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Get started with needle felting as you use wool roving to create a whimsical soft sculpture and a handy pouch with stitched details.

with Jasmine Showers, Water Resources Analyst, City of Santa Barbara, Public Works
When: Sunday, September 14th
Presentation at 2PM
Meet & greet reception with light refreshments to follow.
Where: The Neal Taylor Nature Center at Cachuma Lake
Admission: Donation (includes Lecture and Admission to the Nature Center)

Guest speaker Jasmine Showers will present a lecture on Santa Barbara’s Diverse Water System, Past & Present

Jasmine will highlight the long history of water conservation in Santa Barbara as well as the City’s diverse water portfolio. The City of Santa Barbara has invested in developing water sources and manages one of the most diverse water portfolios in California. City water sources include Lake Cachuma, Gibraltar/Mission Tunnel, groundwater, State Water Project, desalination, and recycled water. The city also has a robust history of water conservation and relies on continued water conservation from customers to effectively manage the water supplies to meet demand. This presentation will provide an overview of each of the City’s water supply sources.

Nature Center & Gift Store Hours
Thursday through Saturday: 10 a.m. – 4 p.m.
Sunday 10 a.m. – 2 p.m.
Nature Center Admission: Donations Appreciated
(There is a $10.00 County Park Entrance Fee per vehicle)

An immigrant performer tells her story, as she builds the road, brick by brick, to the artist she wants to become.

Nina Rancel, an award winning actor and stand up comedian, tells her story in all the ways she knows how: being overly dramatic about it.

Being an artist is an Ithaca, not a destination. Most times there’s no clear path to your goals, you have to build that road yourself. Facing real monsters and imaginary enemies, Nina doesn’t know where this road may lead but knows she must keep going despite it all.

Join the Santa Barbara Symphony for its highly anticipated free Season Preview Kick-off Celebration on Thursday, September 18, 5:00–6:15 PM at the historic Lobero Theatre.

The program begins on the promenade at 4:30 PM with a no-host reception, where patrons can mix & mingle, play musical instruments from the Music Van program, and speak with staff about donor and volunteer opportunities. At 5 PM, Music & Artistic Director Nir Kabaretti takes the stage inside to share his vision and inspiration for the 2025/26 season. Guests will enjoy live performances, insider stories, and a sneak peek at the bold, genre-spanning programs ahead. Special guests include Principal Trombonist Dillon MacIntyre and more. RSVP for a chance to win a pair of 4-concert subscriptions — space is limited!

RSVP: https://bit.ly/SymphonySeasonKickoff

Join the Ventura County Interfaith Community as it celebrates Vespers under the guidance of Fr. Constantine Trumpower of Saint Demetrios Greek Orthodox Church. We’ll gather on Tuesday, September 9th at 6:30 PM at the church at 5575 Santa Rosa Rd in Camarillo for the Vespers service. Following Vespers, Fr. Trumpower will speak briefly about the connections between the Jerusalem Temple, which was for centuries the center of Jewish worship, and Orthodox church architecture.

Admission is free, and all are welcome, so feel free to invite friends and family who may have an interest in what promises to be a fascinating evening.

Image attribution: “Candles” by L.C.Nøttaasen is licensed under CC BY 2.0. To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/?ref=openverse.

1st Thursday Event Schedule
5:00-6:30pm – Ludmilla Exhibition Opening Celebration
6:30pm – Last Dance of the Summer Dance Party with DJ Darla Bea

Ludmilla Pilat Welch: Serene Santa Barbara
Join the Museum for their opening celebration featuring plein air painter Ludmilla Pilat Welch, who rendered many of Santa Barbara’s remaining historic adobes in the early 1900s. Her body of work stands as an important historic record as many of these remnants of Santa Barbara's past slowly disappeared from the landscape.

Also, at 6:30 pm join DJ Darla Bea for a Last Dance of the Summer party in the Museum courtyard.

Start your weekend on the right note at Carr Winery! On Friday, October 3rd, from 7 – 9 PM, head to the Winery for an evening filled with live music by the Van Allen Twins Trio.

Experience the unique Blues Grass sounds of the Van Allen Twins Trio. Their sounds of bluegrass, country, and folk music are sure to get you moving. Pair the music with Buena Onda empanadas delivered right to the Winery, and make it your new Friday night tradition.

Free admission, 21+

The Art, Design & Architecture Museum (AD&A Museum) at UC Santa Barbara is pleased to announce three new exhibitions for the fall 2025 season.

The lead exhibition, Beyond the Object: Selections from the Permanent Collection, brings together a range of artworks from the AD&A Museum’s holdings that engage with our lived environment beyond its constructed reality. Featuring painting, sculpture, photography, and works on paper, this exhibition highlights recent acquisitions and gifts primarily from the past five years, demonstrating the Museum’s commitment to expanding its modern and contemporary art collection. Additionally, the Museum joins in the international centennial celebration of the birth of artist Joan Mitchell (1925–1992) with a spotlight exhibition of her work in the permanent collection.

The AD&A Museum will also open the exhibition, Mexican Prints: The Garcia-Correa Collection, which celebrates the gift of sixty-one Mexican prints from local collectors Gil Garcia and Marti Correa de Garcia to the Museum. Focusing on lithographs, etchings, and linocuts from the 1920s to the 1980s, the Garcia-Correa Collection of Mexican Prints highlights the importance of the graphic arts in Mexico. This mid-century collection of prints thematically focuses on labor, gender, and domesticity, all key aspects of campesino culture and its farming community that have informed the lives of the collectors. On view are a selection of thirty-one prints that represent a preview of a larger, more comprehensive presentation planned in the years ahead.

Additionally, Environmental Communications: Big Bang Beat L.A. presents the work of the Venice-based collective Environmental Communications (EC), a group of architects, artists, and sociologists who, from the late 1960s through the early 1980s, championed an expanded understanding of architecture—one that encompassed not only individual structures, but the totality of the built environment. This presentation of EC’s materials from the Architecture and Design Collection, following this year’s devastating fires, serves not only as a poignant reminder of the city’s environmental fragility, but also as a tribute to the extraordinary urban creativity that has fueled its resilience over the past five decades.

Organized by the AD&A Museum at UC Santa Barbara, all exhibitions will be on view from September 13 to December 7, 2025. The opening reception will take place on Saturday, September 13 at 5:30pm.

The Art, Design & Architecture Museum joins in the international centennial celebration of the birth of artist Joan Mitchell (1925–1992) with a spotlight exhibition of her work in the permanent collection.

Gifted to the AD&A Museum in 1985, Sunflower (1970) is part of a series dedicated to the sunflower that began in the late 1960s and continued until Mitchell’s passing. Inspired by her childhood experience of seeing Vincent van Gogh’s sunflower paintings in her home city of Chicago, Mitchell returned to the significance of the sunflower in her late life, commenting that sunflowers are, “like people to me.” Abstracted yet palpable, the painting reflects on the unique character of the sunflower and its life cycle–at once filled with a bright vitality that also hints at darkness and decay.

Joan Mitchell is widely recognized as one of the most significant American artists of the post-war era. Her abstract paintings are distinguished by their physicality, daring use of color, and personal interpretation of the natural world.

A native of Chicago, Mitchell studied at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Upon graduating in 1947, she spent over a year in France before settling in New York in late 1949. There, she became an active participant in the “New York School” of painters and poets, exploring different approaches to composition and gesture as part of the emerging Abstract Expressionist movement.

Over the next four decades, Mitchell dedicated herself to the single-minded pursuit of abstract painting of the highest order, while moving between New York, Paris, and later the French countryside in Vétheuil, where she made her home from 1968 until her death in 1992. Throughout her long and varied career, Mitchell drew on experiences and memories of the world around her—particularly views of cities, fields, rivers, lakes, and trees—as sources for her work. She once said, "I carry my landscapes around with me."

This presentation is organized by the Art, Design & Architecture Museum and is curated by Ana Briz, AD&A Museum Assistant Director and Curator of Exhibitions. Special thanks to the Joan Mitchell Foundation for providing the video Joan Mitchell: An Introduction that is on view. The exhibition is made possible thanks to the generous support of the AD&A Museum Council.

This celebration marks an exciting milestone for Ventura County Believe Center as we continue bringing hope, healing, and home to the people of Ventura County. It’s an opportunity for the community to see firsthand the work we do, hear from our team, and connect with those whose lives we’ve touched.

Event Highlights:

- A slideshow showcasing our programs, accomplishments, and the people whose lives we’ve touched

- Hear from our CEO, Annabel Taylor, about our mission, vision, and plans for the future

- Opportunities to meet our team, volunteers, and the community we serve

- Interactive moments where guests can learn about our ongoing initiatives and ways to get involved