SBMA Online

Welcome to SBMA! Advance ticketing reservations are highly recommended and guarantee your entry time.

As part of programming for Made by Hand / Born Digital (on view until August 25), this free flowing conversation between Yassi Mazandi and James Glisson will cover her explorations with new technology, including NFTs, and her tendency to work with traditional mediums, like painting and ceramics, against the grain, especially her tendency, as she puts it, “to things the wrong way.”

Yassi Mazandi was born in Tehran, Iran, raised in Great Britain and lives and works in Los Angeles. She describes nature and her reaction to it, both conscious and subconscious, as the driving forces behind her art. She sculpts in porcelain, clay and bronze, and also creates works on paper and canvas. In 2019, she completed her first video artwork and, in 2021, her first AR artwork. Many of Yassi’s works in various non-porcelain media (e.g. paper, canvas, and video) are what she calls Born-Porcelain™, derived from X-rays of her porcelain sculptures.

She was in the first group selected by the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation for its Artist in Residence program on Captiva Island in Florida. Her first museum installation, Language of the Birds, (a kinetic work of 100 suspended bronze bird sculptures) debuted in 2022 at Los Angeles County Museum of Art and will be on display there through June 2024. Her art is in international public and private collections including Cleveland Museum of Art, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Santa Barbara Museum of Art, and University of California.

credit: Photograph of Yassi Mazandi. Courtesy of the artist.

Ticket Cost:
SBMA Member (Museum Circles): FREE
SBMA Member (Enthusiast and below): $10.00
Non-Member: $15.00
Student (Valid student ID required): FREE

All skill levels are invited to experience the tradition of sketching from original works of art in current exhibitions. Museum Teaching Artists provide general guidance and all materials.

Give Mom the perfect experience this Mother’s Day! Local well-known chef and author, Pascale Beale, will demonstrate a few recipes from her vast collection of 8 books. She will talk about her love for art and some of the art from around the world that has inspired her recipes. Spend an afternoon with your mom with great cuisine. Her books and culinary products will be available for purchase.

Ticket Cost:
SBMA Member: $125.00
Non-Member: $150.00

The wild and wildly popular author T.C. Boyle returns to the Museum to read/perform one of his most topical short stories. Santa Barbara’s favorite so called “Punk Laureate,” a prolific and provocative spinner of stories and satire, is also a notoriously extroverted performer. "I enjoy demystifying the relationship between the reader and the writer,” says Boyle. “It's not a holy religion.” To add to the mix, his daughter Kerrie will once again join him on stage.

The recipient of several prestigious awards, including the O. Henry Award and the PEN/Faulkner Award, Boyle wears his laurels lightly saying, “I would rather get out and shake my stuff." And when he shakes? “If I can get the reader to laugh, also be moved, then I'm going where I want to go.”

The reading marks the release in paperback of Blue Skies.

Book signing to follow.

Writers of all levels are invited to participate in this informal exploration of the Museum’s galleries as an impetus to writing. Monthly sessions are led by a visiting writer who begins with a conversation and prompt, partially inspired by works on view. Participants write on their own, then reconvene to share and comment on each other’s work. Please bring something on which to write.

In May writer and SBCC professor, Emma Trelles leads the session.

Ticket Cost:
General Admission: FREE