Local neon artist Brian Coleman reveals his latest creations at the Felix Kulpa Gallery

Local abstract neon artist Brian Coleman creates colorful arcing, looping, cursive-shaped patterns from glass tubes filled with glowing gasses—xenon, krypton, subtle amounts of argon, and once in a while a pinch of Mercury for bright reds.

The results, he says, are other-worldly.

New performance art piece tackles turf wars in Santa Cruz history

In 2009, an altercation stemming from the utterance of the word “Westside” ended with a Santa Cruz youth slain. “It is clear that many factors and details surrounded this heinous crime, and yet there was a noticeable surge of conversation and debate on the topic of territorialism and the representation of turf,” says Eli Weinberg, a dancer/choreographer whose latest project was conceived as a response to that tragic event. “One of my goals with this work was to try to understand how, in a city of less than 60,000 residents, such clear demarcation of territory came to be and how the identification with one side or another managed to permeate so many sectors of the community.”

Cabrillo College jazz icon Ray Brown celebrates Stan Kenton’s centennial with a rare concert of Kenton arrangements

It was in the early 1970s that Cabrillo College music instructor Ray Brown—fresh off a stint in the U.S. Army’s touring jazz band during the Vietnam War—wound up playing fifth trumpet in the legendary Stan Kenton Orchestra, the last remnant of the so-called Big Band Era that forged a uniquely American sound in the years bookending the Second World War.

Local filmmaker/photographer Patrick Trefz crafts cinematic ‘Ode to California’

Patrick Trefz was born and raised halfway around the world in Düsseldorf, Germany, and since then has lived and traveled all over the planet, while fulfilling his life’s passion of documenting his globetrotting experiences.

Surf and ocean enthusiasts can get a glimpse of some of those experiences in his recently released book of photographs, entitled “Surfers’ Blood,” which is, in his own words, about “the kinship of surfers and their tradition and bond.”

UCSC professor presents stirring images of New Orleans pre-and post-Hurricane Katrina

UC Santa Cruz art professor Lewis Watts was preparing for a trip to New Orleans, La. for an Artist-in-Residency program when Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast in 2005. Determined to reach the city, the renowned photographer and archivist went to Memphis, Tenn., rented a car and drove 400 miles into New Orleans, which was only accessible by vehicle. He arrived six weeks after the storm passed through New Orleans and immediately began taking pictures of the damage and residents.

Editor’s note:  Dennis Nurkse is the author of numerous collections of poetry, including “The Rules of Paradise” (2001), “The Fall” (2003), and “The Border Kingdom” (2008). Nurkse lives in New York and has been named poet laureate of Brooklyn. In free-verse, lyric poems, Nurkse explores subjects both intimate and political: children, families, love, and the effects of war.  He has received a Whiting Writers’ Award, the Bess Hokin Prize from Poetry, grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, and a Tanne Foundation Award. He has taught at Sarah Lawrence College, the Stonecoast MFA Program in Creative Writing, and Rikers Island Correctional Facility.

GT gets a shot in the arm from Stephen Perkins of Jane’s Addiction

Imagine a chart like the ones you’ve seen depicting human evolution—only instead of a procession with a monkey in the back and a homo sapiens in the front, there is a line of late-20th-century musicians making the transition from glam metal to alternative rock.

If such a chart existed, Jane’s Addiction would be standing near the front of the line, just ahead of Guns N’ Roses. With counterculture anthems like “Mountain Song,” “Stop” and “Been Caught Stealing,” Jane’s gave ’80s audiences a raucous heads-up that heavy rock was shedding its big hair and walking upright toward a more organic ethos. Soon after, Nirvana and Red Hot Chili Peppers would release their breakthrough albums on the same day—Sept. 24, 1991—thus heralding the extinction of the wild-maned, leopard-skin-clad rock wielder of the ’80s.

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.