The Architectural Foundation of Santa Barbara (AFSB) will present People and Places by Santa Barbara Printmakers (SBP), an exhibit of unframed, 10-inch-by-10-inch prints in a range of artistic expression and printmaking techniques.

An opening reception will take place, 2-4 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 17 at the AFSB Art Gallery, 229 E. Victoria St., Santa Barbara.

There will be a panel discussion titled When is a Print No Longer a Print? at 2 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 21, with speakers:

Mollie Doctrow, environmental woodcut artist and curator emerita at the South Florida State College Museum of Florida Art & Culture; Stephanie Dotson, artist and associate professor of Art at SBCC; and Meagan Stirling, artist and associate professor of art at Westmont College.



SBP is a group of artists working to create and present prints made using hand and press printing techniques: etching, engraving, monotype, monoprint, woodcut, collagraph, linocut, lithography, and serigraph/silkscreen.

The artists use techniques ranging from basic (linocuts) to complex (vicosity etchings, Chine collé) and from traditional (Japanese moku hanga woodblock) to contentemporary (photopolymer etchings of digitally manipulated photographs), AFSB said.

Many of the prints are hybrids that combine one or more techniques and multiple plates.

“Regardless of the techniques used, magical moments occur whenever a piece of paper and an inked plate are pressed together and the paper is lifted from the inked surface to reveal the image – in reverse
,” AFSB said.

“Their artistic explorations include impressionistic, expressionist, realistic, abstract, and conceptual approaches – at times mystical, whimsical, meditative, and heartfelt,” AFSB said.