamoto, have been part of Scion’s National Art Tour the passed two years. Click here to read an article about the show that appeared on Juxtapoz.com. Yoskay will be joining Shea this Thursday when the tour hits Portland. Give my regards to  C.H.V.N.K. 666 guys.

This is a big one, people. If you want to have a piece of Santa Barbara’s distinct art culture that defined the first decade of this millennium, Saturday is your chance.  Spread the word!

If you have been to  the Santa Barbara Bowl you have probably seen Larry Mills, camera in hand, capturing some of the visual highlights of the show. Mills is the house photographer for the Bowl, as well as SoHo, so he’s got quite the portfolio of concert photographs, many of which can be seen here. Mills is also an accomplished fine art photographer, with a long history of exhibits in town as well as LA and recently Portland, OR.

My very own Larry Mills photo.

My first encounter with Mills’ photos was at a show in Muddy Waters a few years ago.  The majority of the shots had been taken at a billboard graveyard outside Vegas. The images did an wonderful job of capturing the epic strangeness that is Las Vegas.  Looking at these photos you got a sense of how this strangeness has evolved over the years, and these remnants were evidence both of a glorious past that seems worthy of nostalgia and an inability to age gracefully; like a withered old lounge singer whose act hasn’t changed since the Rat Pack were regulars at the Sands.

In many of Mills’ photos there is a deep affection for the beauty of bazaar Americana; elements of a blue-collar fringe culture and extreme  rural remoteness. There is also a focus on the passage of time, entropy, and decay but always from the point of view that these a processes are natural and often have beautiful results.

Mills will be joining Tanner Goldbeck and J. Shea9 in the “Thrice” show at AFS Gallery on August 8th. He has a  website and blog to check out to get an idea of what you might see in the show.  I’ve also pasted his bio below for your reading enjoyment.

Born and raised in California’s agricultural, Central Valley, Larry Mills, now a resident of Santa Barbara, is a mostly self-taught photographer using his camera as a tool for artistic expression and a means for putting beans on the table. In the early 1990’s, while studying Graphic Design at S.B.C.C., he made the personal discovery of photography. So taken by it in fact, after only two semesters of training in the medium, he chose to forfeit the rest of his formal education to free-up more time and energy for the sole purpose of learning-by-doing. Since that decision, photography has played a roll in his life on an almost daily basis. Larry, has used his gained knowledge to obtain working positions in professional imaging labs, execute editorial assignments for numerous print and online publications, exhibit in solo and group art exhibits, and photograph live music for the Santa Barbara Bowl, where he has been the house photographer for nearly a decade.

Late last week, whilst innocently exploring the interwebs I came upon a flier which instantly caused me to jump out of my seat and litter the air with profane words of excitement.

For those of you who have followed this blog, you may well remember my sporadic ranting lamentations about how so many of my favorite Santa Barbara artists are forced to emigrate to find enough people who will support their art. The reality is that the majority of the people who spend money on art in Santa Barbara have very traditional tastes, so to make a living many of our edgier, progressive, political and urban artists leave town for greener pastures elsewhere. That is, in part, what makes this upcoming show so special and exciting.

On August 8th at the AFS Gallery at 302 E. Cota Street in Santa Barbara, three of my favorite contemporary artist with Santa Barbara connections will be having a show in town for the first time since two of them left for the reasons mentioned above. J. Shea 9, Tanner Goldbeck (a.k.a Racecar 13), and Larry Mills are all accomplished, and talented artists with their own unique style.

When I saw the flier I immediately sent off an email to J. Shea (a good friend to this blog) to get details on the show’s development and the history these three have together. Throughout this week I’ll be posting his response as well as giving a brief profile of each artist and their work.

So stay tuned this week for further details.

R.I.P Edward Cella Art + Architecture?

After a short month it seems as though First Thursday has come upon us again incredibly quickly. This month brings with it some very unfortunate news: Edward Cella is packing up his gallery and moving it to LA. This will be your last chance to check out what has been one of my personal favorite galleries month after month. The art shown in that gallery was almost always interesting, and intellectual, not to mention beautiful. But it is not simply a sign of our economic times that this gallery cannot stay open in Santa Barbara; it is also evidence that, in general, the people in this town who can afford the art (of which there are many) lack the vision to invest in contemporary art. The reasons for this are many, and I won’t go into them here. But one important and detrimental effect of this conservatism of artistic taste is that it makes it incredibly hard for us to foster our own young and developing artists. And it is not because we have had any shortage of young talent in the passed few years–Tanner Goldbeck, Joe Shea, Scott Belcastro, Yosakay Yamamoto, just to name the few I am most familiar with. Realistically, the sheer size and proximity of LA means that a certain amount of emigration is inevitable. LA currently has what is arguably the most vibrant and important arts scene in this country. It is still, however, a very sad fact that Santa Barbara cannot support a single full-time gallery that would focus on this kind of contemporary art. Instead of exporting all of our talent to LA, we should be taking advantage of just how close we are to this culture by importing work from the LA scene.  I am sure that the resources are here, I am much less sure that those with the resources have the will to make it happen.

I guess the moral to this unexpectedly long rant is that those with the desire to help our local contemporary art scene and to see more new, progressive, or experiential art must take it upon themselves to do what they can. Buy this art when you can. And if you can’t afford to buy the art, then at least go to look at it, talk about it, and get the word out to others.

You can start tonight by heading out for First Thursday. If you haven’t yet been to see the ceramics at CAF, there is some really wonderful work there, especially the work of Franco Mondini-Ruiz, Anna Sew Hoy, and Kristen Morgin. The comic books of unfired clay by Kristen Morgin are nothing less than mind-blowing. While there don’t forget to check out Jennifer Nocon‘s felt installations, which were probably overlooked during the very well attended opening of the ceramics show.  CAF is also hosting a wide variety of very interesting talks this month so check out their schedule.

No matter where you go tonight, come back here to comment on what you saw.

First of all, let me take the time to say how much I love Art From Scrap. I can easily get lost in there for hours looking through all the quirky treasures that end up there. This month they are also hosting a great show by one of my personal favorite local artists Joe Shea (aka J Shea 9). This is J Shea’s first solo show in California, but he is a regular contributor to group shows in town (see below). The show contains over 30 pieces, much of which was inspired by a cross country road trip the artist took earlier in the year. Shea’s work could generally be described as mixed media figures and scenes that incorporate found and recycled objects with influences as diverse as folk and street art.

J Shea's THE CAPTAIN

The show is titled “Folk Art”, which is particularly highlighted in many of these works. Though there are the usual J Shea staples of wonderful robotic figures and floating heads, there is also much more Americana to be found here than in what I’ve seen before, lending a bit of narrative context which gives the work an additional depth.

One of the reasons I’ve always loved J Shea’s work is that it is incredibly fun to look at (a quality that is tragically under-appreciated in my opinion) . The detail that he puts into his figures can only truly be appreciated in person, when you really stick your nose right up in the box that frames most of his figures. The clever incorporation of found objects gives the scenes a feeling that is simultaneously post-apocalyptic and ethereal, mischievous and whimsical.

For this particular show, the theme of traveling brings a nice cohesion to the collection. The influences of the various regions of the country are apparent and add a welcome contrast between the individual pieces, while retaining the collective sense of movement and (mis)adventure.

J Shea's NORTHWEST

This show is up at the AFS Gallery, 302 E. Cota Street (the second floor of Art From Scrap), and will be up until October 25th. If you fancy getting a hold of one of these pieces you better get there quickly, at last count two-thirds of them were sold.

J Shea also has a small group of works up at the “Noche de los Muertos” show at Muddy Waters, 508 E Haley St. There will be an opening reception on October 18th at 6pm, featuring work by Jorge Rivas, Sheryl Schroeder, Traci “Spooky Lane” Rodriguez, Janel Holiday and more. DJ Magneto will be spinning.