Cecily Barth Firestein at the Funk Zone’s Art & Soul

A New Yorker, iconoclast, and pioneering expressionist painter and printmaker, Cecily Barth Firestein’s “career” as an artist paralleled – and was subordinate to – what she would surely have described as her first calling of wife and mother. Therein lies a story. Firestein’s large format wonders will be on display in the Funk Zone’s communal art gallery/event space/conversation-filled parlor Art & Soul, beginning the evening of March 7 (First Thursday), from 5-8 pm, and lasting through the entire month of March.

Firestein’s arc was not typical. While she had the tacit support of her husband, a revered Freudian analyst (whose busy NYC social calendar was necessarily Cecily’s as well), what time she could spend on her self-nourishing art was hers to eke out. An undefined artist from girlhood, she grew and gravitated to an intentional art mission – a comparative rarity for a young woman at that time – seeking higher education in visual art, and then post-college art training from the legendary instructors then anchoring the burgeoning “New York School” of Abstract Expressionism. 

At the behest of a typically busy home life, Firestein’s medium of choice moved to the dictates of child-rearing; expedient artistic adjustments the male expressionist rock stars of the day – de Kooning, Pollock, Rothko, et al – never had to make. Moving from oils on canvas to collage, and ultimately to the inimitable layered monotype printmaking that would prove her creative homecoming, Cecily’s evolution as an artist went hand in hand with her evolution as a housewife – a word that has long since been culturally reverse engineered to suggest a form of docile subjugation; the raising and watering of whole adults as wheel-spinning. Cecily Barth Firestein’s story strongly suggests that domesticity and the deeply felt creation of great art are two iterations of the same art impulse.

But it’s a fact that the artist Cecily Firestein came into her own as a creative force at precisely the time that “wife and mother” and “artist” were mutually exclusive propositions; a phony contradiction fostered by a blinkered and not terribly enlightened Western culture. It’s a testament to Cecily’s adeptness at swimming determinedly upstream that her gorgeous and mesmerizing work today populates museums, private collections, and galleries the world over. 

Though the keynote of her story would seem to suggest the theme “a ‘50s-era housewife who produced art on the side, to great effect,” Cecily is more accurately the personification of the innate creative dynamo that drives the human race – housewives and CPAs and clergy and astronauts alike – not despite the vicissitudes of daily life, but as an unwaveringly human element of that daily life.

Art & Soul

The meeting of Yanonali and Santa Barbara streets in our beloved Funk Zone is notable. One of the last of the Chumash Chieftains publicly crosses paths with our town’s eponymous 4th century Catholic martyr? Awkward. The intersection also acts as gateway to a particularly mesmerizing corner of the Zone; a block or so of communal magic that truly summarizes what is best about Santa Barbara’s unbuttoned approach to daily life, art, and conversation. Kim McIntyre’s boutique gallery Art & Soul is “nestled” in that ‘hood, and rightly so. One of several complementary experiences sharing the cozily self-contained Waterline Building near the above-mentioned intersection, Art & Soul is not the dusky grotto its ‘back of the building’ seclusion would suggest, but a happy discovery at the end of an urban sidewalk; and a mother-daughter business to boot. “It’s kind of like finding Narnia,” McIntyre says of her domain’s stealth locale, then moves from the literary to the literal. “Continue through the patio at Lama Dog, and we have a small outside patio space that’s adjacent.” Lama Dog’s “patio” is a lengthy concrete alleyway with seating, tables, and mood-establishing fire, always ringing with the gentle, beery laughter of patrons – the perfect approach to the Art & Soul vibe – which may be best described as that of a largish, lovingly appointed living room. 

Spacious and airy, with vaulted ceilings and an energizing aura of “warehouse chic,” this is not the sort of art temple that obliges walking with hands clasped behind the back in the manner of a museum-haunting aesthete. Real work by real artists, appreciated in a talky, gently-lit community setting. What’s not to love? This lovely place is also available for your special event or gathering. Drop Kim a line for deets. 

A transplant from the diametrical opposite corner of the country, Kim has based her dream business on that of a dear friend in the far northeast. “Whitney Ott in Ogunquit, Maine, has built a thriving seasonal business there based on art and local handcrafted goods. I worked there when I was younger and my daughter grew up there working in the summers. We’ve talked about trying to do something for a while, and my daughter’s 16 now. I realized if we don’t do it now, it’s going to be hard to do as she gets older…” 

Time is of the essence, as they say. “It’s just crazy how fast the time goes,” Kim says. “You get so invested in the show, it feels personal. You have the opening reception, and then there’s the follow up, and then there’s the getting back to people and private showings. And then all of a sudden I’m like, ‘oh wait!’ I need to move on to the next one!’” A gallery owner who feels the bittersweet pull of time? That’s a good thing, and arguably best experienced in the presence of stirring works of imagination. “It’s been great, and I really hope that we can continue to provide space for art here in what is such a deeply rich, and enriching, artistic area.”  

What: CECILY FIRESTEIN – A Century, A Painter – Opening Reception

When: First Thursday, March 7, 5 – 8 pm

Where: In the Funk Zone at 116 Santa Barbara Street, Santa Barbara

Phone: (207) 475-5588

Email: artandsoulsb@gmail.com