The tears in this piece are rough, fast, vertical, stacked close together; surfaces are shiny skins on flat fields of naked paper. The blue comes in from the top left, seeming to drip down in sinewy strands of indigo, cerulean and ultramarine—different blue colors: the tears sometimes bulge into tear-shaped strips, a little fuzzy in the edges as if abraded by a too-wide passing frenzy. There are radical divergences, but for the most part the direction is all down, down until stopped by that whisper of scarlet.

Trying to let the body tell that story of movement—those tears, and the strips, and the edges and the dripping down and the act of tearing and the act of holding onto the paper … that what I was invited to do as I joined artist Andrew Purchin in preparation for his upcoming residency in one of the Museum of Art & History’s new programs, “Makers at the MAH.”  Purchin is a painter of movement and an avid dancer.  When MAH Executive Director Nina Simon invited him to spend a day painting in the lobby as a way to connect art making with art viewing, Purchin devised a way to make it all flow.

Hart’s Fabric hosts a craft fair

They’re crafty, smart, savvy seamstresses. Meet the youthful trio that’s behind what will surely be a magnetic and rather spectacular upcoming event hosted by Hart’s Fabric—Craftacular Wonder Fair. They are: Megan Werdmuller von Elgg, Chelsea Gurnoe and Dana Harris, all Hart’s employees and part-time crafters. Decked out in handmade clothing, they meet up with me for a serious conversation about handmade goods and the upcoming Craftacular Wonder Fair that they are curating. The event will be held from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Sunday, Aug. 28 in the back parking lot of Hart’s. There, 17 local vendors will sell their wares—clothing, jewelry, knit projects, sewn goods, print pieces and paintings. For crafty types, it’s definitely going to be craftactular.

Do fashion-savvy moms dopplegang their daughters?
Mimicry is powerful—it activates neurons involved in perception and behavior. It strengthens bonds when babies light up to a parent’s smile. And according to consumer behavior research, it drives women to buy those too-tight jeans and ankle-breaking stilettos worn by fashion icons.

Yet unlike family and friends—who compliment, borrow and sometimes steal our favorite clothes—celebrity role models don’t mimic in return. In fact, the actors who grace best dressed lists probably wouldn’t say “hi” if they passed you on the street, much less “nice jeans, where did you get them?”

Diversity, expert touch is the key to its success
I can mend anything,” says Patricia Moore. She holds a small weaving into the light streaming through a door behind her. The weaving is old, from Thailand. Moore is the proprietress of Rivendell, a store and gallery that spills onto an artful patio in front of the Santa Cruz Art Center at 1001 Center St.  Her back door opens onto Squid Row, the colorful alley in Downtown Santa Cruz where, in the 164-year old Enterprise Iron Works building, Moore and her business partner, Wayne Brennan, established Rivendell more than 18 years ago.

Spread the word—GT has teamed up with *IMPACT (a local production company) and the Santa Cruz Film Festival to host Take One: A Screenwriting Competition.

The king of controversy, Gregg Gillis (a.k.a. Girl Talk), schools Cruzans on copyright law, sex onstage, and living a double life

Gregg Gillis is an awful lot like Clark Kent. Back when he first took on the alias, Girl Talk—long before he became one of the biggest (and most controversial) names in the electropop music scene—he was living a double life.

A mild-mannered biomedical engineering graduate student, Gillis went to school and later held a 9 to 5 job as an engineer. What his classmates and coworkers didn’t know, however, was that he was booking tours over the summer and during winter break, and later hopping on red-eye flights to Europe for the weekend to perform, then returning to reality Monday morning.

“By the time I got a job, I didn’t tell anyone about Girl Talk. It’s hard to explain. Most of the people I was working with were 10-15 years older than me. And I don’t really consider myself a DJ—I jump on top of people. So it never really came up,” says Gillis. “By the time I was getting booked all the time and wanted to bring it up, I couldn’t, because it would seem like I was a compulsive liar or something.”

The theater season ends with a spectacular version of ‘Henry IV, Part 1’
In an instant everything changes: the dusky convivial sounds of an expectant audience give way to the blare of trumpets and the martial din of running boots as a troop of young men pours onto the stage to circle it, stamping their wooden staffs with a shout. Enter the king.

Thus Shakespeare Santa Cruz and its audience join an unbroken line of four centuries to perform and hear the tale of a crown taken in rebellion, nearly lost in pride, then won in just battle; of a wastrel who becomes worthy of his noble heritage, and of a dazzling hothead who burns too bright.  Shakespeare’s most popular play during his lifetime, the story behind “Henry IV, Part 1” was as familiar to Elizabethans as the Kennedy story is to modern Americans.  But for today’s theatergoers, Shakespeare’s “History Plays” are burdened with obscure references whose significance eludes us.  As written, the opening scene of “Henry IV,” wherein the king and his confidants converse at length about incidents and characters we haven’t met and do not yet understand, threatens theatrical death upon arrival in the 21st century.

A legion of dark-haired, jeans-clad, slender teenaged people with attentive attitudes walked past me as I stood over the “Touch Table,” pulling apart and re-attaching objects using miter, dovetail and lap joints.

A few of the young visitors from Nigata, Japan, took my place around the “Touch Table” after I moved on, and, laughing, attached the objects in unintended ways. Meanwhile, I listened to a video of woodworker Michael Singer explaining his technique for joining irregular shapes while I perused a case of tools displayed below. An unfinished chair, a prototype by Om Anand, held a small sign explaining what a prototype is, challenging the viewer to find the finished chair and to notice the changes.

First Friday Art venues pair with local wineries for August Wine Walk
Art and wine. Has a nice ring to it, doesn't it? The folks at the First Friday Art Walk think so, too. To spice up this month's midsummer edition of the popular event (taking place this Friday, Aug. 5), FFAW joins forces with a slate of Santa Cruz vintners to present the August Wine Walk, where art patrons will be able to sample local wines at select FFAW venues around town.

It's a perfect blend, according to First Friday spokesman (and tireless local arts advocate) Chip. Citing our "extraordinary arts community and community of arts supporters," and our region's "unique ... winegrowers and wine enthusiasts," Chip calls the event "exciting in that it is pairing our great art venues with these amazing wineries."

As usual, you'll find work by local artists (painting, sculpture, photography, fabric, ceramics, woodworking), in a staggering variety of venues countywide—cafes, beauty salons, banks, shops and boutiques, from the Eastside to the Westside, Louden Nelson Center to Squid Row Alley, Pleasure Point to Davenport. Designated art galleries, like the Santa Cruz Art League, Felix Kulpa, MichaelAngelo, Artisans, and the Museum of Art & History also participate in the festivities. All venues are open to the public from 5 to 9 p.m., and admission to the Art Walk venues, as always, is free.In addition, this month, more than 20 local wineries will be pouring samples of their finest varieties at select Art Walk venues. The Wine Walk venues are concentrated downtown and on the Westside for easy pedestrian access. Free shuttle service will be available from The Santa Cruz Experience to ferry participants between the two neighborhoods.

Author Juliet Eilperin takes readers on a global journey into the hidden world of sharks
While interviewing commercial fishermen in New England, she heard the phrase that would become the title of her new book. “They referred to sharks as ‘demon fish,’” says Juliet Eilperin, speaking over the telephone from her office at The Washington Post, where she works as the national environmental reporter. “I thought it was an interesting commentary on how humans view sharks. It tapped into a human’s first reaction—although the book is trying to get beyond that first reaction.”

Eilperin’s book, “Demon Fish: Travels Through the Hidden World of Sharks,” does just that—it takes readers on a journey beyond their assumptions about this predator of the seas, circumnavigating the globe to illuminate humanity’s complex relationship with an animal that is at the same time both feared and revered.