History
In 2008 an art salon emerged in the small but famous beach community of Santa Barbara when artists Dorothy Churchill Johnson and Joan Rosenberg Dent invited a group of women artists to discuss the challenges they experienced working outside the Los Angeles and San Francisco metropolitan areas. The salon grew over time to include other creative professionals and coalesced into WOCA, Women of Contemporary Art, which met regularly until it became too large to sustain and disbanded prior to 2020.
Emerging from the pandemic in 2022, Churchill-Johnson and Rosenberg Dent revisited the idea and invited thirteen working artists to meet together to develop a compelling museum exhibition proposal designed to increase recognition for women artists working on the coast of Southern California. They named the group Western Edge.
Their first exhibit was at the Thomas Reynolds Gallery in Santa Barbara, where the exhibit “Broad Spectrum,” curated by Andy Campognone, manager/curator of the Museum of Art and History in Lancaster California, showed to acclaim. The collective work of the Western Edge artists proved a powerful statement of current contemporary art being produced in the Santa Barbara area.
Today the artists continue their work from the edge of the continent, creating art in pursuit of the original Western Edge goal through their unique artistic voices. FLUX will be the theme of the next exhibit, as they address the current challenges of rapid cultural change with global consequences.
In loving memory of Dorothy Churchill-Johnson
Founding Member
1943 - 2023
In May 2023 the dedicated, spirited and determined artist Dorothy Churchill-Johnson passed away. She created an impressive body of work and left behind a legacy of influence.