Fabric as Form, Content, and Context

By their very nature, pop-up art exhibitions bank on the power of surprise elements. A solidly pleasant surprise has landed in the welcoming space of Santa Barbara City College’s Atkinson Gallery at the moment, in the form of Swings and Roundabouts, the Weavings of Julia Ford, through March 17. 

Ford, the beloved and veteran fabric artist based in Santa Barbara, has flown into the gallery with an inviting small cross-section of her work from over the past nearly 50 years. On a recent afternoon visit, I found the artist in the space, working at a loom in the room. Now 70 and going creatively strong, she sniffed at the notion that the show was a retrospective and was only half joking when she explained, “I view this as a mid-career show.”

In a statement, she writes, “I think of weaving on floor looms as somewhere between a remedial workhorse, a vocational workshop, an art studio practice, and a meditation center.” Those combined qualities are well accounted for in the art here.

Unfortunately for the art-watching public in town, the Atkinson — long a valued space in Santa Barbara’s art scene — has suspended its public exhibition agenda in favor of campus/student functions. A bonus for the SBCC art department, an onus for the viewing public. But Ford’s sneak attack exhibition is heartening to see in this space, and it actually bridges purposes: in addition to her own work, one short wall showcases pieces by her students. Thus, the maker and the teacher are both on view.

Ford, who was raised on a 100-acre farm in England, begins this exhibition’s story with vintage art from her graduate show in England in 1978. In some of this body of work, we encounter art about fashion and conceptual detours, in the self-descriptively titled “American Rock and Roll Bermuda Shirt”— with colors of the U.S. flag muted and altered — and “Star Spangled Egyptian Men’s Vest, with lurex polka dots in sparkle mode.”

Her vintage artwork also explores transformed objects and functions, with expected materials replaced by fabric, creating a trompe l’oeil effect. Small notebooks and bow ties are woven into being, deft to the visual touch (resist temptation to touch the art), and softly subversive in context. 

Upon entering the gallery, attention is quickly drawn to her delicate yet large-scaled pieces in the “Life Lines, Family Ties” series, long, drip-like works draped down the gallery wall and sometimes suspended from the ceiling, touching the floor. Dramatic, yet subtle and diaphanous, these pieces — made of silk, wool, linen, and mixed fibers — suggest a life force of lean means and atavistic associations. Some secret essence hums within: one piece includes a sharp wooden stick and tiny paper scrolls, as if hiding clandestine information. 

On the opposite wall, works include the 2010-vintage “Circles, Spheres + Bubbles, Gravitas et Levitas,” suitably light and dark mood strips, with a design sensibility somehow reminiscent of Constructivism and Orphism, to name check early modernist art movements. Vertical panels in “Track of Time” balance biomorphic forms and a hint of time-related geometric ordering.

Jumping ahead to 2026, her piece, bearing the show’s title “Swings and Roundabouts,” engages strips hanging from a tree limb, embedded with varied shapes and patterns, and shifting color palettes.

Though modest in scale, Ford’s exhibition manages to convey the sweep and range of her artistic life so far, minus other adventures, such as her exploration of felt, seen in shows around the region in past years. It is instructive and heartening to catch up with Ford’s art in a gallery setting, and also to take a moment to lurk in the splendor of this art space again.

On an extra-art note, don’t forget to step outside onto the patio, the site of one of Santa Barbara’s prime harbor views. It’s part of the Atkinson experience, triggering that “Oh yeah, that’s why we live here” sensation.