After a hiatus from the Downtown Organizations’s 1st Thursday last month, I’m back for the last Art Crawl of the year and this is going to be an extra special event. First of all, I am going to focus on many of the venues that have previously been neglected for one reason or another. We will start on the southern-most part of the festivities and will work our way up to a last stop at one of my favorite local artist’s studio near the Arlington theater. This means that we’ll be doing a bit more walking than usual, so make sure to eat before you come and wear comfortable shoes. It also mean that we will stop at fewer places than usual so we have time to take in these new places.

Joining us for at least part of the evening will be a group of revelers from Repeal Day Santa Barbara. Monday December 5th is the anniversary of the day that prohibition was repealed. They have some big festivities planned for the entire weekend and they start the whole shebang off with the Art Crawl.

I’ve posted a map of the tentative itinerary below. Click on the map to see an enlarged version. If you want to join us, make sure to be at Wall Space Gallery before 6pm. We will leave there promptly to make sure we have time to get everywhere.

Finally, the Art Crawl has a new site on Meetup.com. Check it out. I wasn’t familiar with it until recently, but it ends up being a pretty great online site for organizing in person events.

I hope to see you on Thursday!

The crew from the Anderson family are providing another reason to head down to Carpinteria. Ron Anderson is quite a bit more established than the artists I usually highlight on this blog (see below), but I’m such a big fan of the what the Andersons are doing down in Carp, that I want to give them all the support I can. As per usual with shows at the Anderson Art Collective, portions of the proceeds from sales go to help a non-profit organization. This time it is the Santa Barbara Channelkeeper to support their work in protecting and restoring the Santa Barbara Channel. For all the information and details on the opening reception, keep reading.

———————————————————————————————————————————————————————–

Ron Anderson 20/20: Looking Forward, Looking Back

Carpinteria, CA – Anderson Art Collective’s (www.andersonARTcollective.com) next show, Ron Anderson 20/20 will open with an artist’s reception on Saturday, November 5 from 5-7pm, with live music, food and drinks and features selections of the artist’s work from his first show in Beverly Hills in 1991 through his newest creations in 2011.  The show includes his iconic 3D mixed media woodies and water fountains, oil paintings, his Kahala aloha shirt designs and a new genre he has created, three-dimensional paintings.

Internationally collected local artist Ron Anderson, studied art at UCSB in the late 60’s and after travelling the world settled in Santa Barbara in 1982. He has surfed Rincon for nearly 50 years, designed a private collection of aloha shirts for Kahala, created the famous Mickey on the Road to Hana for Disney, did a CD cover for the Beach Boys and the SB Chamber of Commerce commissioned him to create a surfer/greeter for State Street in the 90′s. He’s been represented by galleries in California, Hawaii and Las Vegas; been in shows in NY, Chicago, Aspen, Houston and Miami; created art for six restaurants and for clients around the world. Among his local clients are Yvon Chouinard founder of Patagonia, Roger Nance owner of the Beach House, Jerry and Helene Beaver and Long Board Grill’s John Scott.

All You Really Need by Ron Anderson 36” x 30” x 3” 3D Painting

As with all Anderson Art Collective shows, Ron Anderson 20/20 will benefit a non-profit organization. Five percent of sales will be donated to Santa Barbara Channelkeeper (www.sbck.org) to support their work in protecting and restoring the Santa Barbara Channel.

“Ron Anderson started his journey as a professional artist when I was six years old and my brother Benjamin was fourteen,” recalls the artist’s son and Anderson Art Collective co-curator, Sean Anderson. “Now, more than twenty years later, we have seen the amazing scope of an artist who not only influenced us to take on art as a profession and lifestyle for ourselves but has touched the lives of thousands of collectors and admirers across the US, in Europe, Asia, Africa and Australia. We are honored and excited to curate a show that highlights the incredible work, process, and purpose of such an influential artist.

“This exhibition will transform the gallery, with an installation and a comprehensive representation of Ron’s work from the past to the present, as well as a taste of what’s to come. This show promises to be like nothing you have seen before in Santa Barbara.”

Anderson ART Collective is located at 410 Palm Avenue, Unit A2, in Carpinteria.  The gallery is open Friday, Saturday and Sunday from noon until 5pm or by appointment. The gallery features contemporary artwork and is a platform to promote the arts, to protect the environment and to support human rights. For more information please visitwww.andersonARTcollective.com or call 805.684.8783.

This Sunday UCSB’s MFA program will give you the chance to see some fresh talent when the Masters students open their studios to the public. This is a great opportunity to see what is happening right now in the contemporary art scene, from people who are neck deep in it. This is, in fact, the single best event in the Santa Barbara area to see a large group of work by a variety of contemporary artists. And it sounds like a lovely way to spend a Sunday afternoon.   See you there.

——————————————————————————————————————————————————————————-

Click on the image to see the full-sized flyer

What: UCSB Open Studios

Exactly 34 years ago there was a resilient, yet exhausted woman in a small Iowa town waiting to give birth to her first child, who was by that time a good three weeks overdue (it’s true, I swear). Finally on the 23rd of October her epic wait was over and yours truly was brought in to the world (You’re the best, Mom!). Now as I approach the ripe old age of 34 I have decided to make my first attempt at co-organizing an exhibition which will take place in the Funk Zone this Friday with the help of one of my favorite ladies, Ms. Andi Garcia.

For this show Andi and I came up with the idea of asking artists to illustrate “Missed Connections” from Craigslist, using iconic animation characters to bring these missed connections to life. The results that I have see so far have been beautiful and often extremely funny (see example below). For the exhibition space we were lucky enough to secure one of the most amazing loft spaces in Santa Barbara: Loft 48. Located at 48 Helena St., only half a block off the beach in the Funk Zone, this space is so cool it is worth the effort just to come to see the place. On top of that, the good people from La Tour Wine Merchants were gracious to offer to pour the wine for the event.

There is a good mix of local and regional artists that are included in the show.  And there will be an extra-special live painting performance going on during the event.

Finally, proceeds from sales of the paintings will to go to benefit the  Heart2Hand Youth Arts Fund of The Artillerist.com.

I’d absolutely love to fill the place with people and sell some art to benefit this great charity. So I ask of you, dear reader, please tell every single person that you know that they should come to see this show. When you see me, you can wish me Happy Birthday, or you can tell me how sorry you feel for my mother, but I’d rather you told me that you wanted to buy something you saw on the wall.

I hope to see you on Friday. Details below.