Santa Barbara Maritime Museum, 113 Harbor Way, Santa Barbara, CA, 93109, United States: SBMM Presents Play: Bronze Sculptures and Other Stuff by Susan Read Cronin

Santa Barbara Maritime Museum Presents Play: Bronze Sculptures and Other Stuff by Susan Read Cronin On View August 13 – November 29, 2026 A playful, story-rich exhibition exploring the breadth of human emotion through bronze, silhouettes, and poetry SBMM is delighted to present Play: Bronze Sculptures and Other Stuff by Susan (Susie) Read Cronin, on view August 13 through November 29, 2026. With humor and imagination at its heart, Play invites visitors to experience the full spectrum of human feeling through Cronin’s allegorical bronze sculptures — alongside her silhouettes and poetry.

Cronin’s pieces are imaginative and disarmingly joyful: small scenes that feel like fables, visual puns that reward a second look, and characters that seem to carry on secret conversations. Cronin takes the word “play” literally, as she plays with words, scale, perspective and sometimes danger.

While the work often begins in laughter, it doesn’t stay on the surface. Play explores tenderness, longing, mischief, vulnerability, and wonder — reminding us that imagination and play can be both a refuge and a way of discovering the truth.

In her own words, Cronin calls her work “figurative and narrative,” grounded in gesture and emotion. Her titles unlock new layers of meaning across sculpture and text.

Play invites us to slow down, look closer, and rediscover the simple joy of being human. Bronze has a long and distinguished relationship with maritime history.

For centuries, it has been valued for its strength, beauty, and resilience, appearing in tools, trade goods, ship fittings, and other objects shaped by life at sea. At the Santa Barbara Maritime Museum, bronze resonates not only as a historic material, but also as one deeply tied to craftsmanship, exploration, and endurance.

In Play, Susan Read Cronin reimagines this storied medium through sculptures that are imaginative, lyrical, and unexpectedly expressive. Her work offers a contemporary perspective on bronze, transforming a material long associated with utility and permanence into one of wit, emotion, and wonder.

In doing so, the exhibition creates a thoughtful bridge between maritime legacy and artistic invention. As an added bonus, for those of you who have always longed to understand how a bronze sculpture is made, part of the show explains and simplifies the lost wax bronze casting process.

Exhibition Details Exhibition: Play: Bronze Sculptures and Other Stuff by Susan (Susie) Read Cronin Dates: August 13 – November 29, 2026 Location: Santa Barbara Maritime Museum, 113 Harbor Way, Suite 190, Santa Barbara, CA 93109 Hours: Open daily, 10:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m. Admission: Included with museum admission (SBMM members free).

About the Artist Susan (Susie) Read Cronin is a sculptor, writer, and multidisciplinary artist known for bronze sculptures that blend craft with playfulness and narrative charm. Educated at The Madeira School, she earned a B.A. in English from Williams College and studied with sculptors Jane B.

Armstrong and Walter Matia. After many years working in Vermont, Cronin relocated full-time to Santa Barbara in 2016.

Her work has been exhibited widely, including solo shows across Vermont, New York City, Denver, and California, and her exhibition Fables, Foibles, and Fairy Tales has traveled to 18 museums and other venues around the country. Watch the video