Caleb Wiseblood

It’s 11 a.m. on Thursday, Aug. 29, and my eyes are fixated on a giant pair of scissors. It’s not exactly the artwork I came here for, but it’s aesthetically fascinating nonetheless, inviting active participation from the viewer (“Are these scissors really big? Or am I just really small?”).  I’m standing outside Guadalupe City Hall […]

Hollywood aspiration wasn’t what brought filmmaker Benedicte Schoyen, born and raised in Oslo, Norway, to relocate to Los Angeles in her early 20s. The big move was to study ballet and eventually open her own dance studio, a dream she accomplished far before developing an interest in filmmaking. While working as a choreographer on the […]

In the mid-1970s, illustrator Bobette Stanbridge was hired to design a cast of animal characters for a line of children’s clothes, quilts, pillows, and other items. Decades later, Stanbridge’s daughter brought the characters up out of the blue, after finding one of the illustrations in a family member’s home. The conversation rekindled her own affinity […]

After moving to Santa Barbara in 2011, retired biologist and lifelong artist Emil Morhardt found a new muse in the form of plovers, pelicans, and other avians inhabiting the city’s shoreline. “[I] realized that the birds on the beach were approachable, relatively easy to photograph, and had very interesting behaviors,” said Morhardt, who upgraded his […]

The trivialities of high society get thrown on the chopping block in the Pacific Conservatory Theatre’s (PCPA) rendition of Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest. In order to win their loves’ hearts, Jack Worthing (Michael Brusasco) and Algernon Moncrieff (Yusef Seevers) must be christened new identities, for both Gwendolen Fairfax (Emily Trask) and Cecily […]

Using long exposures and intentional camera movement, digital artist Bryn Forbes strives to capture “the essence of motion” in his abstract photography and video art. While eliminating certain details that the human eye usually perceives, the process leaves only broad strokes of color behind, allowing viewers to bridge the gaps for themselves. “It’s the photographic […]

Fade in: We eavesdrop on a job interview between employer Beverly Weston (Gary Prober) and potential employee Johnna Monevata (Maleah Rivera). Beverly is seeking a live-in cook and caregiver for his cancer-stricken wife, Violet (Sally Buchanan). But we join the scene mid-conversation, and at a rather ambiguous point. We slowly begin to realize the purpose […]

Local beaches serve as the backdrops for photographer Heidi Gruetzemacher’s latest figurative works, currently on display at the Valley Art Gallery in Orcutt. The new exhibit is named Passages, and it will run through Saturday, Sept. 28, at the gallery.  Each featured piece centers on a woman during different stages of her life—more specifically, her […]