‘Lost in Scrap’ Winners and Auction

When artists and eco-warriors converge on Saturday, October 10, at Art From Scrap, Explore Ecology’s outpost on East Cota Street, they will be celebrating both the organization’s pioneering efforts on behalf of environmental education and one of our city’s most characteristic indigenous art forms: assemblage. On September 23, a highly qualified judging panel that included Jeremy Tessmer, Nathan Vonk, Greg Corso, and Kerry Methner met at the upstairs gallery to sort through more than 60 entries in this year’s edition of the Explore Ecology’s annual contest for mixed-media art. The show’s title, Lost in Scrap, refers to maps, which provide the theme of the 2015 event. Contributors were asked to submit only assemblage works that contained or created some kind of map.

Rosemarie Gebhard was awarded first prize for “On the Road Again & Again.” Second prize went to Sharon Nigh for “Map to Yosemite,” and third prize went to Joyce Wilson for “The Oldest City.” “Assemblage is such an important tradition in Santa Barbara, going all the way back to the 1950s,” said Tessmer of Sullivan Goss, an American Gallery. “Seeing the latest works and hearing what the other judges thought was both a lot of fun and really interesting as a curator.”

All the works submitted, including several more which were cited with Honorable Mentions, remain on view and will be up for auction until the event on October 10. The evening’s silent auction will also have other items available for bids, such as dinners at top area restaurants, trips to Sayulita, Mexico, and Santa Cruz Island, and even a brood of baby chicks. For more information, contact Art From Scrap at 884-0459 x13.