Wild animals come to life in local artist Andrea Rich’s Japanese woodcuts

It all began with a blurry picture. When Andrea Rich was taking art classes at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater in the 1970s, one of her professors projected an unfocused slide of a Japanese woodcut print onto a screen. The only objects she could make out were fuzzy shapes and patterns. As her professor slowly brought the lens into focus and explained how the composition was intended to lead the viewer’s eyes around the design, the image sharpened into a picture of a geisha peering through a veil.

GT’s guide to the 2012 Open Studios Art Tour

For the first three weekends in October, hundreds of artists around Santa Cruz County will open their studio doors to anyone interested in viewing their artwork up close and get a behind-the-scenes look at their work spaces. The Open Studios Art Tour is self-guided, and can be plotted out according to each participant’s interests using a guide/calendar which can be purchased for $20 at locations throughout the county. To help you navigate the event, we've handpicked eight varied, must-see artists.

Burning Man fixture Dancetronauts takes audiences on wild dance odyssey

Last year at Burning Man, there was a moment when Philip Plastina and his team of Dancetronauts found themselves surrounded by a crowd of tens of thousands of people. “To look out and see that—all of the lights, and all of the faces, and our sound system that we built by hand pumping so hard, and looking at my whole entire crew—it was the most exhilarating feeling ever,” says Plastina.

Food blogger Luisa Weiss talks love and recipes in her debut book, ‘My Berlin Kitchen’

If it’s true that we are what we eat, then Luisa Weiss is probably somewhere between New England clam chowder and kohlrouladen, a German cabbage roll.

Having spent her childhood traveling back and forth between her father’s home in Boston, Mass. and her mother’s in Berlin, Germany, the celebrated food blogger always felt somewhat divided. That is, until she found solace in cooking. As she notes in her long-anticipated memoir, “My Berlin Kitchen: A Love Story (with Recipes),” “distance means nothing when your kitchen smells like home.”  

Locals raise money for new animal migration guide which integrates art and science

It’s easy to forget just how much goes on beneath the ocean’s surface, particularly in the Monterey Bay. Between breeding grounds and feeding grounds, a huge variety of sea creatures are traveling in and out of the bay depending on the time of year, almost like an underwater highway. The heavy traffic has much to do with the two-mile deep Monterey Canyon just off the coast, where sea life flourishes, and the protection of the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary.

Editor’s note: Siobhán Campbell is the author of numerous pamphlets and collections of poetry, including “The Permanent Wave” (1996), “The Cold that Burns” (2000), “That Water Speaks in Tongues” (2008), “Darwin Among the Machines” (2009), and “Cross-Talk” (2009), which explores Ireland in the aftermath of its turbulent peace process. Originally from Ireland, Campbell has lectured in the Master of Arts and Master of Fine Arts programs at Kingston University in London, England.

Queens struggle for power in JTC's ambitious 'Mary Stuart'

Two great divas from the local theater scene play two of the greatest divas in history in “Mary Stuart,” the inaugural offering of the Jewel Theatre Company's 2012-2013 season. This historical play dramatizes the conflict between Queen Elizabeth Tudor of England and her cousin, Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots, a volatile pair of queens brought to life con brio at Center Stage by JTC veterans Diana Torres Koss and Julie James.

UCSC professor dresses up the adobes of Old Monterey

For the second year in a row, UC Santa Cruz Professor Emerita Julianne Burton-Carvajal is curating Monterey’s Art in the Adobes Festival. The festival—which takes place on Thursday, Sept. 13 through Sunday, Sept. 16—offers visitors the opportunity to view dozens of rarely seen paintings in historic adobes not often accessible to the public.

“Most of what I’ve selected is not widely available for public viewing,” says Burton-Carvajal. “Much of it comes out of storage. Some of it is located in city offices or occasionally displayed at one of the museums.”

Local TV director leads 600-mile horseback mission

Television director Gwyneth Horder-Payton has temporarily traded in her director’s chair for a saddle. The Santa Cruz resident is currently leading six people on a 600-mile horseback ride from Sonoma to San Diego via California’s 22 Spanish and Native American Missions. Horder-Payton and her team will capture most of the trip on camera, and the resulting footage will eventually be molded into a documentary film.

Santa Cruz Writes fosters a literary community in Santa Cruz County

heir tagline is “Enhancing literary opportunities for Santa Cruz County writers.” And in the past year since Santa Cruz Writes first started, that’s exactly what the group has done.

After attending a writing conference in Washington, D.C. at the beginning of 2011, local writing colleagues Jory Post, Julia Chiapella and Karen Ackland were inspired to start a literary journal that would feature the works of Santa Cruz County writers. Their idea for an online literary magazine soon ballooned into a collaborative literary hub—complete with live readings, literary outreach in local schools, a poetry contest and community-based projects. This multifaceted hub is sheltered under the umbrella organization Santa Cruz Writes—with the online literary journal “phren-Z” (phren-z.org), launched in February of this year, as its main outlet.