The Wildling Art Museum has opened its fall exhibition, “Birds in Art.” This latest exhibition, a traveling show organized and distributed by the Woodson Art Museum in Wausau, Wisc., will be on display through Jan. 2, 2011. Santa Barbara County is home to a large variety of birds, both resident and migratory, and the current exhibition includes many that can be found in the area.
For more than 30 years, the Woodson Art Museum has organized an international juried competition to showcase birds in various media. Each year’s competition is debuted at the Woodson and then travels to several venues the following year. “Birds in Art” contains 60 pieces, including 11 sculptures, illustrating a wide range of species. One large canvas (48-by-64 inches) by Kristen Letts Kovak, Aesthetic Reclassification One: 198 Blue Perching Birds, features blue perching birds that the artist says she arranged from “most to least blue and painted them half-scale to better understand their visual pattern.” A painting by Pete Marshall, Magpie Menace, features the head of an Australian magpie about 4 feet wide.
The Wildling is also planning programming that will tie in with the exhibition. On Saturday, Oct. 23, “Backyard Birding with Fred” will meet at the museum at 9 a.m. and then move through the neighborhood to learn how to identify birds in your own backyards with biologist Dr. Fred Emerson. The class is $5 per person.
The Wildling Art Museum is at 2928 San Marcos Ave. in Los Olivos. Call 688-1082 or visit wildlingmuseum.org
This article appears in Oct 21-28, 2010.