Torrie Cuthbirth, executive director of The Arts Fund, shares one of her favorite murals in Santa Barbara’s Funk Zone, Hurry Home, by artist Phoebe Brenner. The mural can be seen at 127 Gray Ave. 
A student in The Arts Fund’s teen mentorship program proudly shows off her work. 
Art on display during an exhibit of The Arts Fund’s teen mentorship program. 
The Funk Zone ArtWalk gives students in The Arts Fund’s teen mentorship program a chance to show off — and sell — their work.
[Noozhawk’s note: Third in a series sponsored by the Hutton Parker Foundation. Click here for the first story, and click here for the second.]
Thirty-five years into supporting Santa Barbara County artists through exhibits, promotions, workshops and mentorship programs, The Arts Fund continues to grow through the community’s ongoing financial support.
In September, the Santa Barbara-based nonprofit organization will be launching a new website while continuing its quarter-century of mentoring teen artists. Its gallery offerings have grown to include programs that both provide outlets for artists and encourage curators.
“Putting money toward art, especially youth participating in art, is putting money toward the future,” said Caroline David, art director and graphic designer at Bloomberg Businessweek and a former participant in The Arts Fund Teen Mentorship Program.
The Arts Fund emerged in 1983 out of Santa Barbara County Arts Associates. It focuses on offering arts education, development and exhibition opportunities to aspiring and seasoned artists while providing the community at large opportunities to expand its appreciation of the wealth and depth of local artists.
The Arts Fund hosts local and locally curated artists in its Community Gallery in Santa Barbara’s Funk Zone. It also provides workshops, organizes artist talks, and offers six curated group exhibitions each year.
In addition, the organization promotes community education through its guest curator program, and has honored local artists through programs such as its Individual Artist Award program.
“We give them the opportunity to create, and we advocate for them,” said Torrie Cutbirth, executive director of The Arts Fund. “We don’t believe in artists doing anything for free.”
Instead, with proceeds provided by donors and sponsors, the organization hires local artists to serve as mentors for its youth program, provides them exhibition opportunities and space for workshops and community building.
“I’m not a photographer now,” David said. “I work for a news magazine where we have to talk about current events all over the world all the time. The way we visualize them shapes the way people think about them.
“That critical thinking a creative kid learns through programs like those The Arts Fund provides carries over into industrial design, imagining and designing medical devices, planes, architecture.”
But that’s not where the story ends, she added.
“On the other side, we need fine art in the world because it’s how we talk about ourselves, what we need to do, what needs to be better and who we are,” David said.
Donations to The Arts Fund also cover the costs of materials and other expenses related to its varied programs.
“We don’t do any grant-making,” Cutbirth noted. “All of our programs give back to the community through artists and youth, and supporting the arts that way.”
Cutbirth, a painter and printmaker herself, dabbled in acrylics while she took part in the tuition-free teen mentorship program. She was introduced to the world of printmaking. In college, she discovered oils.
“I fell in love,” she said.
But her love for the arts extended well beyond her own creating. She returned to The Arts Fund to commit herself to promoting other artists and the programs that support and develop them.
“As an artist, you can sit in a gallery and wish someone comes by, or you can promote yourself,” Cutbirth said. “To be successful, you have to do the work.”
Through the support of artists and sponsors, The Arts Fund has expanded its flagship teen mentorship program into Carpinteria, Lompoc, Orcutt and Santa Maria. It looks forward to expanding into Guadalupe and the Santa Ynez Valley while deepening its North County roots.
“Most of the time, students make money by taking the class because they sell their art in the Community Gallery during the Funk Zone ArtWalk, and they learn skills they can use well beyond that creative process,” Cutbirth said.
Participation also can land artists the experience they need to further advance in the arts, education and career.
Local artist Kerrie Smith said she was thrilled when her son, Sam Kilpatrick, received a sizable creative arts scholarship for work he created in the mentorship program.
In addition to being accepted to the California College of the Arts, where he studied architecture, Kilpatrick’s work earned him acceptance to the Otis College of Art and Design with a scholarship, the Savannah College of Art and Design, the ArtCenter-Pasadena and the Emily Carr University of Art & Design.
“Quite a few of the paintings and woodcuts that he submitted in his portfolio came from the body of work he created in the Teen Arts Mentorship Program,” Smith said.
Though she began her foray into the art world as a photographer, David spends more time with graphic design at Bloomberg. Still, that early education has paid off.
“Whether it’s photography or learning to install paintings or sculpting, it’s an amazing thing, and it’s super, super critical to support and be supported by the community,” she said.
“Getting together, taking pictures together, painting together, group critiques — those are interactions that are important down the road when you’re making something and presenting it to a group and learning how to participate and function in a community.”
Click here for more information about The Arts Fund. Click here to make an online donation.
— Noozhawk contributing writer Jennifer Best can be reached at news@noozhawk.com. Follow Noozhawk on Twitter: @noozhawk, @NoozhawkNews and @NoozhawkBiz. Connect with Noozhawk on Facebook.