Category Archives: events

Art and Seafood

events, Santa Barbara

sb artsHarriet and I attended the Santa Barbara Festival of Art, which is happening October 13 through 15. It takes place in the Santa Barbara Courthouse’s Sunken Garden, which is a beautiful setting. There are some great, inflated sculptural pieces on the front lawn which are very fun. They look like pieces we’ve seen in the Solstice parade. In the sunken area, there is some great, live music playing. And, there was a pretty good crowd attending.

But, I must admit we were a bit disappointed. The festival has been going on for 8 years now, and lately it’s been getting smaller and smaller. Last year, several of the artists we talked with were clearly unhappy. The turnout was low and their sales were not enough to cover their expenses.

This year, it feels like they may be trying to re-energize the show. The entrance was free, whereas in the last few years we had to pay an admission. They had an area for cooking demonstrations, and Harriet attended one of those. She was pretty underwhelmed by that specific demo, but to my benefit she was influenced to make some amazing crab cakes.

The booths seemed to be mainly jewelry booths, and most of those seemed to be found-object crafters. There were only a couple of vendors that seemed to have elevated their craft into interesting art.

We did enjoy the juried show by the Santa Barbara Art Association. A couple of those pieces were very nice.

Does Santa Barbara may have too many art festivals? It seems like we just had the Artwalk at the Santa Barbara Natural History Museum. And this show is too early for the Christmas buying season. I’ll check it out again next year because I remember the show fondly from its early years. But for now, I’m not sure its worth the entrance fee.

Harbor crowd Yesterday, we also got over to the Santa Barbara Harbor and Seafood Festival. That was more fun, but we got there about a half an hour before they planned to shut down, so we didn’t get a lot of time to explore. Still, I don’t know whether we would have stayed much longer. It’s a fine festival, but not a lot to do.

The big draw for us is the seafood. And they had some great deals. I took this shot of the kid who fished out Harriet’s two live crabs. She had to get them when she saw the price was $1.50 a lb. There was also a variety of fish and other seafood from fishermen on the pier with their live catch. A variety of information tables running the gamut from environmental groups to navy recuitment were also located on the pier.

Harbor crabWe did get a chance to eat some of the fine seafood that was available. Harriet got a couple of fresh oysters, and I had the best BBQ albacore. We also got some ableskeevers sold by a baker who was out from Solvang. Very tasty!

The music was pretty good. A band doing cover tunes from our era was playing . A variety of craft booths sold some things that weren’t terribly interesting (maybe I’m just jaded). Harriet did get me an Indonesian batik shirt for $10, although my contention was that we’ll be able to get a lot more of those for $1 in malaysia. She and I channeled each other at that moment.

We also passed a place with Teva sandals on sale. Harriet found a pair she likes, and bought them. One less item on our list to do before we go.

Santa Barbara Book and Author Festival

books, events, Santa Barbara

Saturday, Harriet and I got a chance to stop by the Santa Barbara Book & Author Festival. We’ve gone to this for several years now, and it just gets better and better. Eric Kelly from the Book Den is heavily involved, and this year it was across the street from his store, in the courtyard of the Santa Babara Public Library Main Branch.

The festival is a place for local authors, publishers, and associated service organizations to meet the public and each other. There are a lot of booths, and you can talk directly with Santa Babara’s literati. We have quite a few local publishers and I enjoy seeing what’s being produced by these small presses.

Two booths were particularly memorable. One was run by John Roshell, who is a principal at Active Images, which is the publishing arm of Comicraft, a lettering and design studio. They make COMICS! I had no idea they were in town, although their mailing address is in LA. They produce the Elephantmen graphic novels. I was recently introduced to them at the San Diego ComicCon this year, and they are woderful. Both the artwork and the stories are great, and it was pretty cool to know that there is a local connection.

The other fun thing I learned is that this publisher is married to Starshine Roshell. Harriet and I have become big fans and she’s one our favorite, local journalist/editorialists. She writes beautifully and just make us both laugh. Unfortunately, she’s lost her local editorial column as a side effect of a huge fiasco happening with our local newspaper, the News Press (not affectionately known as the News Suppress). That miserable fiasco is fodder for another post.

The other booth that impressed me was for McSweeney’s. They’re a small publisher out of San Francisco, and they produce the most amazing books and magazines. This is a publishing house where the book production is as much the art as the content of the books. Really wonderful graphics and packaging of some really quirky and delightfully written bits of fiction and non-fiction. They have a magazine for short fiction and art (McSweeney’s), a magazine for non-fiction (The Believer), and a Video Periodical (Wholphin) that delivers a DVD quarterly with short films. We bought a sample of each as well as a wonderful book called Your Disgusting Head, which is sort of a spoof on illustrated science books. We were assured that there are no true facts in that book.

These are really beautiful pieces that you need to see when you are next here, visiting.