Santa Barbara-based artist Nicole Strasburg based the subject of her new paper-cut silhouette series, Wintering: A Fox Tale, on the mascot of its venue, the Wildling Museum of Art and Nature. While the Solvang staple remains closed due to state and local mandates, this new window installation can be viewed from the sidewalk outside the museum.
“The opportunity to work with the museum for something light and fun like a window design really perked me up. I love their mission of highlighting the environment through art,” said Strasburg, who spent the last few months completing the installation.
“It was a wonderful way to get through the holidays, since gathering with family was not an option,” she added. “I think anything that focuses on joy right now keeps me engaged. And don’t we all need more joy and magic during this surreal time?”
The best time to view the display is during the evening, Strasburg said, when the silhouettes are illuminated for the public to enjoy. Similar to her exhibit’s titular fox, Strasburg finds ample solace in wintering, specifically when it means hunkering down in her art studio.
“As an artist and sworn introvert, I love endless hours alone in my studio,” Strasburg said. “The winter, especially when it rains, is particularly wonderful for shutting yourself inside and working.”
Strasburg is thankful the ongoing pandemic couldn’t put a halt to that side of things, while it did disrupt other joys in her life—traveling, visiting galleries and museums, meeting up with other artists in person, for example, activities she described as creativity feeders.
“Inspiration has been elusive, and I think most artists would agree that the creative energy has been in great fluctuation for the past year,” said Strasburg, who welcomed her latest project at the Wildling as a fresh and exciting outlet, one she hopes viewers will read as a metaphor for the museum’s temporary closure being a hibernation.
Wintering: A Fox Tale is one of two new window installations at the Wildling, where passersby can also enjoy viewing The Nature of Clouds, an immersive, multimedia exhibit by fellow Santa Barbara resident and artist Holli Harmon.
Large chandelier crystals, spider plants, and various succulents are among the items suspended by invisible threads, all under a ceiling designed to resemble a cumulus-cloud-filled sky, in this installation. Harmon aimed to illustrate the water cycle, from evaporation to precipitation, both literally and symbolically.
“I think the floating plants and crystalized water are a good representation that our natural existence is always in perpetual motion. Nothing is always solid or liquid or gas, it’s circular,” Harmon told the Sun.
Harmon’s installation, which can be viewed outside the Wildling’s Tower Gallery windows, was inspired by a plethora of literary sources, including author Richard Hamblyn’s book, The Invention of Clouds: How an Amateur Meteorologist Forged the Language of the Skies, which chronicles the life of 19th century British meteorologist Luke Howard. Inspiration also came from poetry by Johann Goethe.
“Goethe’s poems really capture that feeling of truly understanding what the clouds are communicating through pattern and form,” said Harmon, who also took inspiration from contemporary poet Mark Strand. “Both are masters, just a few centuries apart.”
During a spate of quarantine in December last year, Harmon became fascinated with kokedama, a Japanese floral art form, which she described as a “growing obsession”—pun intended.
Kokedama consists of growing plants in a moss-covered ball of soil, wrapped with string, fishing line, or a similar material. Harmon’s floating plants featured in the Wildling installation were created using this process.
Harmon came across kokedama while surfing the internet for inspiration, she said.
“I found pictures, I think on Instagram. There is this Dutch artist, Fedor Van der Valk, who really is a master of kokedama,” said Harmon, who immediately set out to try the method for herself.
“I started experimenting with them and made several for friends,” Harmon said. “I even made some with tiny pine seedlings for Christmas gifts. They were little ‘Charlie Brown’ Christmas trees, perfect for our COVID Christmas.”
Arts Editor Caleb Wiseblood is taking comments from the “Peanuts” gallery at cwiseblood@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Feb 11-18, 2021.