Caroline Hambright freely admits that when she moved to Santa Barbara from Los Angeles at age 10, the city made her a little anxious. “I was afraid this town, with its chic vibe, would not be accepting of an eccentric artist such as myself,” she said. But it wasn’t long before she found her orbit as a participant in the Summer Solstice Celebration Workshop and Parade, and as a result, she made that experience the subject of “Solstice Universe,” her original artwork that was chosen as this year’s official Solstice Celebration T-shirt and poster design. It depicts a planetary system of familiar solstice figures whirling around the sun, representing Steven Lovelace, the former Solstice Celebration creative director who brought little Caroline Hambright into the workshop for the first time.
As the sun, Lovelace is also the conductor of an orchestra, and among his orbiting musicians number Pali-X as Jupiter, and Hambright’s friend DJ Darla Bea as Saturn. Hambright feels that the work represents “what solstice is about: letting your imagination soar, not being afraid to be yourself around other people, and celebrating the unique, wild-haired, creative beauty in us all.”