Some of you may have noticed that Sullivan Goss has embarked on a significant new campaign to promote and document its exhibitions online.  We are calling the format “Audio Video Brochures” - or AVBs for short.  At the bottom of each exhibition page, you can open the AVBs and watch them.  They are also accessible through the moving banner on the home page of our website.

We asked a number of our closest friends to provide us feedback before beginning the project, but now we would like to hear from the rest of you.  What do you think of the new format?  Is there anything you particularly like or dislike?  What would you change?

I have had a developing interest in ceramics since my Dad brought back a small, beautifully formed tea pot from China. That interest grew when I saw the archive at the American Museum of Ceramic Art in Pomona. I bought a number of books on the subject and devoured each one. I began to notice and appreciate the myriad painted tiles of Santa Barbara, and the interest just keeps growing.

The gallery has delved farther and farther into the field since our first show in 2004. In 2006, we did a pocket exhibition of important works by legendary West Coast ceramist, Paul Soldner. In 2007, we did our first full exhibition for Rebekah Bogard. We brought Rebekah back for a major part of our exhibition, “Dreamland: American Explorations Into Surrealism.” We also featured the works of Jessica Foos Jones in that exhibit.

This month, the gallery has the work of local ceramist James Haggerty on display. The exhibition has sold exceedingly well, but great work remains. To see the exhibition online, click here. To read the wonderful article by Matt Kettman in the Independent, click here.

- Jeremy Tessmer, Gallery Director

While Lockwood De Forest made a small body of large, finished landscape paintings in his studio, it was the sketch that really set him apart as an artist. With confident brushwork, a rare sensitivty to color and atmosphere, and a forward-looking sense of composition, De Forest created a body of work which continues to invoke the sublime for a new generation of artists and collectors.

In the mature work featured in this exhibition, the clean, bright shapes of the hard-edge school are reimagined from a feminine point of view. They are employed to celebrate the lyricism in the female body and the sublime landscape of Southern California. Indeed, Anya’s colors suggest the bright light of Los Angeles, where she lived and worked for her entire career. In her work, the prevailing trends of the time are integrated; hard-edge shapes and soft-edge cubism collaborate to create an art formed in the heart and finished in the mind.

This exhibition presents a select portion of Visalli’s forty-year career. In each work, the extraordinary world of celebrities is rendered accessible, even intimate. Visalli’s portraits both humanize and glamorize. They prove that a little poetry and a lot of technical finesse turn photojournalism into fine art.

Noted Realist Martha Mayer Erlebacher has found inspiration in a ceramic duck in her series titled Avant Duck: A Fowl History of Modern Art. As Curator Susan Bush states, “For the artist [Erlebacher] the bird serves as a consistent tool to portray her understanding of history, technique, and composition, all with tongue planted firmly in beak.” Through her clever disguising of the Avant Duck as the life-spring of modernism, Erlebacher succeeds in elevating a kitschy icon into a noble object of fascination.

New monographs have been posted on Bay Area Abstract Expressionist John Saccaro, Social Realist Philip Reisman, and Contemporary Figurative and Still Life Painter Martha Mayer Erlebacher.

Intern Kate Kiebala recently submitted an extensive monograph on California watercolorist Rex Brandt. At the time of his death, he was a highly honored artist with over forty awards to his name. Spend some time taking a look at his extensive list of accomplishments.

We recently published several new monographs that were submitted by our AAMP interns. Elizabeth Cooper turned in her monograph on Walter Quirt; Alisha Patrick turned in a monograph on John Langley Howard; Erin Carroll wrote a monograph on George Post; and Anastasia Agapoff wrote a monograph on Mary Blair. As the quarter progresses, we expect to post more informative monographs written by our exemplary group of AAMP interns!

Our “1957 exhibition” opened with a huge bang. Thank you to all of the people who came to the reception. Blue cocktails, weird fifties finger foods, crazy costumes and masterpieces from fifty years ago… what more could you ask for?

A special congratulations to Matt Devan and his girlfriend, Heidi Head, on winning first prize in the costume contest. (They went for Sandy and Danny from Grease, but ended up feeling more like Johnny Cash and June Carter.) Congratulations are also due to second prize winners, Frank and Sandra Hotchkiss, who came as a beatnik and his bubble-gum squeeze. Third prize went to Tess Jacobs, who looked cute as a button with her bob and black dress.

The staff had a great deal of fun dressing up, too. Here we are.