www.tomHUSTONart.com
Tom Huston Exhibit at new Gallery 7000
New Gallery 7000 Opens At The Santa Barbara Channels with
Tom Huston Exhibit

October 1-November 5, 2009

The Santa Barbara Channels now offers something you can’t see on TV. We’re opening a small art gallery at our facility at 7000 Hollister in Goleta, and fittingly call the exhibition space Gallery 7000. For the opening exhibit, the community TV station is honoring one of its own, featuring the work of the late Tom Huston.

A Santa Barbara native, Tom sat on the original committee that helped create public access, and he produced programs shown on Channel 17 and in the Santa Barbara International Film Festival. Among other things, Tom was a painter, poet, performance artist, and sailor. He passed away unexpectedly early this summer. The Santa Barbara Channels thanks his wife, Charlene, for loaning us some of his works of art.

Tom’s artwork has been exhibited at the Contemporary Arts Forum, the Santa Barbara Museum of Art, Design Resources, the Fifhian Building, outdoors at the Coastal Project, Art Resources, The Book Den, Studio 3East, and Santa Barbara City Hall, the Orange County Center for Contemporary Art.

This exhibit features work from the last decade of his time on earth. In 2000, Tom responded to what he thought was the stealing of a national election by creating a series of paintings depicting images from voting card “chads”, the one displayed is called “Flag Witness.” Over the next few years, these paintings evolved into the “radii series” which celebrate the connectedness of everything and the planet oceans upon which he spent so much of his life, in the Navy, sailing, delivering boats and surfing. Tom joined the lightblueline project and began creating "Global Warming Postcards," whimsical depictions of flooded Santa Barbara scenes. These were exhibited in galleries in Santa Barbara, Ventura and Orange County, then evolved into large paintings Tom called the climate change series. His ‘artists conceptions’ of sea level rise in cities across the globe served as his visual cry for help for an environment in jeopardy.

As Tom once said, "Like it or not, we are all in the same boat…the infrastructural change coming to coastal cities globally is unprecedented in human history. It will affect us all. Inundation is going to change our estuaries, highways, railroads, agricultural landscapes and the myriad of species that depend on them for life. Climate change is a call to the global ‘polis’ for policy changes at governmental levels and a shift in cultural perception that aligns scientific data with public perception toward political action that is oriented toward survival and maintenance of our threatened global eco-system. We are being reborn into a new culture of sustainability…"

The Santa Barbara Channels is the nonprofit organization that brings our community viewers the most local content on television, on Channels 17 and 21.

The exhibit is open to the public during regular business hours: Mon-Fri from 9 AM – 11 PM & Saturday 9:30 AM–6 PM and will run through the month of October.

Artists interested in using the exhibition space for future exhibits should contact Ray Cirerol at the tv station via e-mail: ray@sbchannels.tv

Hap Freund
Executive Director
The Santa Barbara Channels
7000 Hollister 
Santa Barbara, CA 93117
805-571-1721
www.sbchannels.tv
hap@sbchannels.tv
August 8 - Come see the first HUSTON & HUSTON in public.
Paul Lindhard of the Artists Union Gallery invited Charlene (Tom's wife) to exhibit some of his work related to his involvement in the lightblueline project at this exhibit in Ventura, CA.

Politics of Green
All things green (politically, ecologically, financially, holistically…) have come to a head, a crossroads, a climax of differing viewpoints and interests. As artists and citizens, it is our decision to confront and question the issues that affect our lives and society, especially in an ever more globalized world culture. The politics of green challenges us to address any of these issues in any medium, including video, installation and performance.

She has completed a piece he began called "Renaissance, ready or not..."

Please come check it out ...

Thursday, June 18th UPDATE
Please join us in person or prayer, tomorrow...Friday, June 19th

10am Calderon Funeral Home
Garden St. & East Haley St.
234 East Haley St.
Santa Barbara, Ca. 93101

car caravan to Santa Maria

11am Magner-Maloney Funeral Home and Crematory
600 E Stowell Rd Santa Maria, CA 93454-6753

Please bring flowers & food to share for lunch

QUESTIONS? please call 805.729.3722
* * *
TOM TOM TOM
Tangi (Maori word for funeral ceremonies)
Thursday, June 25th 9am - noon
Santa Barbara Yacht Club (free parking in their lot!)

light breakfast
scattering of his ashes at sea on a variety of boats, space permitting
(if you get seasick, you can watch from the yacht club)
short memorial service & sharing of Tom stories...

RSVP # in your party & if you are taking out your boat, # of guests you can accommodate 805.729.3722 or pacific.polycraft@verizon.net

Thanks!
Charlene


Wednesday June 17 update...
Friends,

You are invited to join me in the continuing tangi for Tom as follows:

Friday, June 19th is the day of cremation. We will gather in the morning at the Calderon Funeral Home on the corner of Haley & Garden for a short ceremony…wrapping of Tom’s body in a shroud we have been making of his beloved Hawaiian shirts, silk from our wedding and Tongan tapa cloth & other relics he’s collected while sailing the seven seas…

Then, we will follow him to Santa Maria in a car caravan where we will share stories and pot-luck lunch on a large tapa cloth given to him in Tonga…while his cremation begins...

Calderon Funeral Home
Garden St. & East Haley St.
234 East Haley St.
Santa Barbara, Ca. 93101

I am imagining this will begin around 8 or 9am…check back for exact time
pacificpolycraft.com

Please bring flowers & food for lunch.
Peace in the mystery…
Charlene
Tuesday, June 9, 2009
A Maori proverb suggests:

When an important man dies, they begin to come together.
An elliptical saying which means that as soon as a notable chief dies, mourning parties begin to make their way to his village to join in the tangi and pay their respects to the departed and to mourn for him.


I would like to express my deepest gratitude for everyone who has offered support.

Tom's body will be cremated in the next few days and there will be some kind of event at the harbor in Santa Barbara.

Please stay tuned for details.

Charlene Huston