Solstice Poster Contest Reception

By Robert Bernstein

The 2023 Santa Barbara Summer Solstice season is off to a start, with local artists submitting art for this year’s poster and T-shirt designs. Wednesday evening was the opening reception at LoDo Studios at 216 East Gutierrez Street.

The winning entry will not only become the 2023 Poster and T-shirt design. It will also win a $500 prize. The art work will be on display afternoons for walk throughs 12-5PM Mon-Fri until First Thursday CLOSING Reception March 2 from 5-8 PM.

Here are my many photos from the reception, including most of the art entries. This year’s Solstice Theme is “Roots”.

Of course, no Solstice or Solstice art event would be complete without my friend Pali and his creative entry.

How beautiful! And Katreece’s art is magnificent, too!

Judith Raimondi had a wonderful entry, showing scenes from many Solstices past. She claims she was involved since the very start of Solstice. When I told her I had only been involved since 1983, she called me a “newcomer”.

Robin Stampe posed with her colorful entry.

So did long-time Solstice artist Elvi Morris.

Jeff Dutcher (left) was co-founder and co-owner of World Of Magic and has created some of the most delightful and whimsical ensembles in recent years. Notably, his pink flamingos and rubber ducky ensembles.

Pali’s wife Raven posed with her artistic entry.

And then with my wife Merlie.

Penny Little has been a goddess behind the scenes for years at Solstice as the Assistant Executive Director. So many of us are excited that she has agreed to be head goddess as the full-on Executive Director. She is bursting with energy and ideas to make this the best Solstice ever! Here she was taking on a more mundane task of cutting up food for the reception!

Riccardo Morrison is a god behind the scenes who has held almost every position at one time or another. He knows how to make the big artistic decisions as well as the nitty-gritty design decisions about how to engineer those enormous floats. He also takes care of packing up the entire workshop into storage trailers to save for the next year. He kindly posed with me as he voted for his artistic choice.