Unleash your creative superpowers!
Join me in ushering in 2025 with intention. Not a list of pointless resolutions we won’t keep for a week, but a commitment to approach everything in a fresh new way. Allow your artist within to find its way out. A minor shift in thought — that can lead to radical results. You may surprise yourself. Just imagine.
“Creativity doesn’t wait for that perfect moment. It fashions its own perfect moments out of ordinary ones.” — Bruce Garrabrandt, artist
Wishing you a spectacular year ahead!
(Pic #1) “Skeeter” – My modern day cave painting, formed by poured water on rock. Wildwood Regional Park, Thousand Oaks. Photo by Josh Kaplan.
I always carry a bottle of water on my hikes. But until yesterday, I never used it to make art. While walking up a tough trail, and just back from visiting a sweet waterfall, I spotted a blue streak smack in the middle of the parched, rocky path. There was dust over it — obfuscating its richness — so I decided to pour my Fiji over it to see the streak’s true colors. I splashed out the rest of my H2O supply and saw this creature emerge from the dusty rock.
Meet “Skeeter” (Pic #1) I see him as sort of a spontaneous, creative collaboration between me and earth — a kind of ephemeral piece of performance art that vanishes before it’s complete.
(Pic #1) Vera Cruz House, Santa Barbara, California, front.
The House of a Thousand Paintings
It’s classic creative collaboration. But the participating artists could never have known what their work individually would create as a whole. They could never have predicted the artistic impact their paintings would have on the City of Santa Barbara. This installation blows my mind, and If you have a chance to visit, you won’t stop smiling.
(Pic #2) Close-up, Santa Barbara Art House
It’s called the Vera Cruz House. It sits at 521 Santa Barbara Street, downtown. It’s a bright green home now completely covered in hundreds of pieces of original art. The project was the brainchild of architect Jeff Shelton, who handed out panels to local artists — and asked, in a super vague way — to “paint something” from a place they’ve traveled or where they grew up.
(Pic #3) The original “House of a Thousand Paintings” Photo circa 1973.
According to Noozhawk in Santa Barbara County, Shelton was inspired by a home from his childhood, Sanford Darling’s “House of a Thousand Paintings” near Santa Barbara City College. It was demolished, and the paintings were sold to collectors and museums after Darling’s death in 1973. “It was kind of a shrine for our family — we loved it,” Shelton said.
He was asked to design something for the small lot by owner Jason Yardi, of REH Property, and pitched a house “covered in art.” Yardi agreed, and Shelton got to work getting city permits.
Shelton had promised no profanity, nudity or political statements. But perhaps the coolest pledge he made was to ban artists from using rainbows, clowns and dolphins.
I think I’m in love. Thank you, Jeff.
