Posts in Past Exhibit
Close to Home, Three Printmakers

October 9, 2021 - February 28, 2022

Second Floor Valley Oak Gallery

The Wildling Museum is pleased to announce its upcoming Valley Oak Gallery exhibition, Close to Home, Three Printmakers, featuring artists Claudia Borfiga, Karen Schroeder, and Sara Woodburn, on view October 9, 2021 - February 28, 2022.

The works of Borfiga, Schroeder, and Woodburn center on a recurring theme of nature as a place of solace and beauty where growth and change can seem intimate or expansive. Layers of color, pattern, and printmaking are the dialogue these artists use to share stories of Earth. They value natural areas and seek to bring inspiration to the viewer.

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Sewjourners: TREES

September 25, 2021 - January 17, 2022

Third Floor George & Barbara Goodall Education Center

The Wildling is pleased to host the Sewjourners, a satellite collective of the Coastal Quilters Guild in the Barbara Goodall Education Center from September 25, 2021 - January 17, 2022. This community exhibition marks the Museum’s first textile-focused exhibition and is inspired by the artists’ various interpretations of trees, translating a range of species, textures, and seasonal transitions through the quilt medium.

Many of the quilts on view are also for sale through the Wildling Museum store.

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Solvang School: Bird Studies

May 14 - December 31, 2021

Online Student Exhibition in Collaboration with Solvang School

School field trips were put on pause over the last year, but the Wildling Museum was able to partner with Solvang School to bring art and nature to the virtual classroom. The partnership culminated in a new online student exhibition, Solvang School: Bird Studies, on view online May 14 - December 31, 2021.

Wildling Museum Executive Director Stacey Otte-Demangate worked with educator Erin Dunkle and middle school students enrolled in Solvang School’s Art and Science elective class to explore birding and the art of John James Audubon.

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Art from the Trail: Exploring the Natural Beauty of Santa Barbara County

April 17 - October 3, 2021

Second Floor Valley Oak Gallery

Art from the Trail: Exploring the Natural Beauty of Santa Barbara County celebrates the outdoor treasures of the Central Coast. Local member artists of the Oak Group, SLOPE, and SCAPE were invited by the Wildling to participate in this juried invitational exhibition showcasing the healthful and beautiful trail systems in Santa Barbara County.

A key goal of the exhibition, in partnership with in partnership with Healthy People Healthy Trails and the Santa Barbara County Trails Council, is to raise awareness of the wealth of trails in Santa Barbara County and to inspire visitors and community members to explore them, while encouraging a healthier lifestyle. Trails highlighted in the show range across the county from Carpinteria Bluffs, Goleta’s Lake Los Carneros and Ellwood Mesa, to La Purisima Trail, among others.

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Bio/Mass: Contemporary Meditations on Nature

April 17 - September 5, 2021

First Floor Main Gallery

Artists are observers and interpreters of what they see around them, whether it is a social concern, the natural world, the built environment or their own unique vision. Often artists work in series, exploring a particular topic as they deeply observe their subject over time. For artists, this repetition can serve both as a meditative practice and a means of learning and understanding.

In this exhibition, artists were chosen who create work in series, examining some aspect of nature. They may be examining patterns in nature or the same location over a long period of time. Some combine and recombine singular elements that accumulate into a fascinating and revealing artwork or body of work.

These artists have transformed their fascination with deep observations of their individual environments into works that help us to see the beauty in the details of our world, celebrating both quiet and dramatic moments in nature.

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Holli Harmon: The Nature of Clouds

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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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Past ExhibitRuben Mislang