Let us now praise off-the-beaten-path art venues we might take for granted, but shouldn’t. Take, for a ripe example, the Architectural Foundation Gallery, nestled in a historic house on the corner of Victoria and Santa Barbara streets. The living room/meeting room has also led a healthy double life for many years as a light-filled art gallery, sometimes showcasing work by “off the radar” or less familiar gallery-graced artists.
Official gallery hours are limited to Saturday afternoon, 1-3 p.m., but the “by appointment” clause is more than casual. Barring official board meetings and use of the hall, a weekday gallery visit is just a phone call away.
As it happens, the current exhibition, vibrant painter Nadya Brown’s A Natural Curiosity, makes for ideal summer art-watching. Brown, an English-born artist who lived in Spain and Italy before settling in Santa Barbara, creates paintings with beaming and bustling surfaces, but also with secret agendas beneath the sparkling manners.