With doors wide open, Santa Cruz County artisans, ceramists, jewelers, painters and sculptors are welcoming the public back for some post-quarantine visual extravagance. After the virtual-only tour of 2020, this revival of the Open Studios concept is welcome indeed, both for creators and the inquiring public.
For decades, Open Studios Director Ann Ostermann has looked forward to October, and no more so than this year, with nearly 300 artist studios joining in the excitement.
“We’re so happy to be producing the tour again this year,” she told me. “So great to be back to an in-person event. Artists are so looking forward to welcoming the public and we’ve helped by supplying every artist with face masks, hand sanitizers and signage to keep themselves and their guests safe during the tour.”
The bright pantone green masks match Open Studios tour signs—a nice visual touch. “The majority of our participants are displaying their work outside, just to make sure the public feels comfortable and welcome,” says Ostermann. She also revealed that of the 295 participating artists and artisans, “there are 55 new first-timers joining us—our largest-ever freshman class. So there’s plenty to see!”
Printed guides to the tour are available at all GT pick-up spots, “and, of course, the public can just drive around and follow the bright green signs to various studio locations,” she says. There is also an Open Studios app available.
The director herself is one of the biggest fans of this annual art tour. “You get to meet the artists and see their new work. Open Studios takes you out and about in the beautiful fall weather. It’s my baby,” she admits. “I love doing it. They’ve got me for two more years.”
One of the artists who’s looking forward to meeting the public this month is perennial Open Studios player Hildy Bernstein, whose Westside studio on Mission Street Extension will showcase a provocative new suite of hybrid digital art and photography she calls “Identity Crisis.” “My new work, over 150 pieces, is completely influenced by the Covid quarantine,” she tells me.
Two years ago, I toured Bernstein’s studio full of satirical Trump multimedia pieces, regaled by her astute caricature skills. This year, her work is filled with the isolation and bewilderment of the recent quarantine. A phone selfie, which she altered through various digital coloring techniques, started it off.
“I am very excited to show my new work,” says the painter/visual journalist. “For years, I painted in a large warehouse studio, but after a year of sheltering in place, my art-making got started on my phone screen. This year’s Open Studios feels like an important moment of passage, coming out of isolation and honoring what we’ve all been through.” Like many artists, Bernstein sees this as “a big step after these very reclusive 18 months. And I’m ready!”
In addition to the popular art crawl’s many newcomers, some of the area’s outstanding veterans will open their doors to the public. Stephanie Martin will show her newest hand-colored flora and fauna etchings. Bridget Henry shows astonishing color woodcuts, and expect sensitive watercolors from John Flores and Marie Gabrielle, sumptuous clothing and accessory designs by Christina MacColl and jewelry by Fereshteh Fatemi and Ann Wasserman. I remember how exciting it was a few years back to visit Wasserman’s gleaming jewelry displays, and peek into her professionally equipped studio. So much behind-the-scenes precision instruments and techniques go into each handworked piece. Look for glass design from Heather Matthews and Peter Vizzusi, tile creations Kathleen Crocetti and travel paintings from polymath Joe Ortiz. And no Open Studio in Santa Cruz County is complete without fresh new paintings from Charles Prentiss. There are hundreds more studios to visit, offering a chance to meet the artists, learn about their process and purchase one-of-a-kind items.
Open Studios tours are Saturdays and Sundays, 11am-5pm. Many artists have additional safety measures in place—please respect their on site guidelines. North County tours are Oct. 9-10 (Felton, Ben Lomond, Brookdale, Boulder Creek, Bonny Doon, Scotts Valley, Davenport and the city of Santa Cruz). All County tours are Oct. 16-17. santacruzopenstudios.com.
Devendra Banhart’s 2021 release Refuge should come with a warning similar to the advice on some medication labels: May cause drowsiness; don’t operate heavy machinery while listening. The bearded singer-songwriter says there’s no greater compliment than hearing that the record put someone to sleep.
“If you fall asleep, we did our job,” Banhart says earnestly.
Refuge is unlike the bounty of multicultural, freak-folk singalongs on his previous 10 LPs. Banhart has swapped out the childlike whimsy and trademark coloring-outside-the-lines for a taut, utilitarian and deliberate approach—more Sleepytime chamomile tea with a Brian Eno angel on the shoulder than ayahuasca-fused, Donovan-soaked parades down Rio de Janeiro streets.
The pandemic informed the collection of new age/ambient instrumentals. Banhart says he and longtime collaborator/producer/multi-instrumentalist Noah Georgeson were inspired to “create a very nostalgic and sentimental and familial space.” Refuge is the result.
“Noah and I came from families of devoted spiritual practitioners with very strong contemplative practices,” Banhart says. “There’s a musical side to that that we were turned on to as kids. It meant a lot of Indian music and ambient and new age—the music of our childhood and the music that we turned to, particularly during the pandemic, to create somewhat of a calming feeling. We’ve all been dealing with so much anxiety, so falling asleep is the highest compliment you can give us. Music that you hear and you can immediately forget; what a huge compliment.”
Like Eno’s Music for Airports series, self-described compositions aimed to induce calm and intentionally written to be “as ignorable as it is interesting,” Refuge fits into the same new age subgenre: environmental ambient music. Like Music for Airports, which made its way into New York’s LaGuardia and other airports throughout the ’80s, Refuge was installed at Getty Center’s Central Garden in Los Angeles. The record—streamed through a custom sound system placed throughout circular pathways—looped continuously for a weekend last August. Museum guests were encouraged to “relax on the lawns with a picnic, grab a bench or wander among the blooming garden beds as the sonic vibrations clear the air for a new era.”
Though the journey has been arduous, Banhart has come to terms with arriving in a “new era”; he accepts that the world will never be the same.
“There’s tremendous mourning in that,” he says. “There’s also something very inspiring and beautiful about that.”
Throughout Banhart’s 20-year career, he always seems to manage to find a muse, even if it exists somewhere inside himself. As a result, he’s been one of the more consistently prolific freak folksters out there: He’s already using his newfound outlook on the world as the leaping-off point for another record that he’s co-producing with Welsh talent Cate Le Bon.
Banhart’s creative pulse extends beyond music. He always has something colorful baking in his back pocket, whether it’s a “small book of poems” or fine art. Last February, his first solo art exhibition, “The Grief I Have Caused You,” debuted at L.A.’s Nicodim Gallery.
The collection of non-linear paintings and drawings combine suffering and humor, like a sad clown who tickles your heart. Many of the surreal works feature floating body parts, playfully planted with quick brushstrokes, sometimes using as much blank canvas as filled space—you have to squint a bit to make out what you’re looking at; there are lots of penises.
“Those dicks all over the place—I get that it’s funny and juvenile, but I’m trying to balance the scales a little bit,” Banhart says. “If you go to any museum on this planet, 80% [of the art] features naked women. There are some dicks, but it’s crazy how misogyny is right there in our faces in these amazing spaces commemorating the highest achievements of humankind. So, I thought, ‘Let’s have some more penises in there.’”
Banhart approaches his fine art with a philosophy closely related to the inspiration behind Refuge.
“When I first started making art, it was all about being me as much as possible,” he explains. “Over time, I’ve realized that it’s really about being less and less me or my ambitions. I tried to get out of the way to create something honest—something that isn’t about me and something that resonates. But it’s also a paradox: being there and not being there at the same time, and not taking myself so seriously.”
Banhart seamlessly navigates back to music. He and his band have only performed one show, just a few weeks ago, since the pandemic, so he’s chomping at the bit to get out there and play live shows. As far as Banhart is concerned, his upcoming jaunt, which consists of a mere four shows, including stops in Big Sur, Sonoma, Grass Valley and Santa Cruz’s Rio Theatre, might as well be an international stadium tour.
“It feels like the biggest tour we’ve ever done because we’re so excited to play,” Banhart says. “I’ve had this core band for a long time, and we all love each other, and we all communicate really well on stage—I’m not sure if what we communicate is any good, but we’ve worked on our ability to communicate [on stage]. We’ve been doing it so long that [the music] is very fluid.”
During the extended, Covid-induced hiatus, Banhart and his bandmates—Jeremy Harris (synth), Nicole Lawrence (guitar, pedal steel), Greg Rogove (drums)—realized that they had missed connecting with audiences and experiencing the different ways songs unravel live.
“I’m looking forward to these four shows in a way that I have never looked forward to any show,” Banhart says. “It doesn’t hurt that [the shows] are in some of our favorite places. I know it sounds naïve, but hopefully, from here, there’s only going forward, trying to create a better world.”
Big Live Week
Also this week at the Rio is the Chicago-based duo Whitney, formed by Smith Westerns’ guitarist Max Kakacek and Unknown Mortal Orchestra drummer Julien Ehrlich. Since 2014, the pair has delivered frank folk-rock focused on the human experience—falling in love, falling out of love, depression. Whitney’s 2020 album Candid, an impressive all-covers record, takes on the work of everyone from widely unknown singer-songwriter Blaze Foley to ’90s R&B trio SWV.
Genre-bending singer-songwriter Cass McCombs and his band close the week with a show at Moe’s. McCombs’ powerful post-punk gem “Sleeping Volcanoes,” off his 2019 Tip of the Sphere, is a composite of expert phrasing, subtle effects and quiet existentialism.
“[‘Sleeping Volcanoes’ is about] people passing each other on the sidewalk, unaware of the emotional volatility they are brushing past, like a sleeping volcano that could erupt at any moment,” McCombs says.
We can all relate.
Whitney with Renée Reed plays Tuesday, Oct. 12, at the Rio Theatre, 1205 Soquel Ave., Santa Cruz. 8pm; $28. Devendra Banhart with Cate Le Bon plays Thursday, Oct. 14, at the Rio. 8pm; $35-$40. Proof of vaccination or negative Covid test (taken within 72 hours) required. riotheatre.com. Cass McCombs Band with Farmer Dave and The Wizards of the West plays Friday, Oct. 15, at Moe’s Alley, 1535 Commercial Way, Santa Cruz. 9pm; $25-$28. Proof of vaccination or negative Covid test (taken within 48 hours) required. folkyeah.com.
A letter to the Good Timeslast week hit on common themes in so-called progressive views–basically, why are we building all of these new housing units when they “don’t benefit the current residents of Santa Cruz?” I’d say that’s true if you already own your home here and don’t mind if your children can’t afford to live here, or your health providers—or kids’ teachers, or city and private sector employees who provide you with services—can’t find housing closer than a two-hour-a-day commute, or if you are one of those “current residents” who works 40 hours a week and still lives in a tent.
It’s not just greedy “developers and real estate interests” that benefit from new housing, both affordable and market rate, but all of us who live in this community. Let’s all agree that we should maximize the percentage of affordable housing in these projects, but I’m a little tired of the privileged few fighting every housing project here, affordable or not.
And with respect to water issues, it is a material and demonstrable fact that the contribution of new housing to our water shortage is relatively minimal. We would have water shortages that require new sources and periodic restricted use until they are developed even if we had no new housing being built. Some of us here like gardens and don’t enjoy watching our fruit trees die. Conservation alone will not produce the amount of water that we need for the current population. And sometimes small water-rate subsidies for business are necessary if you want to have a tax base that pays for your public safety, public works, and parks and recreation services.
Finally, with respect to campaign funding, when you get beat 2-1 as in the Council recall, it is not just a function of funding. It’s an indication that your side of an issue was just not very popular with local voters. This community has beaten back initiatives where we were outspent 10-1.
Mike Rotkin
Santa Cruz
This letter does not necessarily reflect the views of Good Times.To submit a letter to the editor of Good Times: Letters should be originals—not copies of letters sent to other publications. Please include your name and email address to help us verify your submission (email address will not be published). Please be brief. Letters may be edited for length, clarity and to correct factual inaccuracies known to us. Send letters to le*****@go*******.sc.
Re: “Hell and Back” (GT, 9/29): The book group of which I am part read The Sun Does Shine for our pick last month, and we were all blown away. I had suggested it after hearing a remarkable talk by Lara Love Hardin about her experience as a collaborative writer, and in particular her amazing time with Anthony Ray Hinton to help write his story.
I also had some contact with Ms. Hardin around this, asking if she might be able to drop into our online discussion of the book for a bit. I expressed that I knew she was quite busy with far bigger fish to fry than a hometown book group, and had zero expectations. Although she did not know me at all (and we couldn’t work out the timing), she was beyond kind in trying to make it happen with her ultra-busy, star-powered schedule!
I wish her every success in her future endeavors.
Elizabeth Good
Aptos
This letter does not necessarily reflect the views of Good Times.To submit a letter to the editor of Good Times: Letters should be originals—not copies of letters sent to other publications. Please include your name and email address to help us verify your submission (email address will not be published). Please be brief. Letters may be edited for length, clarity and to correct factual inaccuracies known to us. Send letters to le*****@go*******.sc.
I always know Liza Monroy will find a way to throw herself headfirst into a story, and for that reason I’d happily assign her a cover story on Capitola’s Women on Waves contest even if the unique local event hadn’t just earned itself a huge new level of global visibility thanks to going virtual last year. Now that it’s back to a live event, WOW is at a bit of a crossroads—can it export its quirky, celebratory and inclusion-focused wahine vibe to the grumpy, male-dominated world of surfing? I certainly hope so. It’s a Santa Cruz export we can all be proud of.
So yes, it does turn out that there’s a lot to talk about when it comes to the event itself. And yet for me, the heart of this piece is still Monroy’s up-for-anything approach to the subject. A diehard surfing non-competer, she signs up for this contest reluctantly, to say the least. But it’s only in doing so, I think, that she can really come to understand—and explain to us—the true essence of WOW, and why it attracts so many women looking to find their own place in the pursuit of surfing.
Many teachers are flat out exhausted. Every year they are asked to do more, learn more technology, reach out to more students who are behind, take on more students with special needs. And of course never a thank you or respect, just people whining how teachers are showing little regard for students, are selfish, are lazy, etc. It is dispiriting.
— Alondra
RE: DOWNTOWN DEVELOPMENT
Although I prefer a free-standing library, why not build a new library with several stories of housing above on the existing library site, part of our Civic Center? The housing could help bridge the funding gap (Measure S money is not enough, even for the library under a garage.). That would save Lot 4 (and the heritage trees) to be the permanent home of the Farmers’ Market as well as public open space for community events. Eliminate the unnecessary garage. Wouldn’t that satisfy everyone?
— Judi Gunstra
PHOTO CONTEST WINNER
Submit to ph****@go*******.sc. Include information (location, etc.) and your name. Photos may be cropped. Preferably, photos should be 4 inches by 4 inches and minimum 250dpi.
GOOD IDEA
OOKY, SPOOKY, ECO-Y
October is the month for all things spooky, scary and … environmentally friendly?
That’s right, Biketober is back again to reward you for your bike rides to work, the beach and everywhere in between. The more miles you bike, the more points you can earn to win prizes like a $100 gift card for bike shops, or the $1000 grand prize. There are also opportunities to sign up for various workshops, like biking safety.
Santa Cruz County Health Director Mimi Hall and Officer Gail Newel are recipients of the Pen America Courage Award, which recognizes acts of courage through freedom of expression. Hall and Newel have been outspoken about the threats they received as they navigated Covid-19 health mandates. They were even advised not to walk alone in public. Under their watch, the county has some of the lowest Covid-19 case rates and one of the smallest equity gaps in vaccine distribution.
QUOTE OF THE WEEK
“Courage doesn’t mean you don’t get afraid. Courage means you don’t let fear stop you.”
As a 40-something mother of two who didn’t start surfing until 33—pretty much as far from a pro as one can be—I cannot believe I’ve entered a contest. I’m noncompetitive by nature, reliably intermediate at best in all of my recreational pursuits. But in signing up, I’m now part of the inclusive, celebratory reach of Women and Waves (WOW).
A day for women who range from novice to expert, 5 years old to elders, Women on Waves returns to Capitola on Saturday, Oct. 9, following the unforeseen global-scale success that came with going virtual last year.
The event, presented by long-term sponsor Play Bigger, is both a celebration of waterwomen and a fundraiser around the theme of ocean conservation. Last year’s virtual WOW, themed “Sea Beauty,” was centered on representation, inclusion, and diversity in surfing. Funds raised were channeled into organizations such as Brown Girl Surf and Black Girls Surf. Continuing in this vein, 2021’s “Sea Kindness” environmental focus benefits Groundswell, a nonprofit devoted to coastal restoration. Groundswell’s efforts improve coastal habitat by “providing a home for native birds, insects and other wildlife,” says Restoration Ecologist and Program Director Allison Wickland.
Aylana Zanville is one of the co-organizers who suddenly find Women on Waves with a global following. PHOTO: COURTESY OF AYLANA ZANVILLE
Contest With a Purpose
As WOW co-organizer, web and graphic designer and activist Marisol Godinez puts it, “Women on Waves was originally to empower women. Now we are in power, we have voices. We want to use them to deliver these different messages—underserved youth, diversity, ocean conservation. The event is evolving and morphing into something we haven’t seen.”
Godinez sees WOW as a platform to amplify different messages on work that still needs to be done in the areas of social and environmental justice. “[Women on Waves] was a surf contest. Now it’s a surf contest with a purpose,” she says.
The competitive aspect of Women on Waves is secondary to celebrating and uplifting waterwomen, raising money for crucial causes, and making a positive impact on both the community and a global scale.
“It’s been a very important message the last couple of years,” Godinez says. “Where is the money going? Why are you doing this? It’s about female empowerment, but also helping.”
Groundswell’s Director Bill Henry appreciates the support that will be channeled into community-based coastal restoration projects. “What WOW will help do is support supplies that enable project leaders to impart more positive change on the coastal landscape,” he says. “The work we do is focused on nature and people together, knowing we all do better when surrounded by high biodiversity and healthy ecosystems. That’s core to our mission, trying to work in these places that people also interact with, integrating ecology into the everyday.” It’s perfectly aligned with WOW’s own mission, as participation in the surf contest will directly benefit the environment surfers so enjoy and rely on.
Going International
On a recent sunny Saturday late-afternoon, the team of WOW co-organizers Godinez; Aylana Zanville, purveyor of the women’s surf-swimwear line Ola Chica; Corey Grace, an environmental consultant; and the newest member of the leadership group, Nina Kelly, who has competed as a professional surfer, are gathered in the airy front room of Grace’s Eastside home, assembling what has come to be known as “WOW Kits”—totes, shirts, stickers and various surf paraphernalia with elegant designs by Godinez, which are shipped to virtual participants the world over. Last year, when Covid restrictions meant an in-person event would have been irresponsible, impossible or both, the team shifted WOW to a virtual event that took place on social media to raise awareness for the importance of diversity and inclusion in ocean spaces. They shipped hundreds of kits around the globe, including over 30 orders to Australia. The “winners” of WOW 2020—essentially a photo contest/celebration—were a Florida-based group, the Miami Water Women Collective, who had spelled out WOW with their surfboards in an aerial photo of their diverse array of members. Women from all over the U.S., England, South Africa and many other nations participated, resulting in an array of faces from all over the globe supporting diversity and enjoying water sports on the hashtags #surfingfordiversity, #seabeauty and #womenonwavessurfingday2020.
Last year’s necessary virtual move added an element that would never have been conceived of in the “before times”—remote participation. “We have this whole international community we can reach with this year’s theme of ocean conservation,” says Grace, who Zanville brought onto the WOW leadership committee in 2018. “It’s how we can deliver that same message outside of Santa Cruz and expand our reach.”
Now that the contest is returning in person, the digital element is being carried over for Women on Waves: Sea Kindness. The organizers have so far received over 70 international orders for WOW kits, in addition to the over 170 women who are participating in Capitola’s surf and open-swim events. “We would never have thought about doing this if it hadn’t been for last year’s re-envisioned event,” Zanville says.
A long-term goal of the WOW leaders is to inspire other iterations of the in-person contest around the world. Organizers in different cities and countries could utilize the theme and materials developed by the Santa Cruz WOW team to make Women on Waves an in-person event internationally.
I participated in last year’s Women on Waves as part of a small group of supportive women who paddled out together and caught many party waves at a friendly spot on the Eastside. Had it been a “regular” contest, I would have shied away, citing lack of impressive skill. (Little did I know, at the time, that there’s a novice division for that!) However, because WOW was in support of diversity and inclusion, and judgment-free, I signed up, and by the end of the day was so gleeful that I resolved to do the “live” Women on Waves when it was safe to return.
Many surfers and non-surfers alike will participate in the open-water swim portion of WOW. “Last night I swam in the moonlight in the Irish sea,” longtime WOW participant Tamara McKinnon tells me from Ireland. With a group of women of all ages, McKinnon swam “past the end of the pier, laughing, complaining about the cold, admiring the reflection of the moon on the sea. My journey to celebrating my 60th birthday sea swimming in Ireland began with Women on Waves over 20 years ago.” McKinnon participated in the novice division and surprised herself with “how competitively I approached the event. All you need do is watch the event to see women pushing themselves to their highest level of competition.”
This year, McKinnon will compete in the open-water swim for the first time. “I have added a new group of amazing women to my community. From the masters swim group led by Monterey Bay-crossing swimmer Kim Rutherford to the women here in Ireland who are committed to their daily ‘sea dip,’ my life has been changed in ways that I never could have dreamed, due in large part to the WOW community.”
Multi-year participant Niko Takaoka, who has “always placed” in the competition, per Godinez, is thrilled for the contest’s return. “Where else can you participate in a fun but competitive event and win a trophy and not feel bad about losing?” Takaoka says. “The fact that it raises money for our community and charities is an even better reason to participate. Not to mention, Capitola is so beautiful and usually has fun but gentle waves. I can’t wait!”
But Takaoka wasn’t always a confident surfer. WOW had an integral role in her evolution as a waterwoman. “I started surfing later in life, and it was really intimidating at first,” she says. She entered her first WOW with low expectations and was even “a little scared.” (I could relate.) Ultimately the contest made Takaoka not only more comfortable in the water and with competitions, but helped create lifelong friendships. “It was such an amazing event that helped all of us get acquainted with each other,” she says.
Co-organizer Marisol Godinez says Women on Waves can leverage its power for positive change both inside the world of surfing and beyond. PHOTO: TARMO HANNULA
Wavy Herstory
Within weeks of registration opening, every category sold out save for the Menehunes (ages 5-9 noncompetitive surfers who can get pushed into waves) and the half- and full-mile open water swims. There’s ample stoke amongst the ladies of the waves to get back out in person to celebrate women in water.
It’s been a long time in the making, with the pandemic only the most recent in a series of struggles to get to this point.While WOW’s reach is expanding well beyond Santa Cruz to convey important messages and fund high-stakes causes, the all-volunteer team that makes this event happen is evolving, too.
The grassroots celebratory contest supporting the advancement of women in surfing that ultimately became what Women on Waves is today began in 1996. Sally Smith-Weymouth, then owner of Paradise Surf Shop, the first all-female surf shop in the area (now an online store), got involved a couple of years after WOW’s inception because she was a member of the West Wind Surf Club, which had been involved in starting it up.
“It was a bunch of guys, all guys, that started the club in the ’60s in Capitola,” she says.
And surfing was indeed a boys’ club at the time—just look at the surf-history photos around town for proof. The great irony in the history of Women on Waves is that it was founded by a man. “The person instrumental in starting WOW was Barry Hamby,” Smith-Weymouth says. “Barry really wanted to have this showcase of women’s longboard surfing talent in Santa Cruz. Longboard contests were male-centric … the Santa Cruz Longboard Union and the Big Stick Surfing Association, women were part of contests but it was really focused on guys for the good timing, good waves. Barry thought Capitola would be a great venue because it’s not a very intimidating wave, it could have novice surfers. Any woman in Santa Cruz could come surfing, whether they were really good at longboarding or newer.”
Along with Hamby was a key female founding member, Zeuf Hesson, who did the Girl in the Curl Wave Report on KPIG radio. “She was instrumental in getting it into the public sphere,” says Smith-Weymouth.
Both Hamby and Hesson have since passed away, but their legacies live on in the evolution of WOW, which returned after a few years suffering the impact of Hamby and Hesson’s loss. “In 2006 nobody was stepping up to run the event,” Smith-Weymouth explains. “Barry had passed away, he wasn’t there to motivate the guys, they stopped holding regular meetings. The stoke for the event was there but nobody wanted to step up and run it, so I said, ‘I’ll do it.’ I did it on my own at that point. I ended up calling all the people who had been judges and tabulators and getting them to do it again. That’s when I met Marisol Godinez. Her Mermaid series triathlons took over and she and her partner ran it. We pulled together a group of volunteers from West Wind who were still up for doing the organization aspect of the event. In 2015, we did that. After that I told Marisol, ‘I can’t do it anymore. Find someone to help run it.’”
That was when Zanville “stepped up and ran the whole thing” in 2018. “I showed up as a sponsor with a booth. She and Marisol worked together and put on a great event. Aylana was super excited about it, she’s got the energy, she and Marisol meshed and have carried it on.”
Zanville brought Grace onboard and then this year, Kelly. Zanville met the WOW team’s newest member through the Santa Cruz Longboard Union, the same club that has been around since the ‘60s, now with more female representation and presence.
As is clear from these four strong women spearheading it all, giving days, weeks, and months of their time despite busy careers, families and obligations to not just make the event happen, but make it global and make it mean something more than a one-day contest—the current incarnation of WOW is thriving.
Progressive Surfing
Women on Waves has grown beyond a one-day event in many ways, and it’s making waves in the Santa Cruz surf community. This past summer, Zanville created bright red-and-pink “WOW bracelets” to wear out in the lineup along with a surf event to launch the trend-with-a-purpose. This purpose ties in with WOW’s inclusive theme: wearing a bracelet is meant to show you are a safe person in the water, a friendly ally, so others can paddle over and say hi, make friends, create community. Another side to the bracelets is to do something about the sad reality of harassment and misogyny in surf lineups—a bracelet-wearer can be counted on for women experiencing negativity or harassment, someone to paddle over to for safety and help in getting out of any such situation. The bracelets, a solution to creating camaraderie where doubt would have previously existed, are beginning to appear on women in the waves. Some wear multiple bracelets at a time, handing them out to other women they meet while surfing.
On another recent dawn patrol weekend morning, bracelets peppered the lineup with bright, colorful flashes as wrists speed-blurred by. Probably not coincidentally, nearly the entire lineup for over an hour was also nearly entirely comprised of Dawn Patrol surfboards.
It wouldn’t be a spontaneous bracelet morning without Carl Gooding, a home/garage-based shaper in the area, who recalls his eldest daughter Anna surfing in Women on Waves as one of the ways he connected with Godinez, whose artistic custom boards he shapes. “They asked if I’d make a board [for WOW],” he says. Dawn Patrol has contributed a longboard annually to raffle off at the contest since 2015.
“This is me paying it back and paying it forward,” he says, as we switch boards in the lineup so that I can try out a green longboard he recently shaped. “Surfing has given me a lot and [shaping a board for Women on Waves] is me giving back.”
Smith-Weymouth, who was instrumental in starting WOW, sees how all the hard work of volunteers, sponsors and other allies over many years is starting to pay off. “I’m seeing younger women doing exactly what I’ve wanted to do, and at that point in time didn’t have the energy to put into it,” she says. “They’re doing it. It’s fantastic. I had a feeling of letting down the community when I left the business, then coming back to various surf contests around town, meeting fantastic women who are into promoting women’s surfing, getting brown and black girls into the water, doing the things I wanted to, that evolved anyway. We planted the seed in getting focused on women in the water and shops that carry women’s wetsuits, catering to women that were more than just having girls’ stuff in a corner in the back. Not only are we focusing on women in the water, but diversity and inclusion as well. I feel good about the stuff we did in the late ’90s and early 2000s, that it’s come this far.”
Now that this year’s big day is coming up fast, I’m excited but nervous, just as Takaoka said she felt when she first started doing WOW. I have been “training” between first-grade and preschool drop-offs, work, pickups, and the second shift of parenting as the sun goes down, driving to Capitola for dawn patrols and at odd hours with the blue-and-yellow noserider Gooding’s daughter lent me for the contest strapped atop my Mini Cooper. I decided to take the competition seriously, because I tend to shrug things off to stave away the notion of failure. But at Women on Waves, as I’ve learned from hearing these stories and telling them, failure is an impossibility.
When Laura Marcus, the CEO of Dientes, pitched the idea to invest $50 into the college savings accounts of every child who visits the dentist, she knew it would be a hard sell for board members.
“This is very outside of our wheelhouse,” Marcus says. “We have very little to do with education, so why would we invest this kind of money?”
But the more she learned about Semillitas, the program that aims to open up a college savings account for every newborn in Santa Cruz County, the more Marcus realized this partnership could be mutually beneficial.
“I think it links in so clearly to our goals of making prevention more common than treatment,” Marcus says.
As part of their recently announced alliance, Dientes—a nonprofit that helps make dental services accessible to low-income patients—will deposit money into children’s Semillitas savings account on a quarterly basis for oral milestones, like a child’s first tooth, or birthday dental visits. It will also give money for annual visits (for children ages 2 to 5), and sealant visits (for children age 6). In total, Dientes will deposit up to $200 to a child’s Semillitas account.
“Semillitas is giving parents in Santa Cruz County the opportunity to begin investing in their children’s health, education, and future from the day they are born, and we are thrilled to be a partner in this innovative program and provide incentives for preventative dental care along the way,” Marcus says.
Semillitas (or “little seeds” in English) aims to provide every child in Santa Cruz County born after December 2020 with $500 in a college savings account by the time they enter kindergarten. The money collected in these savings accounts can be used for costs related to four-year colleges, but students can also use the funds collected for trade schools and junior colleges.
Around the country, cities and states are offering similar college savings programs to their residents. But Santa Cruz County is implementing a rarer model that will automatically open up a savings account for every child at birth, regardless of the family’s economic background. It’s only the second college savings program in California that starts at birth—the other being in Oakland—and the only one that will provide an account for every newborn.
The county’s program is modeled after SEED for Oklahoma Kids (SEED OK) in Oklahoma, where college savings accounts are opened for every newborn. The results of SEED OK are being studied and updated every year, but already reports are finding a shift in behavioral attitudes.
The fact that children have a college savings account is more important than the amount in it. Studies show that children who have anywhere between $1 and $500 in a college savings account are between three and four times more likely to pursue higher education. And just having these accounts improves children’s social-emotional development and mental health.
These positive impacts extend to the family: in-depth interviews and survey data report that just having these accounts encourages mothers to have higher educational expectations, more positive parenting practices and fewer depressive symptoms.
It’s children and families from disadvantaged backgrounds that are documented to have the greatest positive impacts from these types of accounts. So in a county where nearly 50% of children are born into families that have Medi-Cal or are considered low income, this has the potential to significantly change the trajectory of local families, says Maria Cadenas, executive director at Santa Cruz Community Ventures, which first pushed the county to consider implementing this type of program in 2019.
“This type of program helps ensure that our communities have a sense of belonging regardless of their household income, that our children have a sense of a future, regardless of where their parents may be,” says Cadenas.
In lower-income households, money will go to the most pressing and essential needs first, says Cadenas. But as the labor market grows more competitive, it’s essential that lower-income children have access to higher education opportunities if the county wants to address the racial wealth gap that persists across generations, she says.
Post-secondary education is becoming increasingly essential, especially for higher-paying jobs. If current trends continue, nearly half of all jobs in California will require a bachelor’s degree by 2030.
Meanwhile, industries typically accessible to individuals with lower education are shrinking. Even before the pandemic, lower-earning industries in Santa Cruz County such as agriculture and farming industries were either stagnant or declining. At the same time, mid-earning industries that typically require higher education, like healthcare and education and the technology sector, were expanding.
For a county with a large agricultural worker population, Cadenas hopes a Semillitas account will open more opportunities for children who see a different future for themselves. It’s a small step toward breaking into a different wealth bracket.
Cadenas, a first-generation college student herself, knows first-hand the impact of even discussing college as a viable opportunity.
“For me, personally, the first time I thought about college was when somebody asked me about it in middle school. It wasn’t even in my realm of possibility,” Cadenas says. “And what we’re doing right now is making sure that it’s a realm of possibility for every child, and for every parent to know that it’s a realm of possibility for their child.”
Cadenas has witnessed the impact of the savings accounts already, even theoretically.
In initial discussions about the program’s format, Cadenas met with local families from varying backgrounds and socioeconomic statuses. Cadenas shared an encounter that left a lasting impression on her, about a young mother who had brought her baby to the meeting.
“A mom was holding her daughter, and she looked down at her daughter, and she said, ‘You don’t have to be like me, you’re going to college,’” Cadenas says, her voice cracking with emotion.
It’s these types of stories that the Semillitas board members kept repeating, stories of families feeling hope for their children’s future. And it’s a hope that Semillitas is founded on: that simply having a college savings account signals to children that someone believes in their potential, and this will plant a small seed of hope for their future.
“We say from birth, you’re not alone in this, and we’ll walk with you in this and we’re committed to you and your success,” Cadenas says. “It opens the possibility of choice.”
Every child born after December 2020 is qualified for collecting money via their Semillitas college savings account. Find out more at www.semillitas.org.
ARIES (March 21-April 19): Aries poet Anna Kamieńska said her soul didn’t emanate light. It was filled with “bright darkness.” I suspect that description may apply to you in the coming weeks. Bright darkness will be one of your primary qualities. And that’s a good thing! You may not be a beacon of shiny cheer, but you will illuminate the shadows and secrets. You will bring deeper awareness to hidden agendas and sins of omission. You will see, and help others to see, what has been missing in situations that lack transparency. Congratulations in advance!
TAURUS (April 20-May 20): “There is something truly restorative, finally comforting, in coming to the end of an illusion—a false hope.” So declared author Sue Miller, and now I’m sharing it with you, Taurus—just in time for the end of at least one of your illusions. (Could be two, even three.) I hope your misconceptions or misaligned fantasies will serve you well as they decay and dissolve. I trust they will be excellent fertilizer, helping you grow inspired visions that guide your future success. My prediction: You will soon know more about what isn’t real, which will boost your ability to evaluate what is real.
GEMINI (May 21-June 20): Afghan-American novelist Khaled Hosseini writes, “People mostly have it backward. They think they live by what they want. But really what guides them is what they’re afraid of—what they don’t want.” Is that true for you, Gemini? The coming weeks will be an excellent time to meditate on that question. And if you find you’re motivated to live your life more out of fear than out of love, I urge you to take strenuous action to change that situation! Make sure love is at least 51 percent and fear no more than 49 percent. I believe you can do much better than that, though. Aim for 75 percent love!
CANCER (June 21-July 22): “Sometimes dreams are wiser than waking.” Oglala Lakota medicine man Black Elk said that, and now I’m passing it on to you. It’s not always the case that dreams are wiser than waking, of course, but I suspect they will be for you in the coming weeks. The adventures you experience while you’re sleeping could provide crucial clues to inform your waking-life decisions. They should help you tune into resources and influences that will guide you during the coming months. And now I will make a bold prediction: that your dreams will change your brain chemistry in ways that enable you to see truths that until now have been invisible or unavailable. (PS: I encourage you to also be alert for intriguing insights and fantasies that well up when you’re tired or lounging around.)
LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): “Don’t hope more than you’re willing to work,” advises author Rita Mae Brown. So let me ask you, Leo: How hard are you willing to work to make your dreams come true, create your ideal life, and become the person you’d love to be? When you answer that question honestly, you’ll know exactly how much hope you have earned the right to foster. I’m pleased to inform you that the coming weeks will be a favorable time to upgrade your commitment to the work and therefore deepen your right to hope.
VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): “To be truly visionary, we have to root our imagination in our concrete reality while simultaneously imagining possibilities beyond that reality.” This shrewd advice comes from author bell hooks (who doesn’t capitalize her name). I think it should be at the heart of your process in the coming days. Why? Because you now have an extraordinary potential to dream up creative innovations that acknowledge your limitations but also transcend those limitations. You have extra power available to harness your fantasies and instigate practical changes.
LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): “Some people are crazy drunk on rotgut sobriety,” wrote aphorist Daniel Liebert. I trust you’re not one of them. But if you are, I beg you to change your habits during the next three weeks. According to my reading of the astrological omens, you have a heavenly mandate to seek more than the usual amounts of whimsical ebullience, sweet diversions, uplifting obsessions, and holy amusements. Your health and success in the coming months require you to enjoy a period of concentrated joy and fun now. Be imaginative and innovative in your quest for zest.
SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): Scottish Poet Laureate Jackie Kay, born under the sign of Scorpio, writes, “It used to be that privacy came naturally to everybody and that we understood implicitly what kind of things a person might like to keep private. Now somebody has torn up the rule book on privacy and there’s a kind of free fall and free for all and few people naturally know how to guard this precious thing, privacy.” The coming weeks will be a good time for you to investigate this subject, Scorpio—to take it more seriously than you have before. In the process, I hope you will identify what’s truly important for you to keep confidential and protected, and then initiate the necessary adjustments. (PS: Please feel no guilt or embarrassment about your desire to have secrets!)
SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): “All our Western thought is founded on this repulsive pretense that pain is the proper price of any good thing,” wrote feisty author Rebecca West (1892–1983). I am very happy to report that your current torrent of good things will NOT require you to pay the price of pain. On the contrary, I expect that your phase of grace and luck will teach you how to cultivate even more grace and luck; it will inspire you to be generous in ways that bring generosity coming back your way. As articulated by ancient Chinese philosopher Sun Tzu, here’s the operative principle: “Opportunities multiply as they are seized.”
CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): “If you don’t ask, the answer is always no,” declares author Nora Roberts. In that spirit and in accordance with astrological omens, I urge you to be bold and lucid about asking for what you want in the coming weeks. In addition, I encourage you to ask many probing questions so as to ferret out the best ways to get what you want. If you are skilled in carrying out this strategy, you will be a winsome blend of receptivity and aggressiveness, innocent humility and understated confidence. And that will be crucial in your campaign to get exactly what you want.
AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): “Few persons enjoy real liberty,” wrote poet Alfred de Musset. “We are all slaves to ideas or habits.” That’s the bad news. The good news is that October is Supercharge Your Freedom Month for you Aquarians. I invite you to use all your ingenuity to deepen, augment, and refine your drive for liberation. What could you do to escape the numbness of the routine? How might you diminish the hold of limiting beliefs and inhibiting patterns? What shrunken expectations are impinging on your motivational verve? Life is blessing you with the opportunity to celebrate and cultivate what novelist Tim Tharp calls “the spectacular now.” Be a cheerful, magnanimous freedom fighter.
PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): The brilliant Piscean composer Frédéric Chopin (1810–1849) wrote, “I wish I could throw off the thoughts that poison my happiness, but I take a kind of pleasure in indulging them.” What?! That’s crazy! If he had been brave enough and willful enough to stop taking pleasure in indulging his toxic thoughts, they might have lost their power to demoralize him. With this in mind, I’m asking you to investigate whether you, like Chopin, ever get a bit of secret excitement from undermining your own joy and success. The coming weeks will be a favorable time to dissolve that bad habit.
Wondering where your weekend went? Well, maybe you need some Lost Weekend wine to ease you back into weekdays.
Winemaker Ryan Beauregard went through a terrible time when making this old-vine blend. As the 2020 CZU Lightning Complex fires bore down on his property and embers rained from the sky, he feared he would lose everything.
“The memories are still hard to bear, and it is impossible to convey the emotions that this wine holds for me,” Beauregard says. “It is a reminder of utter fear and uncertainty.”
Fortunately, Beauregard had covered the vats of fermenting grapes (grown in Sandy Lane Vineyard in the San Francisco Bay) with plastic, and miraculously, they were unscathed by the surrounding fires.
“By the sheer muscularity of Zinfandel and Carignan from 135-year-old vines, the wine was also a survivor,” Beauregard says.
He calls it “the wine that made itself.” Brimming with notes of jammy fruit and pepper, the vibrant Lost Weekend blend ($25) is, in a word, special. “This is a delicious wine with an essence of post traumatic stress disorder,” Beauregard says, with a tone of relief.
In 2008, the Beauregard family purchased an almost-century-old cabin in Bonny Doon known as “the lost weekend”—it’s now the tasting room. They have made many barrels of wine since then, including some outstanding Pinots.
On Friday, Oct. 8, Beauregard’s Slow Coast Wine Bar in Davenport will feature Sandy Mountain performing from 4:30-7pm.
Beauregard wines are available in local restaurants and stores such as Shopper’s Corner and Vinocruz wine bar in Soquel and Vino by the Sea on the Santa Cruz Municipal Wharf.
Slow Coast Wine Bar, 450 Highway 1, Davenport; and 10 Pine Flat Road, Santa Cruz. For more information or reservations, call 831-425-7777 or email ta*********@be*****************.com.
Watch the Game at Vinocruz
The folks at Vinocruz are now streaming local sports whilst you enjoy local wines, beers and freshly made cuisine. Vinocruz Wine Bar 7 Kitchen, 4901 Soquel Dr., Soquel, 831-426-8466. vinocruz.com.
Stella Romo was raised in the restaurant industry. She opened Jalisco Mexican Cuisine in Watsonville on her own in 1982. She was just 22 years old. The popular spot is all about authenticity, from the food to the ambiance inside the classic building. Meat and seafood are cooked on a huge mesquite grill, offering a variety of sizzling fajitas. They are also known for guacamole that’s prepared tableside, igniting an unmatched wow-factor. Other menu favorites include the roasted molcajete ranchero, a traditional pozole, and spinach enchiladas with green molé. Hours are Monday-Thursday from 11am-9pm, Saturday 9am-10pm and Sunday 9am-9pm. Romo recently spoke to GT about what it was like to open a restaurant so young and her favorite night of the week to work.
How did you open Jalisco at the age of 22?
STELLA ROMO: What gave me the courage was that I started at age 13 in my mother’s restaurant, and I would come in to help out after school because I saw how hard she worked and that she needed the help. I saw how hard it was for her, a Hispanic woman running her own restaurant in the early 1970s, and if she could do it, then I thought I could do it. She set a great example for me. For the first five years here, I took no vacation and worked from 9am until 11pm and later seven days a week. And I was doing all this while raising a 6-month-old baby. I look back on it now and know that I could do it and just had to believe in myself.
How do Friday nights embody the spirit at Jalisco?
It gets very lively here on Fridays, and I like how the community comes together and has a really good time. We have a live mariachi band every Friday that’s played here since 1990. A lot of people like them, and in Mexico, whenever a mariachi plays, it means a fiesta or a party. It helps bring people together and have fun and creates a lively atmosphere. Guests look forward to Fridays in order to unwind after a long week at work, and people really seem to be in a festive mood.
618 Main St., Watsonville, 831-728-9080; jaliscorestaurant.com.
