Santa Barbara genius Aristides Burton Demetrious creates memorable sculptures

J.H. recently inherited this sculpture at 26¼ inches. When she did, she was told it was created by a Santa Barbara artist with a Greek name.

That artist, I found, was our local genius in metal: Aristides Burton Demetrious (1932-2021), who lived in Santa Ynez and Santa Barbara. J.H.’s work is pierced aluminum in a perfect box of Lucite, and although J.H. had problems understanding it, she now loves it and wants to know more about the artist.

Mr. Demetrious was quite a prolific, respected and loved personality. He came from artistic royalty. His father was a sculptor trained by the student of August Rodin, and his mother was a textile designer and famed children’s book author.

After Aristides (“Aris”) graduated from Harvard, he served in the Navy, then studied under his father on the East Coast. He entered the USC School of Architecture in 1959.

I will list some of the places he has created commissioned sculptures, but none is quite as famous perhaps as The Claw, known to generations of Stanford students. It was one of the young artist’s first commissions. A Jan. 11 obituary in the Stanford Report mentions that students since the 1960s have waded, hopped, swam, danced and dangled feet in Aris’ fountain euphemistically named The Claw. It is the focal point of Dead Week.

It is located between the Old Student Union and the Bookstore; the site of rituals and proposals, a 16-foot tall creation of welded bronze graduating to copper, living in a shallow blue tiled pool, surrounded by benches.

Rituals? Yes, every autumn before the big UC BerkeleyStanford game, students impale a massive stuffed bear on the top claw, representing Oski Berkley’s mascot.

Demetrious visited Standard in 2010 to fine-tune the aging sculpture and supervise repairs. At the time he was quoted in the Stanford Report as saying that the fountain had been commissioned in the late 1950s’/early 1960’s by the White family, who had lost two Stanford brothers before they could graduate. Demetrious is quoted: “The fountain is a metaphor (for the brother’s unknown futures). It starts in bronze, firm and durable, and terminates in water patterns, diaphanous and mutable. It speaks to what the brothers might have become.”

Of course, I have run into collectors who own works by Demetrious in Santa Barbara and even a few who had commissioned large scale outdoor works. Here are a few of the national public commissioned sculptures he created: Sacramento County Courthouse, the sculpture for the entry to the Monterey Bay Aquarium, a memorial on the remote island of Corregidor at the entrance to Manilla Bay, Philippines, which honors the Bataan people. The island was a center of dispute since the 1500s hosting Chinese pirates, Dutch privateers, Spanish traders, Muslim soldiers, the Spanish American War and World War I and World War II military installations. The work is “The Flame of Freedom.” On a hill in South San Francisco, he created a 92foot tall aeolian harp. In 2002, Santa Barbara Beautiful awarded Demetrious for the 18-foot tall fountain called “Mentors” created for Santa Barbara City College, overlooking the Pacific, donated by Eli Luria and Michael Towbes. He made a 21-foot bronze fountain for UCLA, and other works for UC Merced, a work for Jack London Square, for churches, corporations, schools, banks, hotels, and hospitals. His art is in the private collections locally of the Tragos, Dart/Cohen and Emmons families.

Commissioned work is one of the hardest things an artist can undertake, because not only is the artist striving to please him/ herself, but is actually working for the vision of another. Sometimes the “other” is a panel of people, such as those on a public art advisory panel, and sometimes one’s “boss” is one individual with a firm idea of what one’s design should be. Getting the personalities and egos to balance just right is a challenge, and by the length of the list of commissions undertaken by Mr. Demetrious, it looks like he was a total professional at the art of “artist for hire.” The trick is not to compromise one’s artistic vision, which it seems he also achieved, if you look at the variety of objects, media, styles and sizes. An artist cannot do commission work for six generations if he/she fails at that fine balance.

For six generations he also showed in solo shows, such as at Sullivan Goss: An American Gallery in Santa Barbara; Jardin de las Granadas, also in Santa Barbara, and shows in San Francisco, Santa Clara, Carmel, Oakland, New Mexico, Connecticut and Washington, D.C.

So, you see, J.H., you have inherited quite a treasure. It’s valued at $3,000 to $4,000.

Dr. Elizabeth Stewart’s “Ask the Gold Digger” column appears Saturdays in the NewsPress.

Written after her father’s COVID-19 diagnosis, Dr. Stewart’s book “My Darlin’ Quarantine: Intimate Connections Created in Chaos” is a humorous collection of five “what-if” short stories that end in personal triumphs over present-day constrictions. It’s available at Chaucer’s in Santa Barbara.

Shelters seek homes for pets

Local animal shelters and their nonprofit partners are looking for homes for pets.

For more information, go to these websites:

• Animal Services-Lompoc, countyofsb.org/phd/animal/ home.sbc.

• Animal Shelter Assistance Program in Goleta, asapcats. org. ASAP is kitty corner to Santa Barbara County Animal Services.

• Bunnies Urgently Needing Shelter in Goleta, bunssb. org. BUNS is based at Santa Barbara County Animal Services.

• Companion Animal Placement Assistance, lompoccapa.org and facebook. com/capaoflompoc. CAPA works regularly with Animal Services-Lompoc.

• K-9 Placement & Assistance League, k-9pals.org. K-9 PALS works regularly with Santa Barbara County Animal Services.

• Santa Barbara County Animal Care Foundation, sbcanimalcare.org. (The foundation works regularly with the Santa Maria Animal Center.)

• Santa Barbara County Animal Services in Goleta: countyofsb.org/phd/animal/ home.sbc.

• Santa Barbara Humane (with campuses in Goleta and Santa Maria), sbhumane.org.

• Santa Maria Animal Center, countyofsb.org/phd/ animal/home.sbc. The center is part of Santa Barbara County Animal Services.

• Santa Ynez Valley Humane Society/DAWG in Buellton, syvhumane.org.

• Shadow’s Fund (a pet sanctuary in Lompoc), shadowsfund.org.

• Volunteers for InterValley Animals in Lompoc: vivashelter.org.

— Dave Mason

How fortunate it is for governments that the people they administer don’t think.”

— Adolf Hitler

Jimmy Carter was a beltway outsider who never understood nationalism. Like many liberals, President Carter felt the government could solve every foreign and domestic problem with policies that were processed through Washington.

President Carter’s faith in government creating world harmony, along with prosperity in America with federalism, destroyed our foreign dominance and collapsed the American economy.

Ronald Reagan inherited an America with a laissez-faire foreign policy and an economy that was running on empty. Our