First Thursdays (written in February)

     I went to first Thursdays this past week, stopping first at The Santa Barbara Museum of Art. The entire museum was set up as a retrospective on Charles Garabedian. After spending a semester abroad in Italy, I had been looking forward to standing in front of the Caravaggio that the museum owns, and was therefore disappointed with the entire museum being dedicated to this singular Modernist artist. On the wall was a description, listing one of the themes in his work as "dismemberment" (which I would like to point out is a motif and not a theme). Stylistically, his work seemed to be trying to relive modern movements of art form the past century, but did not execute his works as successfully as his predecessors.
     I also went into a few galleries on State Street. I enjoyed one artist's work which used watercolor on clayboard, giving it the feeling of an encaustic. She painted abstract landscapes, which I appreciated aesthetically. Also, her work stood out as original amidst the plethora of California Impressionist landscapes to be found in Santa Barbara.