Sparkling wine is so “in” right now. And when you try the Sparkling Rosé made by Denis Hoey of Odonata Wines, you’ll be thrilled to bits. It’s light, refreshing and simply delicious.
“Bubbles are for every occasion in our family,” says Hoey. “From any old Wednesday night to a birthday, it’s always a good time to pop a bottle.” He and his wife Claire have two small boys and a busy winery and tasting room to run, so I’m sure they’re ready to pop some open most days of the week.
Made of 100 percent Sangiovese grapes from the Machado Creek Vineyard in Santa Clara County, this festive pink bubbly—made in the classic méthode champenoise style—will first tickle your nose and then delight your tongue with flavors of cherry pie and a touch of cream. “The palate is filled with crisp mouthwatering acidity, along with strawberry and citrus,” says Hoey.
This 2015 Sparkling Rosé ($38) is also an amazingly flexible wine—pairing well with many kinds of food. And when the weekend rolls around, it’s a perfect time to treat yourselves and uncap a bottle of this rose-hued sparkler. It’s easy to open as there’s no cork involved, and the bottle closure is SIP (sustainable in practice) as Hoey always keeps the environment in mind. “It’s a playful closure, but serious wine inside,” he says.
At the end of July, Hoey closed his Santa Cruz tasting room on Mission Street to focus more on his property in Salinas. This is a lovely spot to hang out and try all of his wonderful wines, including his other sparkling wine, a 2015 Riesling.
Odonata Wines, 645 River Road, Salinas. Open 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily. 566-5147, odonatawines.com.
Capitola Art & Wine Festival
The Capitola Art & Wine Festival is all set to take place in Capitola Village on Sept. 8 and 9. Admission is free, but there’s a fee for wine tasting. Purchase a festival glass ($12) and then get tasting tokens ($1 each) at a Glass & Token Booth. Tastings vary between two to four tokens. Visit CapitolaArtandWine.com for more info.
The new Italian sandwich shop on the ocean end of 41st Avenue might look a little incongruous among the trendy coffee houses, boutiques and surf shops, but it’s exactly what Pleasure Point needs.
My initial discovery stopped me in my tracks while strolling to the Hook. I had gone to San Francisco the week before specifically to visit a couple of Italian delis in North Beach and another in the Marina and gorge myself on hard-to-pronounce salumi, and mozzarella so fresh it’s barely holding itself together—ingredients that can be difficult to find in Santa Cruz. So I was excited to walk through the doorway of Bellagio Deli Italiano, ushered in by the aroma of freshly baked bread and the possibility of cannoli.
Giovanni Spanu, who is also the chef and owner of Lago di Como Ristorante and Pizzeria in Live Oak, opened Bellagio Deli Italiano in May, and both of his eateries offer fresh Italian dishes that stay true to the traditional recipes. At Bellagio Deli, he offers homemade ravioli, meatballs, lasagna and pasta sauces ready to be taken home and passed off as your own (just kidding), and yes, there is cannoli and tiramisu, both divine. But the real reason to hop on the freeway and brave the struggle of finding a parking spot that close to the ocean are the sandwiches.
Despite being a seemingly simple food that doesn’t require any cooking, sandwiches are surprisingly easy to mess up. We’ve all experienced the disappointment of biting into a sandwich to discover that the structure was ill-conceived or the maker has misused some key ingredient. At Bellagio Deli, the sandwiches are simple but perfect.
The smell that beckoned me into their doorway like an amorphous cartoon hand was freshly baked ciabatta bread with an unparalleled crumb and crust. They season the bread with olive oil, salt, and pepper—take notes, people—before layering in freshly carved cold cuts. I adore the Panino Parma, with prosciutto di Parma, fresh mozzarella, ripe tomato and basil. The Panino Valtellinese with rich, earthy bresaola, shaved parmesan and peppery arugula is also delicious. All of the sandwiches come with a small side salad of mixed greens, ripe tomatoes and parmesan for less than $10—a great deal and a welcome addition to the thriving neighborhood.
Activists in Santa Cruz County’s smallest city got the green light this week to move forward with a vote that has the potential to play an outsized role in the future of Santa Cruz County transportation planning.
Judge John Gallagherruled on Monday, Aug. 20 in favor of Greenway Capitola petitioners, allowing their ballot measure on the rail trail to proceed to the Nov. 6 election. Environmental attorney Sara Clark, who represented the Greenway side, says she wasn’t surprised by the ruling, even though Capitola officials had expressed concerns about the measure’s wording.
“In elections law, there’s a pretty standard rule that most challenges to an initiative are best ruled on after the voters have a chance to weigh in,” Clark says.
And it isn’t just the Greenway Capitola measure that voters are talking about this election season. With the November election fast approaching, discussions over a few closely watched local ballot initiatives—on topics like rent control and finance—have begun heating up.
THOROUGHFARE
The Regional Transportation Commission (RTC) has plans to build a bike and pedestrian path along the county’s coastal railroad tracks and leave room for future rail transit—an approach the commission is currently evaluating in its Unified Corridor Study. But supporters of Santa Cruz County Greenway have been pining for a different approach, given their concerns about the high costs of the rail-with-trail plan, and questions about ridership estimates they say are too meager to have any impact. Greenway supporters envision a wider trail along the length of the corridor with no train tracks.
Parts of the rail corridor are rather narrow, and the rail trail’s official guiding document, the Monterey Bay Sanctuary Scenic Trail Master Plan, is unclear about where certain bike and pedestrian detours may be needed—particularly in Capitola. In order to build a bike path that spans the valley over Soquel Creek Water District, construction crews would likely need to build a brand new bridge—about 200 feet long and a few dozen feet high.
Measure L, the new Greenway Capitola initiative, essentially asks voters what sounds like a simple question: Do you support keeping the bike and pedestrian path on the protected corridor, instead of detouring it onto city streets?
Most people expect Capitola voters to say “yes,” which is why the measure could have an impact going forward, even if it technically will have no impact on the decisions of the RTC. Most measure supporters don’t want a train on the tracks.
But Capitola City Attorney Tony Condotti sees the wording as “impermissively vague.” He says that the initiative conflicts with existing city plans and complicates efforts to make needed bike infrastructure improvements nearby, including spur trails shooting off the main route.
Clark argues that the measure’s language is actually pretty straightforward, and says that Capitola staffers and council “were manufacturing inconsistencies where there weren’t any.”
Capitola Councilmember Stephanie Harlan says this all could have been a lot simpler if the measure just asked whether or not residents support a train.
However, there’s still reason to believe that everyone—both rail and trail supporters—could get what they want, no matter what the outcome of the measure. The RTC has already signaled an interest in making room for both rail and trail through Capitola.
This past June, at the suggestion of Friends of the Rail and Trail Chair Mark Mesiti-Miller, the commission made minor adjustments to its five-year spending projections, as it finalized its new plan. The RTC allocated $50,000 to study building a new bridge through Capitola that could accommodate both rail and trail.
Things got ugly earlier this summer after opponents of the measure initially missed the deadline to file arguments against Measure M, the rent control measure, while supporters of the measure met the deadline. The situation was cause for concern among landlords and rent control opponents. To the initiative’s supporters, it all seemed to good to be true—given the hundreds of thousands of dollars that opponents had already raked in, between local fundraising and cash from outside organizations.
But city staffers admitted they had erred in setting the deadlines unnecessarily early and that the guidelines were confusing, and the city may have even opened itself up to a lawsuit in the process.
With four members recused from a heated public meeting on the topic, the Santa Cruz City Council voted 4-0 to give both supporters and opponents more time to submit statements.
The irony of giving the landlords extra time was not lost on rent control advocates.
“Tenants live with deadlines that have real consequences,” Cynthia Berger, an organizer with the Santa Cruz Tenants Association, said at the meeting earlier this month. “If I don’t pay my rent, that’s immediate grounds for a three-day pay or quit notice.”
BILLING NOTICE
Capitola City Councilmember Jacques Bertrand has fond memories of his days as the city’s treasurer, a position that’s now facing a referendum.
“The main thing is people want to know where their money goes, and that’s what the treasurer does,” explains Bertrand, who remembers discovering ways to make to improve the Capitola’s finances in his four-year term from 2008 to 2012.
But the city’s current treasurer Peter Wilk, who Bertrand sought out for the position, says he doesn’t see any reason for voters to elect a treasurer at all, as many of its roles overlap with other authorities like the finance director, auditors and the Financial Advisory Committee. Additionally, Wilk says the budget is very transparent to the general public, and the treasurer has no clearly defined power. Most other jurisdictions—including every other local government in the county—have no elected treasurer position.
The Capitola City Council voted unanimously to place Measure K on the ballot to remove the treasurer as an elected position and instead make it an appointed one. Wilk and some city councilmembers have even floated the idea of eliminating the job altogether. Bertrand has serious reservations about it all, as he feels the treasurer position provides a sense of financial transparency.
Councilmember Harlan has warned Bertrand that she won’t support him in his reelection bid this year if he actively campaigns against the initiative. While Bertrand hasn’t hit the streets in opposition, he says he’s been having conversations with residents about the measure. He worries taking a stand could sink his reelection campaign, but it hasn’t dissuaded him from raising concerns.
Also in this year’s City Council race are former Capitola Mayor Sam Storey, ironworker Jack Digby and Yvette Brooks, of the county education office.
Bertrand concedes that the city of Capitola has had at least one activist treasurer in the past, who tested the limits of the position and developed a “caustic” relationship with city officials, but he sees that ordeal as an outlier.
Bertrand admits that it stings a little to see Wilk—who he believes is doing a great job—argue against a position Bertrand took so seriously, but he insists that isn’t his primary motivation in questioning the new measure.
“The reason I’m talking to you is I want the debate,” Bertrand says. “Peter brought up things that need to be talked about. We’re friends—the fact that I don’t like his conclusions doesn’t make him a bad guy.”
Editor’s Note: Local artist James Aschbacher’s life will be celebrated at the Rio this week. Now, his longtime wife and constant companion—who also happens to be GT’s film critic—shares her memories of what made him great
John Lennon once said, “Life is what happens when you’re making other plans.” As it turns out, so is death.
My life was knocked sideways earlier this year by the sudden loss of my own beloved Art Boy, James Aschbacher—husband, sweetie, soulmate, yoga partner, companion for so many adventures, and my absolute best friend for 40 years. “And not a night apart!” as he used to boast.
That was true until late in April of this year, when I spent my first three nights alone without him since we first moved in together way back in the Dark Ages of 1978. He spent those three nights in the ICU at Stanford after a stroke felled him early on a Monday morning. By Wednesday, we had to let him go.
It’s inconceivable how my life is supposed to work without him. He was (and is) in every part of it. Famously joined at the hip, we went everywhere together—movies, art shows, theater. I co-hosted his Open Studios at our home for 27 years. When he got his first public mural commission (Plaza Lane, downtown), I helped him paint it.
When I was invited to co-host the film review program “Talking Movies” on local TV with former Sentinel film critic Rick Chatenever, James drove me up to the taping in Scotts Valley every other week, and hung around to heckle—er, I mean, cheer us on—from the sidelines. When I did a book reading somewhere, or participated in a book panel or a film discussion group, he was always in the front row.
I can’t tell you how many terrible movies he sat through with me. (Especially since a film critic doesn’t have the option of walking out!) But we saw some great ones, too—more shared experiences to rack up over our time together.
It all began one day a few millennia ago when I walked into Atlantis Fantasyworld on Pacific with a friend who collected comics. Little did I know I was about to meet my future.
A transplant from the Midwest, James had opened the store a year earlier with his partner, Joe Ferrara. By that time, James had already established a mail-order business with book collectors from all over the country in search of vintage sci-fi paperbacks (the more lurid the cover, the better). We would spend many Sundays at the flea market, James groveling around on the asphalt pawing through boxes of forgotten books in search of that one item he knew some collector somewhere desperately wanted. Matching up people with their dreams—that’s what he loved to do all his life.
COMIC RELIEF Artist James Aschbacher (left) with Joe Ferrara, co-owner of former downtown Santa Cruz book and comic shop Atlantis Fantasyworld in 1976.
He was a man of many diverse passions, one following another in orderly sequence (Libra that he was). As a teenager, he’d performed a magic act at kids’ parties. He loved cheesy ’50s monster movies and collected vintage posters from his favorites. Soon after we moved in together, we launched a joint career as single-panel cartoonists (pen name: “Bonet,” after the cheap bubbly we were drinking in those days). Believe it or not, I drew the cartoons and he wrote the jokes. (Even after he became known as an artist, James claimed he never knew how to draw.)
He amassed a vast library of his favorite horror/sci-fi movies and vintage TV shows on videotape. Whenever anyone was coming to dinner, he first asked what their favorite TV show had been as a kid, and then had that tape cued up and ready for a blast to the past.
And then, on the brink of turning 40, after total immersion in pop culture for so long, he decided to become an artist. No one knows why. He’d never taken a single art class in his life, but was suddenly in the grip of a very demanding muse. Because he didn’t know how to draw or even hold a paintbrush, he started out wielding cans of spray paint and cutting out cardboard stencils to shape the image.
Ultimately, this would lead to the distinctive technique that he made up: fanciful images (birds, fish, animals, dancing figures) painted in acrylics on spray-painted art board, then nailed onto a piece of wood with a hand-carved border of magical symbols.
After the quake of ’89, when Atlantis had been relocated into a tent in a parking lot, James decided to pursue art full-time. He and Joe cooked up a five-year plan for Joe to buy his half of the business; if he couldn’t make a decent living after five years, James thought, he could always go get a job. But he didn’t have to—he was selling his artwork from then on.
James became a popular stop on the Open Studios Art Tour, and an inspiration and mentor within the thriving Santa Cruz arts community. For several years, he was also chairman of the Open Studios Committee for the Arts Council of Santa Cruz County. He left his mark—literally—on buildings countywide as a muralist, including 10 years painting murals at local elementary schools with fourth- and fifth-graders, who were always encouraged to create and paint their own creatures.
Open Studios visitors loved his work, but they especially loved to hear about his DIY art career. His path had been so strange, so unexpected, and so self-motivated, he was always encouraging others (artists and normal people) to pursue their dreams, no matter what anyone else told them. Anybody can be taught to copy some style or other, he often told his mural kids or other artists who sought him out for advice, but only you can create your vision.
FRAMED!A self-taught artist who didn’t pick up a brush until his 30s, Aschbacher’s work nonetheless made a huge mark on the Santa Cruz community. PHOTO: LISA JENSEN
Unlike the popular image of the flaky artist, James had a strong business sense and a practical streak. Having worked with his father, a general contractor, he also knew how to do stuff. Among our friends and colleagues, if you needed a shower door set in or bookshelves built, James was your go-to guy.
Working at home all day led James to new passions. One was cooking, which he embraced with the same glee with which he’d devoted himself to art. He became famous for his pasta, but his pizza was legendary. (He baked it for seven minutes on a screen set on the floor of the oven, a process for which he gave many tutorials among our friends.)
When our Sorrento lemon tree had a bumper crop one year, he did some online research and taught himself to make limoncello.
But his drug of choice was always Champagne, either the authentic French kind (Moët was a favorite), or one of the crisp Spanish cavas we’d discovered over the last few years. He’d had some youthful fantasy about someday being successful enough to drink Champagne every night, but in truth, he just loved the sparkle. It matched his effervescent personality.
On a shopping run, the person checking him out with a case or two of bubbly would inevitably ask, “What’s the occasion?” James would smile and say, “Just celebrating life.”
After he left Atlantis Fantasyworld, we started taking daily afternoon walks around the Santa Cruz Yacht Harbor, to clear our heads of any lingering debris from whatever various projects we’d each been working on all morning. More recently, as mobility became an issue for me (due to an unexpected diagnosis of MS), I couldn’t walk as far or for as long at a stretch.
His solution was to start driving us down to park in the upper harbor, where I could go from bench to bench whenever I needed a time out. Meanwhile, he would walk from the car all the way down to Aldo’s and back to get in as much of his regular walk as possible—back and forth, like a duck in a shooting gallery.
Later, he bought a folding patio chair to stash in the car trunk, in case I needed to rest between benches. That man would cheerfully walk beside me, schlepping the chair like a Sherpa guide until I needed it.
As opposed to me, the reclusive writer, he was the most social man in the universe. He planned all of our dinner parties, arranged dates, did all the shopping and all the cooking! All I had to do was make dessert (my favorite part!) and show up. He ran errands and even fielded robocalls while I wrote in the mornings.
James was so tickled when I finally got a book contract after so many years of toil. The contract was for Young Adult (YA) fiction, and he embraced the book biz with the same enthusiasm he devoted to his other passions—doing research and urging me along. He even started reading YA.
In addition to his other talents, he was a hell of a lot of fun to be around, with an upbeat sense of humor, and the twinkle in his eye. When we got our first phone answering machine, it was a February, when the Winter Olympics were on TV. James recorded the message, “Lisa and I are waxing our luge and can’t come to the phone right now.”
INSEPARABLE PAIR Jensen and Aschbacher in 2018. This was the last picture taken of them together.
When we were planning a will and trust a couple of years ago, the subject of organ donations came up. James laughed. “Nobody wants my liver!”
The Master of Malapropism, James was also famous for the odd combinations of words and ideas—often seemingly unrelated to each other—that would pop out of his mouth unexpectedly. Once when we were discussing travel plans (he was a notorious homebody), I pointed out that some people actually liked to travel. “Well, some people eat fur for breakfast!” he sputtered. That stopped the conversation cold. As soon as we both realized what he’d said, we laughed until we cried.
That’s the kind of intimacy I’m going to miss the most. The kind that can only be brewed from 40 years of shared jokes that nobody else gets, and the helpless laughter that comes with them.
There will be a huge hole in the heart of the Santa Cruz arts community without him, and an even more enormous hole in my heart. I am lucky to have had 40 wonderful years with him. Please remember him as he was—cracking jokes, making fabulous art (and pizza), and toasting life with Champagne. Every day should be a celebration. It certainly was for James.
Now that the initial shock has worn off, it seems like people need permission to start feeling more happy that they had him in their lives than sorrow that he’s gone. Permission granted—from both of us.
I know James would not want to make everybody miserable—he’d be the first one out there making jokes and popping corks—so I am adopting his upbeat spirit and positive outlook as I plunge ahead into the next chapter.
Things he will miss:
[bullet] the final season of Game of Thrones;
[bullet] the demise of the Trump administration;
[bullet] the complete first draft of my next novel he was so eager to beta-read;
[bullet] our 40th wedding anniversary (although we did get to celebrate 40 years of living together).
Things I will miss:
[bullet] Everything about him.
I love you, Art Boy!
A Tribute to James
A tribute to James Aschbacher’s life, “Celebrating James,” will be held at the Rio Theatre on Saturday, Aug. 25. Doors open at 6 p.m. There will be speakers, a slide show and general conviviality. Please bring stories and memories to share.
It was 11 months ago that KSCO 1080 AM owner Michael Zwerling announced new rules for his Santa Cruz radio station. In an on-air editorial, he banned “toxic subjects”—namely “race-baiting” and allegations of anti-Jewish conspiracies or white genocide—and inciting violence.
Zwerling made the announcement in response to GT’s coverage of Georgia “Peach” Beardslee’s controversial twice-weekly broadcasts. But given what Beardslee’s been saying lately, it appears that either Zwerling’s ban was just talk, or he’s found his own station too difficult to police.
To open up the second hour of her Friday, Aug. 10 show, Beardslee called the burning of black churches in the 1960s “a hoax” and then referred to Hollywood as “a massive anti-white crucible.” She spewed made-up statistics about crime, claiming—without evidence—that there are 35,000 cases of “black-on-white rape” a year, while also suggesting the whites seldom rape black Americans.
Beardslee, who hosts on Wednesdays and Fridays at 2 p.m., proceeded to call both Oprah Winfrey and former President Barack Obama racists. “You are an ungrateful woman, Oprah,” Beardslee said. “When will these blacks—who became rich and famous in America, and could have never done it in any other country—have gratitude? Well, I’m not gonna hold my breath. Oprah, why aren’t you living in the hood with your soul brothers and sisters?”
And all of that was over the course of about five minutes.
Later in that same show, Beardslee lamented a “genocide” of whites with an angry caller sympathetic to her world view.
“My critics hear what they want to hear,” Beardslee tells GT via email. “They take what I say out of context and spin it to fit their narrative and what they think they hear. I will have plenty to say after I read what you write in the Good Times.”
On top of all that, Beardslee may have violated Zwerling’s rule about not inciting violence. Earlier this month, she called for then-FBI agent Peter Strzok to “be hung with the rest of the treasonous swamp rats” and additionally threatened Michael Folk, one of her critics, over the air, screaming, “You’d better watch yourself, buddy, and that’s a warning!” She’s repeatedly defended white nationalists who marched in Charlottesville, too.
It would appear from this hate speech that anything goes on KSCO, no matter how controversial.
Well, as long as it’s right-wing, anyway; Zwerling has recently fired two long-standing liberal hosts.
Billy “Sunshine” Gorson was fired from his unpaid gig when he called in to Zwerling’s Saturday morning show and referred to Beardslee as a “Nazi.”
Looking back, Gorson says what bothers him most is that Beardslee “gets to keep talking.”
“That’s troubling a bit,” says Gorson, who Zwerling had fired twice before. “I’m not going to let them inject that intolerance into our community. Racial purity talk only leads to death and destruction. If we hadn’t had the Holocaust, maybe this would be okay, but we should know better.”
Brad Kava, who also got fired recently, had told one of his guests that not only does the station owner support President Donald Trump, but “he probably loved Hitler, too.” Kava says it was a joke, but he doesn’t regret it given the context: Trump had just started his border separation policy and had begun putting refugee kids in cages.
Zwerling says that neither Kava nor Gorson is welcome to even call in to the station in the future.
Station manager Michael Olson says that both Gorson and Kava broke a longstanding rule against bad-mouthing colleagues—a rule that he says dates back several years to the days when KSCO had two hosts get into a fight in the parking lot after passive aggressively feuding over the air.
“It’s a very simple rule, and yet it’s a vital rule,” Olson says. “That was the rule Billy broke. What Brad said about the owner of the station—if you were a Jewish person, that would probably flabbergast you as well.”
Zwerling, Gorson and Kava are all Jewish.
When it comes to hate speech, Olson says he welcomes people to report portions of a show that are “out of bounds” on KSCO.com, as listeners sometimes do. But Olson contends that he’s never heard Beardslee cross the line. “What I’ve heard Georgia do is advocate for the white race,” he says.
Zwerling encouraged GT to submit a complaint online to KSCO about Beardslee. That way, Zwerling says, he can put “Georgia on trial with our entire KSCO audience” during his Saturday morning broadcast—almost like a game show. But why doesn’t Zwerling take a personal stand himself?
“I’m not gonna decide what’s hate speech,” Zwerling tells us. “I don’t think I’m that smart.”
Kava says he always liked the idea of trying to reach conservatives. But he and Gorson say they’re now hoping to land a spot on the local public radio station KSQD that’s launching soon.
“I’ve been fired for lots of jobs because I’m an asshole,” Gorson says. “This is my proudest firing yet. I always tell the boss what I think.”
Update — Sept. 11, 2018: The original version of this story misreported the date of a broadcast on KSCO.
Charlie Musselwhite traces his love of collaboration back to his childhood, when he was a blues harmonica player growing up in Memphis. In those early days, Musselwhite spent plenty of time jamming with country blues musicians.
“They would change chords, it was really erratic. I learned how to really anticipate where the music was gonna go,” explains Musselwhite, who plays the Catalyst with Ben Harper Aug. 27 and 28. “That prepared me for playing with anybody. I would just follow the flow.”
In the years since, the blues legend has collaborated with the likes of Bonnie Raitt, Tom Waits, INXS, Hot Tuna, and Cyndi Lauper, to name a few. Harper, for his part, has played with Taj Mahal, Jack Johnson, and most recently, his mom Ellen for their shared album Childhood Home. Both Harper and Musselwhite have done albums with the Blind Boys of Alabama, as well.
Musselwhite says he loves Harper’s “brilliant” musical ideas, and respects that Harper also learned to play collaboratively as a kid. When Harper was growing up, his grandparents owned the Claremont-based Folk Music Center, which brought in artists from all over.
Both of Musselwhite and Harper’s two albums together are raw with emotion, and when Musselwhite gets whaling on his harp, he makes each chord feel like it’s an entire song.
“I like improvising. I like melody. The way I’m playing, it feels like I’m singing without words. I like to keep it as spontaneous as possible and wait for the magic to come home,” he says with a laugh. “The magic takes over. The music takes you where it wants to go.”
Ben Harper and Charlie Musselwhite play Monday, Aug. 27 and Tuesday, Aug. 28 at the Catalyst, 1011 Pacific Ave., Santa Cruz. $49.50/adv, $53/door. Sold out, waitlist available. 429-4135.
Amid a light-up baby Jesus, Godzilla, inflatable globe, toy shark and thousands of other flea market finds, local artist Peter Koronakos finds peace in the chaos.
He’s not a hoarder, he says; he’s an assemblage artist who has proudly amassed hoards of pieces to choose from for his work. He uses found objects to create animal sculptures—more than 400 over the course of 12 years. From a badminton racket monkey to a quill-forked porcupine, he breathes new life into old bits and pieces and tops them off with teeth and a fresh pair of eyes.
“I do well with a lot of visual stimuli, so in the studio I have work benches that are just piled with stuff, and when I walk by the material jumps out and tells me what it wants to be,” Koronakos says. “What works best is to have a work table piled with stuff that I may rearrange every month.”
Koronakos says he never gets overwhelmed by the amount of stuff he collects, despite the clutter. He’s inspired by it all, and divides pieces into organizational buckets for easier, quicker use. He currently has more than 70 buckets of potential arms, legs and muzzles in his 300-square-foot Scotts Valley studio.
While the sheer volume of stuff may seem random, his process isn’t. He typically goes to the Skyview Drive-In flea market every Friday morning to treasure hunt for pieces of all shapes and sizes. He gets there early for the best selection, and either has objects in mind or waits for something to pop out at him. People also bring him pieces from estate or garage sales, and he sometimes gets creepier pieces like old dirty crutches or toilet seat brackets. He compares utilization of materials as harvesting or butchery, utilizing all of the materials of a piece. “Like an Eskimo would harvest and process a seal,” he explains.
“It starts with the harvesting of materials,” he says. “Sometimes I’m attracted to something and I don’t really know what animal it is going to go to. It’s just a little tickle that says ‘you should really buy this box of old jars’ or ‘pick up this old interesting piece of wood.’ I’ve learned to go with that and not question it. And, sure enough, further on down the road it’s useful.”
Alongside his animals, Koronakos makes Joseph Cornell-style boxes, which repurpose found objects and trinkets in a box-setting. He also does steel sculptures, fabric art, and photography, but says there’s really not enough time in the day to do everything he’d like. Outside of his artwork, he’s the safety and compliance manager for Roaring Camp Railroads. He says his job allows him first dibs on any old metal or unique wood he finds in the dumpster.
“Roaring Camp has been there for over 50 years,” he says. “There’s a lot of old metal in the soil. When it rains in the winter, there are bits and pieces that become exposed, and I can walk around and collect old stuff.”
Koronakos has participated in the fall Open Studios for 20 years, where locals come to see his work and workshop. His annual show of Oddball Animals showcases 26 animals corresponding to the letters of the alphabet. This year’s show at Artisans Gallery includes a Leafcutter Ant, Meerkat and Zorse (zebra-horse).
Koronakos has reached the point where the amount of stuff coming into his studio is about equivalent to what is going out—a brag-worthy victory for someone with limited space and unlimited ideas.
While some of his sculptures take two days, others may take two years. More recently, Koronakos has been making self-portrait sculptures, which he says is a bit more challenging since he doesn’t have as much freedom compared to a full spectrum of animals.
“I get a sense that people are expecting someone maybe a bit stranger when they meet me,” he says. “People are expecting someone a bit edgier and they see normal old Pete and they are a little surprised.”
The first animals Koronakos ever made were a fish out of a bootjack and a pig out of a piece of fencepost. The pig still resides in his bathroom, along with 22 other animals in his house. He will add to his own personal zoo every year, since there are some creations—like a tarantula and gorilla—that he says he just can’t put up for adoption.
“I think I’ll need a bigger place at some point,” he says. “I’m running out of room.”
An Alphabet of Oddball Animals will be at Artisans Gallery through Aug. 29. 1368 Pacific Ave, Santa Cruz. His work is available online at peterkoronakos.com, at Luna Sea Gallery, 250 Stage Road, Pescadero, 650-879-1207 lunaseagallery.net, and will be part of Open Studios 2018 on Saturdays Oct. 13 and 20 and Sundays Oct. 14 and 21.
August means many things to many people. End of summer, beginning of school, tequila and tacos. You heard me. The mighty Tequila & Taco Music Festival takes over San Lorenzo Park in downtown Santa Cruz this weekend, 11:30 a.m.-6 p.m. Saturday and Sunday, Aug. 25-26.
Here’s what you need to know: You can purchase a two-day pass for $60, and what that gets you (besides a sunburn unless you remember your SPF 30!) is a major Tequila Sampling (Saturday only, from 11:30 a.m.-3:30 p.m.), and access to gourmet street tacos, craft beer, tons of arts and craft vendors, award-winning margaritas (all for purchase), and live music All. Day. Long!
What I’m jazzed about is the prospect of sampling the raspados (shaved ice) specialties from Exotico Tequila, which have been described to me as sno-cones with tequila-spiked flavors of raspberry lime, watermelon mint margarita, and tequila sunrise. Now that’s an adult beverage on a cone! On Saturday, dance along with Universal Language, Patron Latin Rhythms, and Adelaide; on Sunday catch Adelaide, Sambada, and Metalachi. Kids 12 and under are free. $10 admission each day, $40 for the Saturday Tequila Tasting Experience. Olé!
I’m looking forward to some delicious changes coming soon in our neck of the woods. Like the brewpub plus oasis of Southern cooking promised by Greater Purpose Brewing Company, already making plans to colonize the former Logos Bookstore space. Another idea is brewing just up the road at 1011 Cedar St.—(across from Café Limelight)—in the form of an independent bookshop plus wine salon with a working title Bad Animal, which will be loaded with intriguing texts on literature and the humanities, and include a space to drink wine, listen to poetry readings, and wander through the bookshelves. Hoping that Barceloneta, 1541-B Pacific Ave., will be up and running and serving tapas any day now (it was three years ago that the former occupant Benten closed). And, looking forward to the Aptos installment of the mighty Companion Bakeshop. Soon.
Happy Birthday Rita!
One of the great gals of Santa Cruz celebrated her recent birthday with a Mediterranean spread of finger foods, Italian wines, tons of fresh fruit, and a choice birthday cake. Rita’s favorite—the Orange Chiffon tube cake from Gayle’s—absolutely shredded my stereotypes about chiffon cakes, i.e. structureless, unrich, uninteresting food for people who fear calories. This Orange Chiffon baby was generously glazed with orange frosting and loaded with sensuous texture. Light, yes. But not wimpy! And the subtle perfume of fresh orange made every single bite a pleasure. A glass of Prosecco added its own touch!
Dessert of the Week
According to poet Stephen Kessler, with whom we dined last week, the Pizzeria Avanti homemade pies (sweet, that is) are the best in town. Kessler is a serious pie man. We joined him in a slice of warm fresh peach pie with vanilla ice cream and had to admit it was dee-lish. The pie was barely sweetened, and offered up fresh peaches and a flaky, delicious crust with every bite.
Class Act
The New Leaf Market folks do such interesting cooking demos. I’m keen on the upcoming Cooking with Wild Seaweeds demo happening from 6-8 p.m. on Thursday, Aug. 30, at the Westside New Leaf Community Market. Join New Leaf’s very savvy nutrition consultant Madia Jamgochian, along with Ian O’Hollaren, founder of Seaquoia Wild Seaweeds, as they unleash edible secrets about sea vegetables, aka seaweeds. Nutritional powerhouses, seaweeds are loaded with protein, vitamins, and, my favorites … minerals. The presenters will share creative ways to incorporate fresh sea veggies—harvested just up the coast—into your kitchen, including how to make—and taste—four recipes. 1101 Fair Ave., Santa Cruz. $35/30.
Last year, Buenos Aires-based four-piece string band Che Apalache were on its first ever U.S. tour. Frequently, the foursome played its a capella song “The Wall,” which band leader/fiddle player Joe Troop says is “against that stupid-ass wall that that moron of a president wants to build.”
It’s a gorgeous song with four-part harmonies and rich old-timey Americana influences that takes a firm political stance. (“If such nonsense should come true/Then we’ll have to knock it down.”) The song earned them some hooting and hollering in support—and some negative reactions from audience members who walked out saying, “You just lost half of your fans with that political talk.”
Normally, the group doesn’t sing such explicitly political lyrics. In fact, they prefer to think of their very existence as a much more powerful political statement of cross-cultural harmony: four guys—two from Argentina, one from Mexico, and one from North Carolina—playing a hybrid of bluegrass, old-timey music and Latin folk music with songs in Spanish and English. Or, as they’re calling it, “Latin grass.” As peculiar as the individual components may seem, it ends up sounding quite natural.
Even Troop is a little shocked at how well the concept ended up working out.
“Fusion can be such a dangerous and cheesy thing. There’s so much bad fusion, you’re like ‘Oh god, don’t do that. That doesn’t sound good,’” Troop says. “The music is just a reflection of what we are as people. It’s coming from a true place.”
The concept of Latin grass is a relatively new one for the group. When the band started playing together in 2013, they were doing strictly bluegrass and Appalachian folk music. It wasn’t until just before the group’s first U.S. tour last year that they discussed fusing Latin folk music into the music.
That was also right around the time they were getting good. Initially, Troop, who had moved to Argentina in 2010, started teaching banjo and violin lessons to anyone interested. The guys that are his current bandmates initially started out as his students, primarily interested in the instruments themselves, and less so with bluegrass as a genre.
“I totally indoctrinated them. I was like, ‘This is really cool music,’” Troop says. “I’m a stickler for being rooted in something. Bluegrass is like a code that we can all be rooted in. Bluegrass and old-time Appalachian folk music.”
Before starting Che Apalache, Troop formed a bluegrass duo with an Argentinian musician he had met, Diego Sánchez. His bluegrass quartet came a little later, initially as his side project. When he noticed how good they’d gotten, he shifted gears and focused on them, excited that he could try out some of his four-person arrangements.
“I was training the guys that I’m now playing with how to play from scratch,” says Troop. “All of a sudden a couple years ago, it was like ‘Oh damn, they’re really good now.’ It just sort of happened. It kind of took me by surprise.”
The group released its debut album Latin Grass last July, and has already toured the U.S. twice, finding an audience with bluegrass aficionados, Latin music lovers, and people who don’t really care for either style, but like the melding of the two.
Down in Latin American, where there’s less awareness of bluegrass, the band has been doing surprisingly well, too. Some folks understand the bluegrass language they’re working with, others just react to the music on a primal level.
“The audience down there would get up and dance and join in,” Troop says. “We had a couple of occasions where people were just responsive in a way that Argentinians would be to Argentinian folk music.”
Che Apalache performs at 7:30 p.m. on Wednesday, Aug. 29 at Michael’s on Main, 2591 S. Main St., Soquel. $15. 479-9777.
Pleasure Point interior design store Modern Life Home and Garden will close this year, amid growing uncertainty about the future of the local market for traditional furniture stores.
The primary catalysts for the decision to shut down after 33 years in business: An expiring long-term lease, cost cutting among online competitors and a lack of new, younger customers.
“Some businesses have to shut down because they’re not profitable,” says Modern Life owner Jill Sollitto, who bought the store from its original owners in 2006. “I’m making a conscious decision not to invest back into the home furniture business, because I have no idea who my customer is going to be in 5-to-10 years.”
Sollitto’s lease is set to expire in the spring for the store at 925 41st Ave., which sells a range of designer furniture and home accessories. Likely facing a rent increase and wary of committing to spend some $500,000 over the life of a new five-year lease, she says the decision to close was made after months of consideration.
With a customer base “overwhelmingly” age 40 and up, Sollitto says millennials contending with unprecedented housing prices are often a tough sell on pricier furniture. Across age groups, the rise of online furniture businesses has also made one dreaded question much more common: “Can you match their price?”
“When that starts happening with 60-year-olds, it’s kind of game over,” Sollitto says. “I don’t want to cheapen my products.”
A transplant from the Hudson Valley region of New York who is also active with small business groups like Think Local First Santa Cruz, Sollitto says she hasn’t ruled out a future design business less reliant on a traditional retail model. She adds that a few Bay Area furniture businesses have expressed initial interest in taking the space over, and that the timing for bowing out aligned well with several of her five employees’ plans to retire.
Modern Life will begin its farewell with an invite-only sale starting soon, followed by a public sale starting around Labor Day.
Sollitto says her initial desire to get into the furniture business was driven by a love of design, which prompted her to take over the store when its original owners retired.
“I’m glad I did,” she says. “It’s been a great 12 years.”
Update: Aug. 22, 3:05 p.m. – This story previously misstated the length of Modern Life’s new prospective lease.
