It has been a crazy week so my usual monthly First Thursday preview is a bit behind this month. However, there is a ton of great shows to see tonight and I want to make sure to highlight some of them so you can make sure to add them to your itinerary. First of all, the Artamo Gallery, CASA Magazine, The Health Gallery and Sullivan Goss – An American Gallery are accepting food donations for Art Helps, a benefit for the Unity Shoppe. This month’s request is for jars of peanut butter. If you bring in a jar of peanut butter you will get a sweet Art Helps button and will receive 10% off a purchase from that gallery. Make sure to pack a jar of peanut butter with you when you head out tonight. Even if you don’t purchase anything, it will help support less fortunate Santa Barbara families.

Click on the image above to see the full-size flyer

The two art shows that I want to highlight start with tonight both begin at 7pm so they would be great places to check out after you’ve made your regular rounds. First off, blog regular Jimmy Bell has a show opening up at Cali Green on West Ortega, just off of State Street. Bell uses a variety of techniques like splatter, scribble and folds to incorporate randomness and chance into his creative process, letting each piece unfold from the outcome of the initial result. Just within the last year you may have seen some of his work  at Red’s, Elsie’s, Blackbird, Fishnet or the Street Murals projec on Mason and Helena Streets. He must be one of the hardest working young artists in town, so make sure to show him your support by stopping by.

The second “Must See” of the night will happen at the Contemporary Arts Forum, also at 7 o’clock. As part of their Forum Lounge series Daniel Barrow will present “Every Time I See Your Picture I Cry”. Barrow comes to us from Winnipeg and was featured in the 2009 Time Based Art Festival in Portland, OR.  He uses obsolete technology like old-school overhead projectors to weave a tale through “manual” animation. It is sure to be an interesting lo-fi event.

Regardless of where you end up tonight, if you see anything that you absolutely loved, make sure to come back to the blog and post your comment to tell us all about it.

Jimmy Bell's SEVEN SINS

I’m not a coffee drinker. The unfortunate consequence of this is that I rarely poke my head into some of the best places to see art in this town; particularly for those of us who are interested in supporting up and coming artists. So, today I made a special trip to Red’s, Muddy Waters, and Java Jones where I loaded myself full of Yerba Mate and saw some great art, some good art, and some less than good art.

Jimmy Bell's RIDER

For this post I’ll focus on the great art which was so wonderful that I couldn’t wait write about it. I loved it so much, in fact, that for the second time this month I walked away with something to put on my wall at home. The young artist who created this work is Jimmy Bell from Carpinteria, and his show at Red’s Cafe is easily the most exciting collection of work I have seen for a long time. I say this for two very important reasons.

First of all, the art is fantastic. There is a wide variety of work using different techniques to great effect. Many of the works begin as scribbles or splatters on various kinds of paper. The artist then takes a step back to see what starts to take shape and proceeds from there. The results are usually a figure or collection of figures that are a mixture of urban edginess and bucolic folklore. It is a mixture that is all too common in the pages of Juxtapoz magazine, but Bell’s work manages to retain a consistent stylistic individuality that is at once both improvised and intricate. Bell’s use of a set of arbitrary limitations to work within, either in the form of random scribbles or the grains of a wood panel, is heavily influenced by the Dadaist’s incorporation of chance and the Surrealist’s use of automatic writing. The use of found materials like newspaper and wallpaper further strengthens this connection.

Jimmy Bell's COAST

The second reason I got so excited by this show was that it was full of wonderful peices of art that many people (myself included) could afford. The largest, and the most impressive piece there was a three dimensional box approximately 6″ x 4″ x 60″, installed vertically on the wall with a continuous painting on the three exposed faces. If I had a place to put something that large I may very well have left with it. It was wonderful to see how many of Bell’s works had been sold, both because I really liked the work and because it is great to see that even in an economy when many of us are forced to tighten our belts we will find a way to support the arts. Having never heard of Bell before I was especially excited have a new local artist to keep on my radar.

I encourage you to check out Bell’s MySpace page which contains a very informative slide show of his scribble technique and lots of great examples of his work. It will also help you keep up to date with his upcoming shows. I hope to see you there.

Way back in 1916 in Zurich a little art movement called Dada (arguably the most influential influential of the 20th century) was beginning at the Cabaret Voltaire. The Cabaret was a meeting place for all sorts of crazy artists and intellectual bohemian types. It was a place for them to put on experimental theater and became a stage from which they could call into question the social and political values of the time. One of the original instigators, Jean Arp, described on night at the Cabaret as “Total pandemonium. The people around us are shouting, laughing, and gesticulating. Our replies are sighs of love, volleys of hiccups, poems, moos…”. And the spirit of the original Cabaret Voltaire is alive and well here in Santa Barbara.

Heroes of the Apocalypse

On Halloween night at Red’s Cafe the Fishbon collective will be creating a “multi-part Halloween adventure”. Fishbon is a non-profit collection of artists, performers, scientists, engineers, writers and other participants who work together to create participatory events very much in the vein of the original Dadaists. This particular event will “feature a giant 22 foot tall Robot, 12 foot diameter Do-It-Yourself Utopia that you can help build, and a Cabaret Extravaganza with music, dance and more. I have been participating in Fishbon events for a couple of years now, so I can tell you from first-hand experience that if you are looking for some entertaining madness, it is not to be missed. You must be 21 or older to attend. This is a fundraiser for Fishbon, so tickets are $20 and can be purchased here.
Tickets are limited and will most likely sell out so get them now!