In case you missed it, you can still watch the zoom presentations for The Nature of Clouds and Wintering: A Fox Tale on the Wildling Museum YouTube channel.
Thank you to the Wildling Musem as well as the Santa Barbara News Press, Santa Maria Sun and Lance Orozco with KCLU News for the wonderful coverage and support of the new installations at the museum.
Thank you to Caleb Wiseblood for his wonderful article in the Sun.
getting ready
There is always that revolving list of things that need doing around the house. Usually they can be easily tabled because life is busy and there are places to go and people to see. We’re coming up on a year in captivity and the excuses have run dry for NOT getting to that list.
It was at last time to finish choosing and hanging my ever growing collection. One of my reasons for not committing is that I have a huge map drawer (or two) of beautiful images collected over the years and I just couldn’t decide which ones would win the lottery and claim a space on the wall.
I needed to rip off the band-aid and just hang the work that was framed. It’s been a pleasure to finally have the work committed to the wall and to sit amongst so many friends in my reading corner.
What have you been putting off?
making a plan
Enjoy!
Detail work in progress
Frequently I’ve been asked “as an artist, how have you been affected by the pandemic? Has it changed your practice?” Most artists live a solo life in their studios, spending hours of time alone making, trying, striving to move their craft forward. In that regard, not a lot has changed. I am still in my studio every day but the one thing that is different is the lessening of outside distraction. There are no appointments to rush off to or times when a museum visit is scheduled, the days just melt into one another.
The downside for me, with all the solo hours regular studio practice usually includes visits with other artists to talk about work, travel to recharge the creative well, seeing other creative people in their pursuits of dance or music, writers talking of their craft. These pursuits are all ubiquitously missing. The resounding quiet does make it challenging on some days to find the creative thread.
Rather than dwell too long on the hunt for creativity I try to find ways to distract from what’s outside the studio door pressing in. I return to school days exercises like limiting your palette, changing substrates, or playing with color charts to keep the brushes fluid. Almost every time, when it comes to painting, I’m rewarded and I fall in love all over again.
Detail work in progress
color charts/color mixing
February Storm Quad, 29.5x78” Oil on Birch panel
Sullivan Goss presents a curated selection of pieces from our inventory and recent acquistions.
February 5th through March 22, 2021 at Sullivan Goss
11 East Anapamu, Santa Barbara
open every day from 10-530
Wildling Museum unveils new Tower Gallery exhibition by Holli Harmon and window installation by Nicole Strasburg, encouraging sidewalk viewings during closure
Tower Gallery Exhibition: Holli Harmon: The Nature of Clouds | On view: Now through Fall 2021
Window Installation: Wintering: A Fox Tale by Nicole Strasburg | On view: Now through Spring 2021
Location: Both installations on view from sidewalk, Wildling Museum, 1511-B Mission Drive, Solvang, CA 93463
Accompanying the new Tower Gallery exhibition is a window art installation titled Wintering: A Fox Tale by artist Nicole Strasburg. The series of papercut fox silhouettes was specially designed by Strasburg to bring joy and wonder to passersby during the museum’s extended closure.
“We wanted to create something exciting for the windows that would let everyone know we were only hibernating, not closed forever,” says Strasburg. “With my love for animals and the fox being the Wildling Museum mascot, it seemed fitting to do something with a fox theme.”
Strasburg’s intricate papercutting technique transformed the museum’s windows into a dramatic winter landscape once lit.
“Wintering and hibernating are not always a dormant time, it’s also a time of great imagination and rejuvenation, a time to recharge,” says Strasburg. “Designing and cutting the paper images as well as configuring the armature to hold the creation were a wonderful way to pass the time in quarantine with the added benefit of bringing attention to the museum.”
The Sundance “Winter’s Thaw 2021” catalog is in the post with a couple beautiful rooms, including of few of my paintings. See all availalbe work ONLINE.
Left: Watering Hole 12x12” oil on birch panel
Right: Nestling 12x12” oil on birch panel
Sullivan Goss Gallery installation
Press release from the gallery:
Sullivan Goss is pleased to offer an exhibition devoted to quietude for the new year. Battered by the pandemic, a hotly contested election, and an atmosphere marked by dread and hysteria, Gallery curators felt that the world could use a space for peace and contemplation. Drawing from its artists’ studios, collector consignments, and its own treasure vault, Sullivan Goss was able to assemble sixteen works spanning from 1890 to today that invite a meditative or peaceful state of mind. Installed with ample breathing room in the Gallery’s largest exhibition space, Sullivan Goss hopes to offer a refuge to weary artists, collectors, and visitors.
Each work has been carefully selected both to typify the artist’s best work and to help viewers slip away into reverie. Stylistically, the works range from late 19th and early 20th century Tonalist and Impressionist evocations by National Academicians Leon Dabo (1864-1960), Lockwood de Forest (1850-1932), and Colin Campbell Cooper to midcentury and contemporary “spacey” abstractions by William Dole (1917-1983) and Oskar Fischinger (1900-1967) to contemporary Tonalist and abstract works by Gallery stalwarts like Whitney Brooks Abbott, Meredith Brooks Abbott, Ken Bortolazzo, Susan McDonnell, Chris Peters, Nicole Strasburg, and Sarah Vedder.
Art can be an effective emotional trigger. High contrast works with bright, hyper-saturated colors and dynamic compositions can excite us – stimulating increased energy and mental activity. Paintings and drawings that use a more restrained and harmonized palette or whose imagery and compositions invoke the pastoral or the dreamy have the opposite effect. They calm us. They soothe. Those in search of peace & quiet are hereby advised: you’ll find it at 11 East Anapamu Street for the months of January and February.
Morning Estuary, 48x24”, Oil on Birch Panel
Sullivan Goss Gallery, 11 East Anapamu, Santa Barbara
If you are looking for some much needed peace and beauty Sullivan Goss has three terrific shows on the walls now and the doors are open to visitors. 100 Grand, the annual celebration of local art in small format, still has plenty of precious gems awaiting homes. And in the back room is the Winter Salon which features many new works by the gallery’s stable of artists. Tomorrow we are expecting the first rain of winter, what a great way to spend some time if you can’t be outside!
Works by Nicole Strasburg, Ken Bortalazzo and Patricia Chidlaw
Morning Tide 36x60” oil on birch panel, 2007
A warm and hopeful wish this season for a prosperous new year. May we all find peace and joy while we wait for a vaccine that will restore us to a modicum of normalcy after almost a year of uncertainty.
I seek daily to find moments of glory, joy, peace and magic. Today without the gatherings of friends and family, the sharing of meals and stories of Christmases past I decided to seek warmth from nature. This time of year always holds the promise of a low tide and beautiful skies at the shoreline. Today was glorious and I was reunited with an old friend that I have not seen in a few years.
In 2007 I painted Morning Tide, an image from our local point during a minus tide. The sand recedes during the extreme winter tides revealing amazing rock formations. This one appeared looking like a lone dinosaur with it’s young on a beautiful morning beach walk. I was elated today to rediscover my friend waiting for me in the December tideline.
It wasn’t a hug from family or friends but it was a wonderful connection that reminded me of home, someone waiting to welcome me, the familiar that leads you to believing that everything is going to be okay.
Blessings and gratitude to friends and family near and far. May you all find the magic in the small moments this holiday.
Campus Point, Low Tide, December 25, 2020
Pronghorn Siesta 1 3/4 x 2 1/2” Gouache on 6x4” arches board
The inspiration for these paintings was a wildflower tour on the backside of the Tejon Ranch two years ago during one of the California poppy super blooms. While on our way to the poppy fields we came across a small herd of pronghorn that reside on the Tejon Ranch.
Gouache is a paint that is heavier than traditional transparent watercolors and is centuries old. Its name, which rhymes with squash, comes from the Italian “guazzo” meaning “water paint.” It was originally used to illuminate manuscripts. Because of its opacity, gouache behaves in a similar way to oil painting with the ability to build layer upon layer of color.
I have always been drawn to miniature images, smitten that something so small could hold a world of information. Small also became important recently while helping out my aging parents. There were many days where long hours working in the studio was impossible, but having something that was fast drying and readily at hand allowed me to keeping my brushes moving and helped me stay centered. Pushing paint around even for 20 minutes reminded me who I was. These wee paintings were all about finding joy, no matter how small.
- Nicole Strasburg
All of the artwork in this online exhibition is available for purchase. For inquiries, please call 310-913-0749 or email at info@craigkrullgallery.com.
Spring Poppies 1 3/4 x 2 1/2” Gouache on 6x4” arches board
Selections from the 2015 Katmai series are also available the CK website.
Katmai 9, 4x6” Gouache on Arches Board
Westmont Ridley-Tree Museum of Art is celebrating 10 years with the exhibit 5x5 showcasing work from artists around the country. The small 5x5” format and online auction began on December 3rd and runs through Friday, December 18th. Bidding closes sharply at 5p.m. Now is your chance to bid and take home one of these exceptional pieces.
My own contribution, Morning idyll, is a black bear from Alaska’s Katmai National National Park contemplating a morning bathe.
Don’t wait! Start your bidding now!
Morning Idyll 5x5” gouache on Sommerset Paper
Westmont Ridley-Tree Museum of Art
5x5 museum installation
Storm in the Valley (right) 18x48” & Receding Storm (left) 18x48”
Despite the current state of the State of California and the rolling shut downs, a new restaurant has been born, La Paloma Cafe. Words from their own website:
"We welcome you back in time, back in Santa Barbara history, back to La Paloma! After 37 years "the dove" will once again take wing on the iconic corner of Anacapa and Ortega. And like an old friend, the celebrated neon sign will once again state the original letters: La Paloma Cafe. Early in Santa Barbara's history, Ortega Street was "restaurant row" and a hub of activity. Opened in 1938, La Paloma Cafe was the premier Mexican restaurant on the strip and was frequented by stage and screen stars. During Old Spanish Days, vaqueros and cattlemen tied their horses in front of the corner bar building to wet their whistles. The old main house and patio buzzed with energy day and night where locals enjoyed the Luera family's hospitality delivered"
The new owners at Acme Hospitality have given the space a fresh clean face lift and added a second deck for outdoor dining (complete with heat lamps). The interior is spare and beautiful and many of my landscape paintings adorn the walls.
More on the restaurant HERE and to order take out check the MENU.
January Tide 40x40” oil on birch panel
Pacific Coast Fog 60x36” was recently finished and installed into the home of a happy client. They had been looking for the perfect something for this location and when they found it the painting was just too small. We figured out the perfect size and recallibrated the image for the new dimensions and zhuzhed up the color. Happy holidays from Santa Barbara.
Pacific Coast Fog 60x36”, oil on birch panel ©2020
Click on image to take you to Sullivan Goss!
It is that amazing time of year again when Sullivan Goss in Santa Barbara puts on the annual 100 GRAND show. Gathering their stable of artists and a slew of local talent it is always the show not to be missed. It is a great opportunity to see work from new artists and find work from artists you love at an affordable grab. Start your collection or add to a growing one.
My contribution is a trio of gouache paintings representing a koi pond visited on the island of Oahu.
A merry start to the holiday for all. Be well. Stay safe.
Allegro 3.75x4” gouache on arches board frame to 13x11”
Animato, 3.75x4” gouache on arches board
Con Brio, 3.75x4” gouache on arches board
Signs of winter are showing today, the trees are dropping the last of their leaves as the wind blows through the emptying branches and big clouds from the passing storm linger in the blue sky.
Bare Limbs Painting 29.5 x 19.5” oil on birch panel at Sundance
Bare Limbs painting now at Sundance
I sure enjoy watching the birds in my garden but I have no claim on being someone who can accurately identify the different species. We do have a pair of what I’m saying are warblers in our Grevillea shrub in our front garden. When I search online it seems they are Orange Crowned Warblers, although I have not actually seen the crown. These little guys like to hang out deep inside the shrub and only on occasion pop into view. Still, I’m in love with their twittering sound and their flitting nature.
Three new bitty gouache paintings are added to the shop today.
Grevillea & Warbler, Gouache on Arches Board, 1.75 x 2.25”
New in the Shop!
Read MoreIf you haven’t seen yet, Sundance Online has new collections of my work that went live on their website this month. I have been a regular with them since being featured on the cover in the summer of 2004. Sundance has represented my oil paintings for 16 years and this month they are showcasing two collections of framed gouache paintings. One grouping is a set of miniature paintings depicting pronghorn antelope inspired from a visit to Antelope Valley during the spring poppy bloom. The second is a selection from a series of ocean and sky images.
Wee Bun, California Cottontail, 1.75 x 2.25” Gouache on Arches Board
With the pandemic and our required confinement to home I find my solace at the drafting table creating small portraits in gouache of the local wildlife, mining from images that I have taken from past trips out in the world when the world was a safer place to roam.
As the days and months roll by (or creep or seep, like molasses) I find that my collection is becoming pile after pile of paintings that are taking over my work space. I’ve decided to release them into the world that they my find homes and bring the kind of comfort (and JOY!) that they offered me while making them.
I will be posting new images each week. There are nine new on offer today!
Sign up HERE be the first to hear about upcoming shows and sales.
New landscapes images of mountains and sky by Nicole Strasburg.
Sky Sea framed gouache paintings by Nicole Strasburg.
Miniature gouache of Antelope Valley Pronghorn by Nicole Strasburg.
The Summer Salon at Sullivan Goss has officially opened. The exhibition will run through August 31, 2020. The gallery is open to stop by however better to make an appointment and have the 3 galleries to yourself to peruse all the new shows on the wall.
Road to Water Canyon Beach, Santa Rosa Island (22x17.5” oil on panel) on display with Ken Bortolazzo, Joseph Goldyne, Eric Beltz, and Will Simons.
