After a couple of days of cold, damp weather the sunny and beautiful Santa Barbara weather has returned just in time for tonight’s First Thursday. There is a ton of great shows and exhibits to check out tonight, including an instillation by Santa Barbara’s own Gerard Minakawa and Bamboo DNA, famous for their bamboo constructions at Coachella and Burning Man. They have recently returned to the States after spending the summer touring Europe and building some amazing structures. I’ve included a video below of Minakawa discussing his creation at Portugal’s BOOM festival.

There are also great shows from blog regulars like Vanae Rivera, the good folks at Fuzion SB, and the Contemporary Arts Forum, amongst others. I hope to see tons of people out there taking advantage of these amazing local art resources.

As always, if I’ve forgotten anything or if you’d like to add a show to this list of highlights please post them in a comment below.

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BAMBOO DNA
Corner of Victoria and State Streets
Gerard Minakawa will be bringing another one of his frightening bamboo bugs to the streets of Santa Barbara! Minakawa and his Bamboo DNA crew create one-of-a-kind bamboo installations worldwide and are pleased to introduce a unique new creature in time for the Halloween season.

Boom Festival 2010 – Day 4 from Boom Festival on Vimeo.

MILK AND HONEY
30 West Anapamu St.
(805) 275-4232
Vanae Rivera’s “New Little Art Show” will debut at Milk and Honey. Vanae is a blog favorite and is sure to bring some of the sexy rockabilly sheik that is why we love her work so much.

FUZION SANTA BARBARA
1115 State Street
(805) 687-6401
Fuzion Gallery will be hosting an art reception for our October art show featuring prestigious Los Angeles based artist Luke Vicious. Event runs from 7PM-10:30PM and will boast beer and wine for those of age.

SANTA BARBARA MUSEUM OF ART
1130 State Street
(805) 963-4364
Three of the five exhibitions in the series Reframing America… will be on view: Stranger Than Fiction: Narrative in Works by Selected Contemporary Artists, Chasing Moby-Dick: Selected Works by Tony de los Reyes and Yosemite: Then and Now. A selection of short (under 10 min) films by Stranger Than Fiction artists Erin Cosgrove and Allison Schulnik will be screened continuously in the Mary Craig Auditorium.
Family 1st Thursday: Kingdom of Nature Paper Sculpture.
Bring the whole family to enjoy 1st Thursday together in SBMA’s Family Resource Center. Re-imagine Aaron Morse’s Kingdom of Nature, featured work in the exhibition Stranger Than Fiction: Narrative in Works by Selected Contemporary Artists, as a 3-D paper sculpture using images from the natural world and from your imagination that explore the thin line between fact and fiction. 5:30-7:30pm.

TACO TASTE OFF
900 State Street on Border’s Patio
Cheer on and vote for your favorite Downtown fish/seafood taco as local celebrity judges taste and critique the finest fish/seafood tacos that Downtown Santa Barbara has to offer. Judging will begin at 5:30pm.

SANTA BARBARA CONTEMPORARY ARTS FORUM
653 Paseo Nuevo, 2nd Floor
(805) 966-5373
Forum Lounge: sonicSENSE: an interactive multimedia art platform created by Barney Haynes and Jennifer Parker as an evolving site for art, culture, new technologies, digital media, collaboration, and participation. SonicSENSE uses the creative diversity of computational media and traditional visual art practices to cultivate space for sharing, questioning and exploring interdisciplinary frameworks, methodologies and experiences. 7pm.

WALL SPACE GALLERY
113 West Ortega Street
(805) 690-4913
Premiering Charles Grogg’s newest series, Ascension. These haunting black and white images are his emotional investigation of what binds us, what tethers us to earth and in the process sets us free. The images themselves are bound with wire, thread and other materials to give a tactile feel to a complicated vision. Charles will be at the gallery from 6-8pm to discuss his vision and ideas about his work.

BROOKS INSTITUTE GALLERY 27
27 East Cota Street
(805) 690-4913
Control | Release: Join us for an exhibition of work by six artists currently completing their MFA degree at Brooks Institute. The first of three group exhibitions, the show represents the diversity of the program and the exploration of photography within the contemporary art world. This collection of work utilizes the medium to discuss the desire for release from the human need to control. Refreshments will be served.

Happy New Year to one and all! It’s time for our first First Thursday of the new decade, and I’ve got a list of highlights to add to your tour tonight.

Artamo Gallery

Artamo is small and easy to miss, but it is Santa Barbara’s leading gallery for international abstract art. Unlike much of Santa Barbara, I am a huge fan of abstract art. Tonight Artamo has put together a group of small works specifically for those of us that do not have large pocketbooks. This might be a great opportunity for fans of abstract art to pick something up for yourself or a loved one, without having to mortgage  away your unborn children–always a plus!

SBMA

The Santa Barbara Museum of Art has extended one of the best shows that they have had there in a long time. If you haven’t seen it yet, make sure to check out “California Calling”, an exhibit that highlights the innovative, and  in-your-face art that has come out of California over the last sixty years, including iconic works by David Park, Sam Francis, and long-time UCSB professor Howard Warshaw.

Santa Barbara Arts Collaborative

The fledgling Santa Barbara Arts Collaborative will be having its second showing of 2-D and 3-D art at Casa de la Guerra. There will be live art making  and music to accompany the exhibit. Make sure and stop by and learn about the big plans that this collaborative has for the new year.

Casa Magazine

Casa Magazine‘s home base on Canon Perdido Street will host an exhibit by Beth Amine entitled Inner Worlds of Possibility: Alive and Visible. Amine will be exhibiting her handmade shrines and leading shrine-making activities. Casa will also have refreshments and tasty provisions for those of you who forgot to eat before hitting the street.

Contemporary Arts Forum

Finally, as mentioned in my last post, Ted Mills will be performing his second installment of The Amazing Animated Jukebox. The Amazing Animated Jukebox Vol. 2 screens videos from Coldplay, Beck, Radiohead, Menomena, N.A.S.A. featuring Kool Keith and Tom Waits, Death Cab for Cutie, Birdy Nam Nam, Lemon Jelly, Royksopp, Azeem, The New Pornographers, and many more. Don’t miss your fix of the latest wave in animated eye candy ranging from old-school 2-D line drawing to computer graphics and those that negotiate the subtle levels in between.

See you on the street!

It may be a bit chilly tonight, but don’t use this as an excuse to skip out on the opportunity to hit the street in search of great art. Below is my short list of spots that will be hosting the hip haps tonight.

The Granada will be hosting Karaoke Karoling tonight, letting visitors get into the holiday spirit with some seasonal favorites.I can only hope that it takes place on the stage and that it is as hilariously terrible as karaoke can be.

The Santa Barbara Museum of Art will also be open and is hosting “California Conversations” with Joe Goode and Joan Tanner at 5:30pm in the Mary Craig Auditorium. This is the last in the series of three conversations with artists featured in the wonderful California Calling exhibition. If you haven’t seen this two part exhibit, add it to your “must see” list tonight. It’s only up for a little while longer.

Local artists Erika Carter and Liz Brady have a show at the Frameworks and Caruso-Woods Gallery. Carter is a long time painter and gallery owner who specializes in small folkloric devotional paintings on tin or wood . Brady explores the different compositions of plant life under a microscope and unveils the diversity and beauty of these organic forms through her new  paintings. I love visiting this gallery, if for no other reason than it gives me the opportunity to wander around in the labyrinthine innards of  the El Paseo building.

At Caligreen the wonderful Andi Garcia has put together an intriguing  show of street art called “Concrete to Canvas”. The title says it all as graffiti artists will be putting their talents down on more traditional surfaces. Artists from all over the country will be represented and there will be live art and music created on the spot. Donations of warm coats and sweaters to be collected for Unity Shoppe  Live art piece will be auctioned off with proceeds to benefit Heart2Hand youth art scholarship.

The final spot I’d like to highlight is the Brooks Institute’s Gallery 27, which will have a juried show of student works. The exhibit consists mainly of fine art photography and many of the photographers will be there to discuss their work. This is a great spot to show and see art. It has a much more urban/industrial feel than anywhere else currently in Santa Barbara and while inside you could easily convince yourself you were in a larger, hipper artistic city.

I hope to see large crowds out on the street tonight. As always if you see anything that blows your mind, make sure to share it by posting your comments on the blog.

For good or for bad, it is Fiesta in Santa Barbara. I usually celebrate the occasion by locking myself inside for the duration and try to avoid State Street at all costs. However, tonight there are very good reasons to make an exception tonight to head out for First Thursday. One of the things I’m most excited about tonight is the opportunity to go behind the scenes at the Granada. The venue will open up the lower sections and allow visitors to see the dressing rooms, rehearsal rooms, etc. I’ve always enjoyed checking out the inner workings of places like this, though  I can’t say exactly why.

It is also Art Helps at  Artamo Gallery, CASA Magazine, The Health Gallery and Sullivan Goss – An American Gallery. These galleries will be accepting donations of cereal for The Unity Shoppe to help needy local families. With your donation you will receive a 10% discount on a future purchase and 10% of the proceeds of that purchase will also be donated to the Unity Shoppe.

If you haven’t seen the wonderful “California Calling” exhibit at the museum this would be a great time to stop in. The exhibit only consists of two small rooms, so you can see the exhibit with plenty of time left over for other places.

At the Contemporary Arts Forum there is “Echo of the Whole: Call For Entries ’08-’09: Adrienne Allebe, Stephanie Dotson, Tera Galanti, Servando Garcia”. I love call for entries shows and was unable to attend the opening for this show last week, so I’m excited to see the work of these four artists tonight. At 7 CAF will have “Selected Short Films by Aïda Ruilova, a video artist who draws inspiration from B-movie horror and vampire flicks of the ’70s. Ruilova’s videos combine classical cinematic devices with distinctively low-tech sensibilities, quick-cuts, and jarring soundtracks to create works that exist in the space between sound and image.”

There are two photography shows to get excited about as well. At the Brooks Institue’s Gallery 27 there is a exhibit of photos of famous photographers by Tim Mantoani. And at Samy’s Camera there is a show by Charlie Mitchell who has recreated famous old master paintings with a camera and clever Photoshop work. I haven’t been able to confirm that Samy’s will be staying open late for First Thursday, so this might make a good first stop on your itinerary.

Wherever you go tonight, make the Fishnet Gallery and Retail Theatre your last stop once all the State Street galleries have closed. Fishnet will be hosting the first monthly First Thursday after-hours event from 8 to Midnight. If you haven’t been to the Fishnet Gallery yet, it is located at 46 Helena St. just a block  from State Street and half a block from the beach. Tonight’s event will feature the work of amazing concept artists Mark Goerner, who will be demonstrating his process live.  I have seen Mark give a presentation on his work before, and it was, without exaggeration, one of the coolest things I have seen in a very long time. So I can’t recommend this highly enough. In typical Fishnet fashion the evening will also include DJs,  fire performers, hoop dancers and the wonderful mayhem usually associated with this crowd. I’ve also heard a rumor that there is some amazing street art murals across the street from Fishnet. I don’t think these are permanent, so make sure to check it out while you can.

I’ve attached all the info on the Fishnet event below. While you’re out and about tonight if you see anything that you think I should mention on the blog, please contact me to tell me all about it.

DON’T FORGET FISHNET ARTIST PROCESS SHOW Tomorrow Night after First Thursday Art Walk

MARK GOERNER at FISHNET

with projections by Republic of Tri, music by
DJ Mouse, Kit on Hoops, a special showing of the new Pyrospin film, and cuisine by the Hot Dog Man

Thursday, AUGUST 6th 8pm-Midnight
46 Helena Avenue, Santa Barbara

Mark Goerner's "Moon Crash 5"

Veteran of countless high profile projects in various industries, including work for such films as Minority Report, X-Men2, Superman, Battle Angel Alita, and Iron Man 2. Mark will demonstrate his process live at FISHNET. This will be a killer night. FISHNET is all about process, how artists conceive, prototype and produce their finished work. Thursday night FISHNET artist MARK GOERNER will be on hand to talk about his process, techniques and the philosophy he uses  to develop is professional and gallery work.

We’ll have a large selection of Mark’s work for sale at the event and he’ll be happy to sign prints following the demo.

For those of you who feel that your life is suffering from a distinct lack of  $10 martinis, the solution to your problem can be found at the Santa Barbara Museum of Art tonight. This is the second of the museum’s summer “Nights” celebration, and tonight they’ve extended the event into the wee hours of the early evening and brought in a fancy DJ from LA’s KCRW by the name of Jason Bentley to help you get your groove on.  More exciting still, there will be a performance by modern dance/music group String Theory. But that is not all! Local bamboo design guru Gerard Minakawa and his Bamboo DNA troupe will be providing organic decoration to spruce up the place. Bamboo DNA has brought some jaw-dropping structures to Burning Man and has provided the centerpieces for the last two Coachella Music Festivals, amongst other things.

Bamboo DNA's Waves at Coachella 2008

This will be my first trip to the museum’s Nights celebration, so I don’t know exactly what to expect.  I will be incredibly surprised, however, if there isn’t a general abundance of swankiness to be found – a lot more swankiness than this poor blogger is used to.

For more information about the event or to buy tickets check out the SBMA’s “Nights” web page.

I hope to see you there.