Editor’s note: Juanita Brunk  grew up in Virginia. These poems are from her collection of poetry, “Brief Landing On The Earth’s Surface,” which was chosen by Philip Levine for a Brittiingham Prize.  She recently returned from a year in Asia with her teenage son and is back in New York City, where she has lived for many years.

ON THIS EARTH

To love my own, my body,

to know without saying, legs, you are good legs,

and feet and stomach and arms, good, and the spaces

under my arms, and the brown pigments

splashed across my back like tea leaves.

Santa Cruz’s brightest export, Sleepy Sun, is master of its own orbit

They shuffle in from who knows where, likely not from around here, arriving at a poorly-lit warehouse in the blighted neighborhood of West Oakland known as “Ghost Town.” Feathers and beads adorn their heads, earthen-toned overalls, Baja hoodies, and organic cotton dresses their bodies. As the sickly red light fades away and the fog machine hisses into action, it becomes apparent that they are not the only ones here: light from a digital projector is reflected from the lip piercings of a metalhead who towers near the front, a group of athletic-looking frat-row types jostle for position in the crowd, even a lone tattooed bicycle punk can be sighted, leaning against the filthy concrete walls. Suddenly, the thunderous, tom-heavy drum opener to Sleepy Sun’s “New Age” tears through the fog-heavy room, punctuated by bass, and there is a sense of certainty as to why all have gathered here. Singer Bret Constantino (perhaps the most outlandishly clad of all) steps up to the microphone and breathes rhythmically; the groove locks in, and markers of identity, concepts of place, and the rest of life’s trivialities become meaningless.

Two artists embrace the green movement during Encore Weekend of Open Studios

Just when you thought things couldn’t get any ‘greener,’ now we’ve got a ‘green’ Open Studios. As the countywide annual art offering kicks off its encore weekend, GT decided to take a look at two artists who are not only creating stellar art, but also doing so with a green consciousness. Meet a few of our ‘green’ female artists at this year’s Open Studios: There’s the 29-year-old painter Sarah Bianco, and the 45-year-old maker of functional art, Polly Goldman. The two women are changing the concept that creating art can be wasteful.

Bianco resides at The Tannery, the new live/work space studios and apartments off of River Street near downtown Santa Cruz. She’s one of the lucky ones who were able to snag an enviable piece of real estate. Keep in mind, though, that her pursuits to live at The Tannery were hard earned. Bianco and her husband camped out in a parking lot just to hand in their rental application. From there, the pieces fell together, and they were able to move in. They have a two-bedroom space where they live, and where Bianco creates her painting artwork, and the two also run their painting business, which offers house painting, faux indoor painting, and more.

A mother and three adult children prove that when it comes to art,
‘connection’ may be the best creative force of all

There are “artists,” and then there are Artists. The artists take themselves rather seriously and usually have fancy statements about their work (that sometimes are a little hard to decipher). The Artists are the ones who infuse some humor into the seriousness of being an artist.

On a fine day in September, I have the pleasure of meeting four of these Artists—a mother and her three adult children, all of whom are participating in this year’s Open Studios during the Oct. 10-11 weekend in South County. Meet the Heil family: There’s Betty, the 82-year-old mom, and Kris, her 50-something, son, then her two daughters, Judy Stabile and Wendy Aikin, also in their fifties. They’ve all shown up to their mother’s Spanish villa in the Pleasant Valley area, a stunning home, dotted with the work of many local artists. Spacious and airy, it provides great acoustics for the booming laughs of the Heil family. This is a crowd of jokesters, but underneath the comedy, they have a heart-warming story to tell about how they each became artists.

The Fourth Annual Freewheelin’ Farm Art Show invites you to feed your mind and body
Freewheelin’ Farm Art Show, Saturday, Oct. 24
In the early 2000s, when two locals named Amy Courtney and Cassandra Brown started a small farm five-and-a-half miles north of Santa Cruz on Highway 1, they were quick to embrace the CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) system, in which farmers regularly deliver produce to paying members. There was just one hitch: Courtney and Brown didn’t have any cars with which to make their deliveries. The solution to their dilemma came in the form of an old, trashed bicycle trailer, which they fixed up so as to begin biking their produce into town.

Today, that little patch of land on Highway 1 is known as Freewheelin’ Farm, and its overseers still make their deliveries by bike. “Something that isn’t talked about in agriculture that much is how our fruits and vegetables are moved around the country,” notes Kirstin Yogg, one of three co-owners of the farm. “Generally it’s in big trucks, and it’s using a lot of gas. So this is kind of our little stab at helping that problem in the world.”

Editor’s note: This week we feature the work of Lynn Levin. These poems are from her new collection of poems,
“Fair Creatures of an Hour,” published by Loonfeather Press

New performance space opens up in town
When Joan Van Antwerp was thinking about creating the second half of her life, she decided to enroll in a theater class at Cabrillo College. As a first-time thespian, she had no idea that her experience in this class would alter the direction of her life. And eventually, she would partner with local entrepreneur and theater aficionado Debbie Quigg to launch a theater arts space that has just opened, called The Mill Works Theatre.

This new space holds court at The Mill Gallery in downtown Santa Cruz, and is open every other Monday night as a works-in-progress venue where theatrical types can gather to put a short piece up on stage, try out a monologue, do a staged reading, and so on. The venue offers what can be hard to find around town—inexpensive performance space.

Lori Rivera wears Multiple Personality Disorder well in sizzling “Smoke”

Humans are multi-faceted creatures, ruled by diverse and often contradictory impulses. Each of us has a sweet side and a cruel side, a brave face and a cowardly face, a capacity for smoothness and sophistication as well as for clumsiness and gullibility.

As the star of the one-woman cabaret “Smoke,” local vocalist Lori Rivera is a living portrait of humanity’s composite nature. Throughout the show, she rapidly switches back and forth between two different characters: a passionate but somewhat guileless woman named Celeste, and a sensual older woman named Francesca, who mentors Celeste in the ways of love.

That’s the motto for a hip new cosmetology school in town
This is the first time I’ve ever owned a blow-dryer,” says Dafni Moon matter-of-factly. “I’m still learning how to use mascara.” In some ways, her lack of experience with primping, teasing, and spackling isn’t surprising; the 24-year-old Moon grew up here in Santa Cruz, a self-described “hippie girl” who didn’t have much interest in makeup. But what is a little surprising is Moon’s career choice: she’s just months away from testing for her cosmetology license, studying at the city’s newest and hippest beauty school, The Cosmo Factory. An afternoon talking with some of the Cosmo crew went a long way toward explaining the school’s motto: “This Ain’t Yer Mama’s Beauty School.”