Art with Heart: Santa Barbara’s Slingshot Studio Hosts ArtFest 2026

On a quiet weekday morning, artists are milling around Slingshot/Alpha Art Studio, intently gathering materials and beginning the day’s work in the sun-drenched studio space, tucked away in a nondescript building in an alleyway behind a laundromat near the busy intersection of Mission and De la Vina streets.

The new, larger space, which Slingshot moved into for its 10th anniversary three years ago, has become an artist’s haven — packed with paints, pencils, art magazines, and materials for printmaking, ceramics, and embroidery. The nonprofit progressive art studio is home base for more than 35 artists with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD), each of whom have blossomed into their own working with the passionate staff at Slingshot.

This week, the artists are putting the final touches on their pieces for Slingshot’s first-ever ArtFest, which will be held at the Community Arts Workshop (631 Garden St.) on Saturday, August 29. The inaugural event will showcase artwork made over the past year, with 250 drawings and mixed media paper works, more than 100 ceramic pieces, and over 50 “up-cycled” pieces of clothing, including hand-painted, embroidered, or screen-printed items made using clothing donated from the Alpha Thrift Stores, run by Slingshot’s partner organization Alpha Resource Center.

Slingshot Gallery Director Jessica Schlobohm says the ArtFest provides an opportunity for the artists to “put their art into the community, sell their work, and meet other artists and creators. It’s one of the many ways Slingshot helps its artists to engage with the community, allowing them to “see the value in their art and contributions,” Schlobohm says.

“This has been so important, primarily with empowering the artists,” Schlobohm said. “Art is inherently accessible, and as the work they create breaks down their barriers, art becomes a means of connecting.”

Schlobohm works with a small staff, with program manager Kelly Cottrell — a former Indy Local Hero who helped reshape the current program at the new De la Vina Street studio space — and a team of teaching artists, including UC Santa Barbara grads Lucy Bell and Zoe Van Beurden, who work with the artists to help them explore different mediums and develop their skills.

The program takes cues from similar progressive nonprofits such as the Creative Growth Center in Oakland, which also uses art as a tool to empower artists with disabilities. Since opening in 2013, Slingshot has brought on dozens of local artists each year, offering materials, training, and studio space with the support of grant funding, private donors, and community events.

“We’ve seen that development happen here in the studio,” Schlobohm said. “To see them blossom as artists and people is great.”

Slingshot artists have had their work displayed in exhibitions at the County Office of Arts and Culture, at the Botanic Gardens, or for the city’s Pianos on State Street installation. For the upcoming ArtFest, the artists have been working with a variety of mediums, from colored pencils to ceramic sculptures to fabric art made with sun-activated cyanotype chemicals.

The works included in the ArtFest show a diverse range of talent, with colorful drawings by Lori DeBoer and Leonard Wilson; ceramic Harry Potter–influenced sculptures by Rachel Mackenzie; and geometrically detailed mosaic-like works by Marc Sucher, whose sci-fi and pop-culture style was developed over the past decade working with Slingshot.

This year’s ArtFest will also have guest artist collaborations, refreshments by Rest Stop Coffee, and music by DJ Dante Elephante. The event will be open to the public on August 29 from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. For more info, visit slingshotart.org.