Downtown Santa Barbara comes alive on the first Thursday of each month when businesses are opened for innovative blendings of wine, hors d’oeuvres and often art as part of the 1st Thursdays series sponsored by the Santa Barbara Downtown Organization.
One of the most popular events has been December’s, which is held at the Sullivan Goss gallery at 7 E. Anapamu St. The gallery’s 100 GRAND exhibit features 100 quality works of art for $1,000 or less, and offers artists and collectors an opportunity to get together, network and celebrate the accomplishments of another year in art.
The exhibition, which hit new attendance records in 2013, has become an incubator of emerging talent and an opportunity for beginning collectors to acquire original art at an affordable price, as well as a chance to join in a holiday celebration in the art community.
One of the newest artists accepted to show this year is Santa Barbara sculptor Ruthy Green. I first met Green and her husband, David, and their sons, Matt and Ryan, when the family moved to Montecito from Malibu in 1990. They were part of a big exodus from Los Angeles in the early ’90s. Ruth and I both found ourselves volunteering at Montecito Union School for bake sales, carnivals and as room parents.
Green, who has long had a deep interest in education, was elected to the Santa Barbara Unified School District Board of Trustees, serving from 2000 to 2003. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger later appointed her to the State Board of Education, on which she served from 2004 to 2008, including a stint as president in 2006.
After leaving Sacramento politics behind, Green enrolled in art classes at what is now Santa Barbara City College’s Center For Lifelong Learning at the Schott Center.
“It is a fantastic place to explore all things creative,” she said. “Great instructors, interesting people doing interesting things, adding to what makes Santa Barbara such a great place to live.”
What started as a foray into drawing led Green to try her hand at clay. Working with instructor Story Kornbluth, who teaches figurative sculpting, she learned how to see things differently — a soft focus on silhouette first, then angles, muscles, tension and emotion.
Green grew up in Pacific Palisades, and she and her sister, Naomi, were what she described as “horse-crazy little girls.” When they were 11 and 12 years old, they started riding with polo ponies because the Will Rogers Equestrian Polo Club was within walking distance of their house. As adolescents, their focus turned to hunters and jumpers and showing competitively.
In their teens and early 20s, they bought and sold horses, and trained and taught riding to others.
Having never lost her love of horses, Green decided in the summer of 2011 to sculpt her first horse. Over a recent cup of tea in her home on a quiet, tree-lined street in Montecito, she described for me how she got started.
First, she immersed herself by studying pictures and videos online. She built a reference library in her house, where her informal studio is also located. It took her months to figure out and then create her first horse.
“I loved it and I was hooked,” Green exclaimed. “Having ridden and loved horses for so many years, it was really satisfying to sculpt them many years later. It was like visiting with a close old friend.”
In addition to instruction and pointers from Kornbluth, Green attended the Scottsdale Artists’ School equine workshop with Rod Zullo.
Within a short time, friends wanted to purchase her bronze horse sculptures. Sally McQuillan, owner and designer of Raoul Textiles, 136 State St. in the Funk Zone, was among them. She now carries four or five different sizes of Green’s bronze sculptures, which range in price between $1,800 and $3,000.
Green’s work was recently honored, with two of her pieces accepted at the fall juried show at the American Academy of Equine Art in Lexington, Ky.
Fast forward to this Thursday. Green will now join other emerging artists and established artists — such as Hank Pitcher, Ken Bortolazzo, Phoebe Brunner, Robin Gowen, Angela Perko, Nicole Strasburg and Sarah Vedder, to name just a few — at Sullivan Goss’ 100 GRAND, which opens Thursday and runs through Feb. 25. Click here for a complete list of artists included in the show.
Click here for more information about sculptor Ruthy Green.
— Judy Foreman is a Noozhawk columnist and longtime local writer and lifestyles observer. She can be contacted at judyforeman@noozhawk.com. Click here for previous columns. The opinions expressed are her own.