Exhibiting Environmentalism

The Santa Ynez Valley was always special to artist Julia Laraway. When she moved to Santa Barbara in the 1980s and met her husband, the two would frequently explore the foothills — trips that would eventually include their kids, as well.  

In 2020, when the San Marcos Foothills West Mesa, a 100-acre portion of the foothills, was slated for development, Laraway knew she had to advocate for the land’s protection. 

“We basically said to the developer, ‘You can't bring your bulldozers on the property,’ and the developer said, ‘Fine, you have 90 days to raise $18 million,’” Laraway says. 

The Santa Barbara community succeeded, raising $18.6 million to purchase the land from the developer in June 2021. 

Today, rather than serving as the site for luxury homes, San Marcos Foothills West Mesa is a wildlife preserve — and the inspiration for Laraway’s recent exhibit, “California, Quilted: Wild in the Oak Woodland,” currently on view at the California Nature Art Museum in Solvang.

“I just feel very strongly that we think that progress is all about making more room for humans, and what we forget is, if we only make room for humans — and we forget all the animals — there won't really be a world for us to live in at the end,” Laraway says.

Showcasing stories like these is the focus of the California Nature Art Museum, formerly known as the Wildling Museum. 

Founded in 1997 by Santa Barbara artist Patti Jacquemain, the museum has dedicated itself to inspiring a love of nature through art. It fulfills this mission by highlighting local artists like Laraway, famous artists like Ansel Adams and Georgia O’Keeffe, contemporary artists, and art produced by local school groups, senior residence facilities, and more. 

Since officially opening in 2000 in Los Olivos, the museum has hosted or organized more than 65 exhibitions, all focused on nature in some way. 

“Our area is so rich with artists who are passionate about nature, and not just aesthetically, but with purpose,” says California Nature Art Museum executive director Stacey Otte-Demangate.

Throughout the years, the museum has undergone a number of transitions to better support its goals. It’s relocated twice, eventually settling in its current, larger space in Solvang in 2013, and it’s narrowed its focus from nationwide to California, and specifically the tri-county area of San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara, and Ventura.

In January, the museum announced a name change, and the Wildling Museum officially became the California Nature Art Museum, with the hope of making the museum’s mission more clear, Otte-Demangate explains.

The museum’s dedication to the environment also runs deeper than just the art it displays. 

Within the California Nature Art Museum’s first year in Solvang, the museum committed itself to becoming a California Certified Green Business, and it has continuously implemented new sustainability initiatives since then.

Currently, 95% of the museum’s lighting is LED. Moreover, the museum has eliminated its outdoor irrigation system, and thanks to a grant from the Community Environmental Council, it was able to install solar panels in 2020. The museum even uses recycled cardboard for banners, posters, and explanatory panels instead of plastic.

Otte-Demangate hopes that in the next year or two, the museum will be able to introduce a charging station to the parking lot, as well. 

“We're all professionally waking up to what can we do … both in terms of having a sustainably run office as much as possible, but in telling stories in beautiful and intriguing ways, so that our guests come away, hopefully impacted, but motivated to take some kind of action in their own daily life,” Otte-Demangate says.

Over the past two or three decades, Otte-Demangate says she has seen more artists begin to embrace climate stories in their work, going beyond creating something that just looks dramatic or beautiful.

“I think the field as a whole is really moving more and more to that part of the story that we are directly, as humans, all involved in one way or another,” she says.

She recalled a California Nature Art Museum exhibit from around 2017 that featured the work of six local women artists and highlighted the Santa Ynez River watershed, mostly in gouache, a medium similar to watercolor. 

“Water, of course, is an incredibly important topic in California, and obviously here, as well,” Otte-Demangate says. “It was creative and beautiful and just was very important. They helped create a book and a catalog, which we still have copies of for sale. It was, I think, a very impactful show that I feel our members and community people still talk about to this day.”

The museum’s current coral reef exhibit, featuring collaborative paintings by married couple Nansi Bielanski Gallup and David Gallup, is also meant to showcase a beautiful part of nature that’s facing a slew of environmental challenges, Otte-Demangate says.

“It's not just for the aesthetics, it's about, ‘Hey, people, wake up, these coral reefs are incredible, and we need to make sure that we're doing things to protect them and improve the environment for their long-term sustainability,’” she says.

Laraway hopes that visitors will walk away from her exhibit with a newfound appreciation for nature. 

“I just want (visitors) to recognize that we are part of something bigger than ourselves, that we're not the most important thing,” Laraway says.

Of the 20 quilts featured in the show, Laraway says she has a particular fondness for the pieces showing less conventional creatures — from a tarantula to a condor.

“I just think so much of our culture is about what appears beautiful, and you really have to look for what actually is beautiful — and condors are amazing,” Laraway says. “We need to look at everything, not just the big things. The smaller things are the ones that are going without us noticing.” 

Otte-Demangate says she knew that the condor piece, which came to life with Laraway’s fabric and stitching, would be unexpected and could alert viewers to all that our environment includes — not just the megafauna, or cuter animals like bears that tend to get more attention.

“Increasingly (art) museums realize that … hanging beautiful art is a wonderful thing — like, in of itself, that is a worthy goal, people can get inspired by that,” Otte-Demangate says. “But telling stories, particularly environmental stories, is dire in these times when everything about our planet is changing so dramatically that you can't hide from it.”

As Otte-Demangate looks toward the California Nature Art Museum’s next chapter, she hopes that the museum will be able to increase its visibility and share its environmental stories with a larger audience.

“It would be so nice with some of the messages that we like to tell through the artwork, if we would be able to travel those shows more widely — I think that would be a really great way to broaden our impact,” Otte-Demangate says. 

“Environmental stories can be really hard, and I think people can tune them out sometimes,” says Otte-Demangate. “The artwork makes their hearts happy, and they wake up to caring in that way.”

Julia Laraway’s “California, Quilted: Wild in the Oak Woodland” is on display at California Nature Art Museum until Jan. 13, 2025. Learn more about the California Nature Art Museum here.