••• Offering “vintage and handmade goods for everyday life,” Westward General is a sweet new shop at 160 W. Alamar Avenue, slightly around the bend from Bree’osh. Founder Naomi Strauss is a production designer, so she has a great eye; her inspiration is the American West.
••• An excellent-sounding holiday market will be at Victoria Court on the next two Saturdays, December 4 and 11. Participating brands include Domecil, Greater Goods, El Rancho Carpintero (whose hats are at the top of my Christmas list), Coconut Haus, Hollow Bone, She Wore Lore, Sweet Mountaintop Farm, and many more.
••• The Goo Goo Dolls play the Santa Barbara Bowl on September 3. Tickets go on sale this Friday.
••• “Any idea what’s going on with the old gas station in Summerland?” asked Susan. The county’s South Board of Architectural Review has been considering a bunch of proposed improvements for a while now. From the October 15 agenda: “Final Approval of a new 1,340 square foot canopy over the existing fuel dispensers, minor exterior finish changes to chimney, wall section bollard replacement, and roof replacement to standing seam metal.” The item was approved, with some changes to the planters. More recently, a request for a large illuminated sign (“approximately 24.9 square feet”) received a lot of blowback from neighboring businesses and residents in advance of the meeting on November 5. According to the SBAR planner assigned to the matter, “The project included two wall signs, which were both externally illuminated. The pole sign was part of the original proposal but was ultimately removed from this application.” It was granted final approval.
••• Oat Bakery’s Louise Ulrich is opening a pop-up called Mormor Gallery in the Edith Caldwell space on De La Guerra Plaza. “The gallery will be open for the month of December, with opening night taking place on December 4, 5-9 p.m.” she says. “I’ve painted since I was 10 years old growing up in Copenhagen and have been selling and showing ever since. This will however be my first show in Santa Barbara. The gallery is named after my Danish grandma who inspired me to move to the U.S. and the focus of the gallery is so bring young aspiring artists together in Santa Barbara.”
••• Slingshot/Alpha Art Studio, “a not-for-profit progressive arts studio that supports the creative practice and professional visibility of artists with intellectual and developmental disabilities in Santa Barbara County,” is moving from 220 W. Canon Perdido to 1911 De La Vina (Mission/Pedregosa). The last show at the old space opens December 2: “PoP! highlights the work of Slingshot artists inspired and influenced by pop culture. Vibrant, humorous, nostalgic and revealing—this body of work is animated with novel expression that complicates simple expectations of familiar iconography.”
••• Three new local books worth considering for your list of who’s been nice: 1) Santa Barbara and Beyond: Photography by Mike Eliason; 2) Cinema in Flux: A Year of Connecting Through Film by SBIFF’s Roger Durling; 3) The Fig District: Some Buildings in Downtown Santa Barbara by architect Jeff Shelton.
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Thanks for answering my gas station question! I love your newsletter. I’m new to Montecito and reading Siteline has been a wonderful way to get to know the area. Thank you!!