January 2021 - March 2022

Michele Kuelbs Tower Gallery

The Wildling Museum of Art and Nature is kicking off 2021 with an invitation for the public to experience art from the outside-in during its ongoing public closure due to state and local Covid-19 public health mandates for indoor museums.

In the museum’s new Michele Kuelbs Tower Gallery installation, Holli Harmon: The Nature of Clouds, artist Holli Harmon’s immersive work centers around a Norfolk Island Pine tree floating beneath bright blue, cumulus cloud-filled skies. Large chandelier crystals hang suspended by invisible thread from ceiling to floor in a brilliant rain shower as plants are suspended throughout at varying heights.

Past ExhibitRuben MislangJanuary 26, 2021Holli Harmon, Tower Gallery

20/20: A Retrospective

November 7, 2020 - February 14, 2021

Second Floor Valley Oak Gallery

Wildling Museum of Art and Nature will mark its 20th anniversary with a special exhibition celebrating the Museum’s 20-year history in the Santa Ynez Valley. 20/20: A Retrospective will showcase 20 works spanning two decades of exhibitions representing one work for each year of the Wildling Museum’s history.

Critters of the Tri-County Region: 2020 Photography Juried Competition

September 1, 2020 - January 10, 2021

Juried Online Exhibition & Competition

The Wildling Museum of Art and Nature is pleased to present its 11th nature photography competition. Our 2020 competition highlights the native critters that call the Tri-County region home.

Winners from both the adult and youth categories will be displayed in an online exhibition through January 10, 2021.

Past ExhibitRuben MislangSeptember 1, 2020Photography, Photography Competition

Looking Beyond the Pandemic: An Online Collaboration with Allan Hancock College

August 25, 2020 - February 7, 2021

Juried Online Exhibition in Collaboration with Allan Hancock College

The Wildling Museum is delighted to collaborate with Allan Hancock College this summer featuring highlights from adult education instructor Michael Messina’s photography class. The students’ photography was first intended to be a Barbara Goodall Education Center exhibition, but with the intrusion of Covid-19, it has now evolved into an online Wildling exhibition.

Over the course of the spring semester, Messina’s class persevered online, adapting to Zoom and learning new skills and methods as they completed their course while navigating the pandemic, culminating in this virtual exhibition documenting various scenes of nature and wildlife captured as close as the students’ own backyards, as far as Africa, and as deep as beneath the ocean’s surface.

Community Exhibits, Past ExhibitRuben MislangAugust 24, 2020Allan Hancock College, Photography

Remembering Bud Bottoms: A Legacy of Art and Activism

April 4 - December 31, 2020

Tower Gallery & Online Exhibition

Opening concurrently with 20/20: A Retrospective, is the Wildling Museum’s inaugural Tower Gallery exhibition featuring Remembering Bud Bottoms: A Legacy of Art and Activism. The exhibit features sea life sculpture works by the Santa Barbara artist locally-renowned for his iconic Dolphin Family sculpture installed at the base of Stearns Wharf in downtown Santa Barbara.

Past ExhibitRuben MislangApril 4, 2020Bud Bottoms

Starry Nights: Visions of the Night Sky

February 1, 2020 - January 31, 2021

First Floor Main Gallery

The expanse of the open night sky has served as source of wonder for artists, poets, and scientists across cultures and millennia. Join us in celebrating the awe-inspiring beauty and mystery of the night across a range of media, including nocturne painting and photography, as well as poetry by Dan Gerber.

Solvang School: Inspired in Nature

February 6 - May 31, 2020

Third Floor Barbara Goodall Education Center

Inspired in Nature, features photography by 29 Solvang School Yearbook and Media students. The students, grades 7 – 8, were inspired by American transcendentalist writer and philosopher Henry David Thoreau’s quote: “All good things are wild and free.” Students turned their lenses to nature, many finding inspiration in their own backyard with subjects ranging from pets and family members, to local landscapes and sunsets captured in both color and black and white.

Santa Barbara County & Beyond: Recent Photographic Landscapes By George Rose

November 16, 2019 - March 30, 2020

Second Floor Valley Oak Gallery

Enjoy Santa Barbara County & Beyond: Recent Photographic Landscapes By George Rose on view in the Valley Oak Gallery, including new works featured in George Rose’s latest publication, WINE COUNTRY Santa Barbara County.

Santa Barbara Printmakers: Wild Places in Print

October 9, 2019 - January 13, 2020

Barbara Goodall Education Center, Third Floor

The Wildling Museum is pleased to announce Santa Barbara Printmakers: Wild Places in Print, a new Barbara Goodall Education Center exhibition featuring nature and wildlife-inspired works by the Santa Barbara Printmakers (SBP) group.

Soaring birds, colorful layered foliage, a delicate barn owl, coastal vistas, and bold graphic butterﬂies are among nearly 100 different prints on view.

Past Exhibit, Community ExhibitsRuben MislangOctober 9, 2019Santa Barbara Printmakers, Printmaking

Celebrating the National Lands of California

July 20, 2019 - January 19, 2020

First Floor Main Gallery

The Wildling Museum of Art and Nature is pleased to announce its second juried exhibition – “Celebrating the National Lands of California” – a showcase of fine art inspired by National Parks, Monuments, Preserves, and Recreation Areas located within the state of California.

Permanent Collection

March 29 - November 11, 2019

Enjoy some of our newest acquisitions along with established favorites.

Past ExhibitRuben MislangMarch 29, 2019

Ray Strong: A Collector’s Passion

February 2 – July 8, 2019

First Floor Main Gallery

One collector, David Parker, is sharing his Ray Strong paintings with us, as well as his stories of how he built his collection of over thirty pieces. Sponsored by Robert and Mercedes Eichholz Foundation and Donors to the Patti Jacquemain Exhibition Fund.

Past ExhibitRuben MislangFebruary 2, 2019Ray Strong

Nature Abstracted

October 3, 2018 – March 18, 2019

Barbara Goodall Education Center, Third Floor

This show features work from the Abstract Art Collective (AAC), a Santa Barbara community-based group of artists. Abstract art challenges the artist and audience to mine the depths of emotion and intellect—to journey far from real-world imagery and into the imagination. In this exhibit, you will see the artists’ response to various aspects of nature experiences—responses they’ve chosen to share.

Folded Art: Origami Animals by Robert Salazar

November 10, 2018 – March 25, 2019

Second Floor Valley Oak Gallery

The exhibit features a collection of origami animals found in Santa Barbara County such as the Steelhead Trout, California Condor, Tarantula, and a few prehistoric species as well.

Past ExhibitRuben MislangNovember 10, 2018

Nature Regenerated

Photographers were encouraged to capture examples of nature’s magical ability to regenerate and thrive. All the images from both the adult and junior categories were exhibited together, on the second floor, in our Valley Oak Gallery from August 4th 2018 through November 5th 2018.

Past ExhibitRuben MislangAugust 13, 2018

Nature Imagined

Nature Imagined was a special exhibition that celebrated nature through the vivid imaginations of Cheryl Medow, Ellen Jewett, and Hilary Brace. Inspired by nature, these artists use diverse materials and methods to create environments that engage the imagination. The viewer was invited to look into the details of their artwork and explore the unique weaving of image, texture, and pattern that resembles nature and yet is unlike anything in the natural world.

Past ExhibitRuben MislangJuly 20, 2018Cheryl Medow, Ellen Jewett, Hilary Brace

Our Feathered Friends: Birds of the Tri-Counties

Three artists shared their unique artistic perspectives of bird species that can be found in the tri-county region (Ventura, Santa Barbara, and San Louis Obispo). Jim Hodgson, René C. Reyes, and George Lockwood shared artworks of their tributes to our local feathered friends. During the exhibition, there were birding lectures and excursions to expand the viewer’s knowledge of local birds. Santa Barbara County and the overall region is renowned for bird species diversity and is a hotspot for birders with the central coast a stop along the migratory Pacific Flyway.

Past ExhibitRuben MislangMarch 17, 2018Jim Hodgson, René C. Reyes, George Lockwood

The Student & The Teacher

The Wildling partnered with the Yellowstone Art Museum for this unique exhibition of the modernist Western landscapes of Theodore Waddell (b. 1941) and those of his former teacher Isabelle Johnson (1901 - 1992). Waddell has become renowned for his own modernist perspective on western landscapes which have an unromanticized view of ranching life and wild landscapes in big sky country. The exhibition included a range of artworks from both artists to illustrate the evolution of each, as well as the ways in which Johnson made an indelible imprint on Waddell.

Past ExhibitRuben MislangOctober 27, 2017Theodore Waddell, Isabelle Johnson

Overview: The Aerial Photography of Bill Dewey

This show featured more than 20 prints of the tri-counties area (Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo, and Ventura) taken from the air. At least three-quarters of the photographs were recent works which had never been exhibited before, including reflection of an orange sun through the smoke from the Whittier Fire, a view of last spring’s super bloom of wildflowers at the Carrizo Plain, and winter storm clouds over Rincon Point.

Past ExhibitRuben MislangOctober 27, 2017Bill Dewey

The River's Journey

Six artists joined together, aligned around the lesser-known medium of gouache (an opaque watercolor pronounced "gwash"), to tell the story and challenges of the Santa Ynez River and Watershed. Locally, we have all been touched in some manner by the long-term and continuing drought in the Santa Barbara region. While somewhat relieved by the winter rains of 2016/2017, the drought likely will be continuing and as of January 2018 Lake Cachuma, which provides water for Santa Barbara and other communities, is already under 39% capacity and dropping.

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