Making my way in to see Nicole Strasburg’s new Sullivan Goss exhibition Surfacing, diverse enticements were there to behold in this spatially generous, three-gallery-deep art space. This summer’s triple play of shows includes Holli Harmon’s intriguingly multifaceted To Feast on Clouds and the seasonal group show spritzer dubbed Summer Fling in the large middle space, including colorful, eye-buzzing works by Penelope Gottlieb, Robert Townsend, and one of Hank Pitcher’s fetching surfboard “portraits.”

By association, Strasburg’s conceptually elastic variations on seascape paintings should also qualify as summery fare. And yet these seaside scenarios, taken individually and as a variegated and integrated ensemble, can take on introspective and artistically adventurous sub-turns, far from the realm of idle beachgoer’s escapism.

TWELVE GOUACHE PAINTINGS ON FABRIANO WATERCOLOR PAPER may be Holli Harmon’s crown jewel. Each one features a month of the year reproduced from an 1866 Farmer’s Almanac, when hand labor began to be replaced with machine farming. Each piece, inspired by her sketchbook, represents a month of the year at the Jalama Canyon Ranch, floating over deep blue cyanotype prints made using autochthonous vegetation.

Two shows open July 28 at Sullivan Goss: 1) Holli Harmon’s To Feast on Clouds: “An impressive group of 89 paintings of clouds rendered onto vintage tableware will take over the walls of one of the gallery’s spaces. The accumulation of clouds from sunny to stormy and everything in between creates a conversation about water, where it comes from and how it works in relation to the food we grow that eventually ends up on our tables.”

Nicole Strasburg’s Surfacing: “Long associated with 12 x 12 inch paintings on birch panels that seem to float away from the white walls of the gallery, the artist has, in the last two years, adopted a slightly larger square format of 14 x 14 inch panels with beautifully-finished wood sides. Impressive suites of paintings in both formats can be seen and purchased in this special exhibition. They will be joined by a focused presentation of larger paintings that revel in the endless forms and colors offered by those places where ocean, sky, and land meet.”

For centuries, the compass rose has served as a directional tool. ROSE COMPASS, a group of six women from Santa Barbara County (Connie Connally, Holli Harmon, Libby Smith, Nicole Strasburg, Nina Warner, and Pamela Zwehl-Burke) is charting a path to increase environmental awareness through art.

This delightful show of five artists sharing a common interest is the product of curator Susan Bush’s observation that when it comes to eco-consciousness among contemporary artists, there’s something special about bears. Adonna Khare, Beth Van Hoesen, Susan McDonnell, Pamela Kendall Schiffer, and Nicole Strasburg may all have started out expressing their fascination with these extraordinary animals independently, but encountering the work together, the viewer is left with no choice but to accept that there’s now a distinct bear area in art.

Landscape and animal paintings are tough. Not tough to digest, but tough to review. Like portraits and landscapes, animal paintings are what they are—they depict, though not necessarily through ideas. They are meant to look a certain way. Mostly they are meant to entice a viewer by technique, use of color, or style.

A few years ago, Sullivan Goss curator Susan Bush began to notice the number of artists regularly depicting bears in their works. Artists had begun to choose bears as their subject matter not only to show the profound beauty of the animal but also to raise awareness to their fragile existence and habitat in North America.

The Contemporary Bear Area Artists exhibition aims to showcase the majestic North American bear while informing visitors of the effects that a growing human population, climate change and changes in hunting regulations have on bears.

To the gradually expanding list of cultural traditions defining Christmastime in Santa Barbara, we must fully acknowledge “100 Grand,” if it hasn’t already had its place secured on the official list.

Now in its seventh year and looking healthy and splendid, “100 Grand” is the pithily, cryptically and a accurately named exhibition at Sullivan Goss that offers art-hungry (and neophyte art-buying) Santa Barbarans a crack at 100 artworks priced under $1,000.

California may continue to develop and change, but one thing stays the same: its landscape remains the muse of the masses.

Sullivan Goss—An American Gallery invites you to ruminate on Collecting California, an exhibition covering an array of paintings from the late 1800s through today. The pieces capture the idyllic and diverse beauty of the land, from rugged seascapes and plunging waterfalls to undulating ranch land and serene sunrises—infusing the imagination with a sense of possibility and optimism for the future.