Santa Barbara Arts Collaborative

The Funk Zone Murals

It was a particular busy Thursday afternoon in Santa Barbara as I rushed to my meeting downtown, lamenting the traffic and hoping that maybe, just maybe, my interviewee would be just like the majority of other artists who seem to have watches that tick a few minutes slower than standard time. When I finally arrived at the coffee shop, my wishes were unfulfilled. Tucked away under the stairs at a table in the back, notepad, earbuds and all, was Laura Inks, who made good use of the extra time that my tardiness had given her by answering the phone calls and voice mails that continued to pour in intermittently throughout our chat. From the get-go, I had a feeling that this was one busy lady. As I would come to find out, even that was an understatement. But just who is Laura Inks?
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Help Save the “Creative Community”

So what does Santa Barbara have that makes this place so special? Sure, it’s true that we have the picture perfect landscapes of sweeping coastlines and beautiful architecture, the serene weather, the finest restaurants, and Oprah. The expensive price tag for all this glory is, well…worth it. And why is that? Because this jewel of the American Riviera has another hidden gem: a veritable treasure trove of creativity in the form of writers, poets, dancers, actors, sculptors, filmmakers, musicians, and visual artists of national and local renown. To really grasp the depth and expanse of artists in this relatively small city, one would have to individually dissect and catalog them. And lo and behold, there is a man doing just that. Meet David Starkey, the host of the Creative Community, which is a local television series that is broadcasted from the Santa Barbara Channels. Starkey is the elected poet laureate of Santa Barbara and is also the director of the creative writing program at Santa Barbara City College. He has published many collections of poems and also has over 400 of his poems published by prestigious literary journals.

For the past 6 years, David Starkey and a dedicated team of individuals have been tirelessly interviewing Santa Barbara’s creative citizens with 2 half hour shows per week. What started as a humble idea to contribute to the community turned into a collaborative effort with astounding success between Santa Barbara City College and Channel 21’s nonprofit arts, culture and education program. Read the rest of this entry »

Coming soon!

Limited Edition

One year, one artist per month, one print in an edition of twenty-five

Participating Santa Barbara Printmakers

Nicole Strasburg, Marie Schoeff, Pamela Zwehl-Burke, Valori Fussell, Nina deCreeft Ward, Teresa Zepeda, Dug Uyesaka, Libby Smith, Michael Jameson, Rafael Perea de la Cabada, Stephanie Dotson and Carolyn Hubbs.

Subscriptions available August and September 2010.  Get all 13 prints for $550, or one each month for $50 – with a bonus print on December 15. Read the rest of this entry »

“Flash Grant” Winner:  Nathan Vonk!

Thanks to everybody who showed up for our General Meeting at the Marjorie Luke Theatre, and also the great crowd at the Carr Winery collaborating with the SB Performing Arts League.  We had a great time and got a bunch of good fundraising ideas for SBAC’s Direct-to-Artist Grants.  A special thanks to each of you who submitted your ideas, our Steering Committee reviewed all of them in detail.  The energy in that room was a testament to the power of creative collaborating.

And the winner is . . .

Nathan Vonk works at Sullivan Goss and is the creator and webmaster for The Santa Barbara Art Blog, www.sbartsblog.com.  He has a genuine collaborative ethic and has been a vital part of SBAC’s growth.  He also had a really good idea.

So good, in fact, that we decided to have a little more fun and keep it under lock and key for a while long longer.  So until we lock down the details, let’s just say it’s going to be a phenomenal event in a very unexpected location – a location that almost no one in town will ever step inside.

Stay tuned, we’ll be releasing more information in the next few weeks.

New Website v2.0

Last summer we launched our first website with about six weeks of concentrated effort from a dedicated group of volunteers – webmaster Joe LaCorte along with Kimberly Hahn, James Van Arsdale and Warren Schultheis.  After that remarkable accomplishment, they’ve hardly taken a break since.  Months were spent listening to what the arts community wanted in a collaborative web forum. We researched and built a more powerful site to facilitate collaboration between artists and arts organizations from all corners of our community.

We’ve added some important new features.  For example you can now create a personal profile showing your work, your interests, what resources you have to share and how you’d like to help.  You can contact other members and make connections.  There’s a discussion forum to post comments, articles, ideas, etc.  There’s an events calendar.  There’s a showcase to post galleries of your work, etc.

The tools are in place.  This new website is a community canvas we all can paint on – dancers connecting with musicians, painters with photographers, actors with poets, filmmakers with sculptors – the combinations are endless.  There’s a Help link that should get you though anything on the site – it’s right there on the right side of the menu.

Like any web forum . . . It’s what you make it.  So come give it a go.  If you’re already registered, complete your profile, put up pics, etc.  If you’re new, make sure you register.  Some of you who registered recently at the old site may have gotten lost in the transition so try to login and re-register if necessary.
Huge props to Joe and the web committee for their dedication and hard work.  The power of collaboration and volunteerism at its finest.

Let’s collaborate!

SBAC