Christina Waters

IRWIN Scholars 2008
MAY 28 - JUNE 14
Opening Reception: Wednesday, May 28 5-7PM; Awards: 6PM

Check out this year’s Irwin Scholarship exhibition at the UCSC Sesnon Gallery in Porter College, featuring twelve of UCSC’s most promising artists working in painting, photography, printmaking, sculpture, installation and electronic media.
This year’s Irwin recipients are: Misha Capecchi, Seth Charles, Julia Fredenburg, Levi Goldman, Andrew Herbig, Serena Mitnik-Miller, (more…)

A roster of heavyweight — or at least wildly colorful and prolific — local artists will gather for your edification on the weekend of June 7-8, 11am-6pm at The Mill Gallery, 131 Front St., in Santa Cruz. It’s called Art for Art, and it benefits the Tannery Arts Center.
Art-lovers can check out bold contemporary artwork in a wide range of media from more than two dozen top practitioners. Choice appetizers and music will also accompany the visual feast, and artists will be donating 20% of all sales to the Tannery Arts Center. Art for Art group exhibition will be on view during June 6th “First Friday” art grazing tour - 5:30-9pm.

If you need more info contact the Art for Art website. See you there!

Susana Arias
Karen Bailey
Fran Battendieri
Hildy Bernstein
Linda Christensen
Pilar Cox
Madeline de Joly
Susan Dorf
Sara Friedlander (she never sleeps)
Don Fritz (neither does he)
Shelby Graham
Jane Gregorius
Stephanie Heit
D. Hooker
r.r. Jones
Robert Larson (more…)

Cooking adventuress Diana Kennedy will spend three days in the Santa Cruz area - on a lengthy West Coast junket celebrating the long-awaited re-issue of her definitive, and much-loved The Art of Mexican Cooking. It’s all here - myriad authentic Oaxacan molés, chile lore and preparation notes, plus extensive recipes Kennedy gleaned in her tireless culinary anthropology combing the Mexican countryside for the past 40+ years.

Don’t miss these opportunities to talk with Kennedy — she’s opinionated and delightful — purchase her cookbooks and have her sign them.

- Friday, May 30, 6-8pm Alma Gifts & Culture will host a book signing and reception with Ms. Kennedy, at 1705 Mission St. Santa Cruz. Call 831-425-2562 for more information.
- Saturday, May 31, 9am at the Aptos Farmers Market, Ms. Kennedy will give a talk and Q&A session (more…)

May 31 & June 1 - West side of the SC Mtns, and June 8 & 9, Eastern side of the SC Mtns.

Don’t miss two weekends of self-guided tours of small, artisanal wineries on both sides of the scenies Santa Cruz Mountains. Especially since our heroic small wineries emerged from the recent Summit Fire with their vineyards intact! And especially don’t miss the chance to soak up the ridgetop ambience at Silver Mountain Winery (see image left). Jerold O’Brien and Tony Craig are making some of the finest pinot noirs in the area up at the facility - and it’s rarely open to the public. (more…)

UCSC Open Studio Art Sale!

Brigid McCabe graduated with a degree in Art from UCSC a few years ago, went back east for an MFA, and now lives and works in her Berkeley studio. McCabe’s vibrant paintings of psychological environments, in brilliant hues of orange, yellow and green, will be on exhibit at Togonon Gallery in San Francisco, starting June 5, 2008.

McCabe’s is a fictional world filled with the playful ephemera of everyday life, gleaned from childhood memories and tomorrow’s breakfast. Striking, lively and 100% California in spirit, this work produces adrenaline surges.

Daily Inventory: Paintings by Brigid McCabe. Reception - Thursday, June 5 5:30-8pm. Togonon Gallery - 77 Geary Street, SF (415).398-5572.

This Marvel Comix-based big screen adventure is not just for 15-year-old males. Brooding, smart, crisp, astonishing and edgy — that’s Iron Man, and its star Robert Downey Jr. who pretty much owns the screen from the scorching opening in war-torn Afghanistan to the final delightful shot. I repeat, Iron Man is a thinking woman’s gloss on at least three Greek myths, one or two Freudian complexes and the age-old battle between the forces of light and the forces of darkness.

Value-added for film buffs, Iron Man looks sensational, and serves up an orgy of visual quotes from Metropolis, Aliens, Gattaca, as well as reframing both the tale of Icarus and Plato’s myth of the cave.

As a Blakean flawed genius, Downey works his way into the short list of great American actors. (I know you’re thinking I have slipped a cog here. It’s a marvel Comix industrial design heavy metal flick — but Downey rockets Iron Man way out of the mere fantasy hormone genre.)

Muscular, graceful and charismatically weary, Downey (more…)

The Best Strawberries of the Season! Whatever we were eating before, whatever those other little red orbs were that people were trying to call “strawberries,” well - this is the real stuff!

At New Leaf, look for the little container of RMS Farms Organic Strawberries - from Watsonville, $2.99. The ones we’ve been eating all week are firm and sweet, with that top-note of tartness you want from a berry. They are totally intensely strawberry flavored. Just like the ones you had in your childhood. Amazing!

Don Yee’s Tea Cup — which was situated on the second floor above what it now Judi Wyant’s shop on Pacific Avenue — was the required after-work pit-stop during the cocktail years before 1989. The charmingly murky bar was attached to a Chinese restaurant, though no one actually remembers dining. Cocktails were the whole point (more…)