Pajaro Valley Magazine | September 11, 2020

THE LIFESTYLE MAGAZINE OF THE PAJARO VALLEY

SEPTEMBER 11, 2020

CLOCKWISE FROM TOP

ART ADAPTS

Countywide groups prepare for Fall art season P4 MIXING BOWL P6 | PHOTO GALLERY P8 | HOME OF THE WEEK P10

Photos courtesy of Cabrillo College Gallery

A supplement to The Pajaronian

Work by Tova Lund, Nicole DesChampsBenke, Anika Smulovitz, Kris Patzlaff and Angela Gleason.

SEPTEMBER 11 -17, 2020 | PAJARO VALLEY MAGAZINE

SANTA CRUZ NATURALS

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Raeid Farhat Real Estate Inc

Thank you to our clients and fellow realtors for a great 20 years!

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PAJARO VALLEY MAGAZINE | SEPTEMBER 11 -17, 2020

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SEPTEMBER 11 -17, 2020 | PAJARO VALLEY MAGAZINE

Johanna Miller

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TAKING CARE The Santa Cruz Museum of Art and History has unveiled its first-ever outdoor exhibit, “Community is Collective Care,” in the museum’s garden in Santa Cruz.

Outdoors and online Local arts groups look ahead to Fall season

By JOHANNA MILLER

A

n exhibit at Cabrillo College’s art gallery in Aptos was only open to the public for five days in March before it had to close down due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Since then, Cabrillo Gallery staff has kept connected to art lovers by posting about the show, “Six Years Smitten,” regularly on social media.

Each piece is featured, giving the artist a chance to give a statement about their work. They also moved their Student Exhibition online in April.

Gallery Director Beverly Rayner said the social media postings have been “very well received,” and praised Program Coordinator Victoria May for her dedication in promoting the work.

“Victoria has been doing a really beautiful job at reaching out,” Rayner said. “I think the frequency of the posts has really helped us stay in touch with people.”

The physical “Six Years Smitten” exhibit will most likely be taken down at the end of September, May said, but there is still time to engage with it: This Saturday at 4pm the gallery will host an artist talk via Zoom.

After that, there is plenty more to look forward to in Fall 2020. Switching to an all-online format, the gallery will open “Navigators,” a show featuring the work of more than 40 Cabrillo staff and faculty.

The work will span all disciplines, from painting to

Collective Solitude” is available to view on YouTube.

NATURE ART Pajaro Valley Arts’ 14th annual “Sculpture Is” exhibit at

Sierra Azul Nursery and Gardens will remain open through October.

OTHER ART HAPPENINGS

also displays information and advice on navigating the Covid-19 pandemic, and offers free “Creativity Kits” to attendees.

present of the prison-industrial complex. Opening virtually Oct. 20.

Pajaro Valley Arts

“IN THESE UNCERTAIN TIMES”

firstfridaysantacruz.com

pvarts.org

“SCULPTURE

IS” — Sculpture exhibit at Sierra Azul Nursery, 2660 E Lake Ave., Watsonville. A portion of art sales goes to support PVA. Ongoing through Oct. 31.

“MEMBERS’ EXHIBIT: People, Places

& Poetry” — PVA’s annual member’s exhibit will be held virtually this year.

An online gallery will be live in the next week. Stay tuned for more updates.

“MI CASA ES TU CASA” — Annual

exhibit inspired by Día de Los Muertos (Day of the Dead). PVA invites the community to send digital images of family members who have passed. A virtual exhibit will be created from the images. Submit Entry and Release Form to hedwig@pvarts.org by Sept. 20.

Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History santacruzmah.org

“COMMUNITY IS COLLECTIVE CARE” — A new exhibit in the muse-

um’s garden features a mural by artist Irene Juarez O’Connell. The show

— Opening in late Fall, the exhibit will showcase the creativity and resilience of Santa Cruz County’s response to shelter-in-place and the Covid-19 pandemic.

“QUEER SANTA CRUZ” — MAH’s first

all-virtual exhibit explores the important contributions, impact, and history of Santa Cruz County's LGBTQ+ community. Available to view online.

Sesnon Art Gallery art.ucsc.edu/sesnon

“IRWIN 2020: Collective Solitude” — The 34th annual Irwin Scholarship Award exhibition showcases the work of a select group of UC Santa Cruz’s most promising young artists. The virtual show aims to explore our present, estranged world where everyone is experiencing some form of loss and separation.

“BARRING FREEDOM” — A bi-coastal exhibition of contemporary art organized by UCSC in collaboration with San José Museum of Art. The show makes visible the troubled history and radicalized

First Fridays Santa Cruz “VIRTUAL FIRST FRIDAYS” — Local artists are featured every week on First Friday social media accounts.

Artists “take over” the group’s Instagram account, posting images, stories and videos about their work.

Santa Cruz Art League scal.org.

“ART LEAGUE JOURNAL” — Every Monday the league will post a new theme on social media for the community to participate and share in.

Post an artist or artwork that you enjoy using the hashtag #artleaguejournal. Ongoing.

Open Studios

santacruzopenstudios.com.

“VIRTUAL ARTS NETWORK” —

Arts Council Santa Cruz County is bringing Open Studios to an online format this October. The network is a curated directory of local visual artists and their work. Artists will be able to show off their work through images, statements, contact information, sales portals and more.

PAJARO VALLEY MAGAZINE | SEPTEMBER 11 -17, 2020

sculpture, photography to mixed media.

Rayner said she hopes the show will be as uplifting to Cabrillo staff and faculty as the Student Exhibition was for students.

“Students were separated from the campus, from their instructors, from each other,” she said. “To have that kind of exposure… It was really nice to give that to them. We hope we can give the same to our [colleagues].”

“Navigators” will be online to view Sept. 28-Oct. 23 and include a series of virtual artist talks.

In November the gallery’s annual “12x12 (x12)” open invitational will be held, albeit in a different format. The show, which allows artists of all levels to submit equally-sized works from various mediums, is one of the gallery’s most popular exhibits of the year.

“It’s a real community celebration,” Rayner said. “Everybody gets involved. We don’t want to let that go… It’ll be interesting, but we’re looking forward to it.”

“12x12 (x12)” will run online Nov. 2-Dec. 4.

For information and to help support the Cabrillo Gallery, visit cabrillo.edu/services/artgallery or follow on social media.

Johanna Miller

Johanna Miller

VIRTUAL GALLERY A virtual walkthrough of UCSC’s exhibit “Irwin 2020:

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THE MIXING BOWL

Sangria and gazpacho flavors. Serve in chilled glasses or bowls with the ground pumpkin seed mixture. Serves six.

Toasted ground pumpkin seeds

By SARAH RINGLER

Sangria

SEPTEMBER 11 -17, 2020 | PAJARO VALLEY MAGAZINE

Tarmo Hannula

TAPA EXPERIENCE Imagine crunchy toasted pumpkin seeds on top of the sweetest puréed tomatoes.

1 cup raw green pumpkin seeds 3 teaspoons salt 2 teaspoons sugar, optional 1 teaspoon lemon rind zest, chopped finely, optional 1/2 teaspoon thyme, optional Toast the seeds in a frying pan over medium heat or use the oven.

To toast in the oven, preheat oven to 325 degrees. Put the seeds in an 8-inch square cake pan and toast seeds for about 15 minutes. Every five minutes check the seeds and shake the pan so they toast evenly.

Seeds should be mostly brown and slightly puffed. Remove from oven and cool.

When cool, put into the blender with the salt, sugar, thyme and lemon rind. Run the blender until you have ground the seeds into a meal. Can be refrigerated and stored in a jar for a few weeks.

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W

hen it’s too hot to use the stove, and you have sweetly ripened tomatoes, make gazpacho.

Serve with sangria, crackers, cheese, olives or whatever else pleases you, and enjoy your personal Spanish tapa experience.

It’s the tomatoes that make the flavor and it’s surprising how easy it is to make because you basically throw eight ingredients in the blender and purée away. You need to chill the gazpacho for at least six hours and be sure to use a metal bowl. I don’t remember where I got this recipe but I did highlight it five years ago at this same time of year.

Be careful because the ingredients fill a typical blender to the top.

The sangria recipe is from the “Better Homes and Garden Mexican Cook Book.” It makes enough for a party so half the recipe for a smaller crowd.

Gazpacho topped with toasted ground pumpkin seeds 2 pounds ripe tomatoes, stemmed, rinsed and dried 1 fresh or canned Anaheim chili, about 4-5 inches long 1 small red onion 1 clove garlic 3 teaspoons pomegranate balsamic vinegar, balsamic vinegar or sherry vinegar 1/2 cup olive oil 2 teaspoons salt Pepper to taste

Make the toasted pumpkin seeds first then use the same blender to make the gazpacho.

Wash and dry the ripest tomatoes you can find. Core and seed the chili. Chop the tomatoes, onion and chili into large chunks and put into a blender with the garlic clove.

Blend at a high speed until very smooth. Scrape down the sides of the blender every so often.

With the motor running, add the vinegar and salt. Slowly pour in the olive oil. Depending on the color of your tomatoes, you will have a smooth pinkish colored liquid.

If you don’t want seeds, strain the liquid through a strainer pushing it through with a spatula or wooden spoon. Chill for at least six hours or overnight in a metal bowl.

Before serving, taste and adjust

2 oranges 2 lemons 2 bottles, 1.5 liters rose or red wine 1/4 cup sugar 1/4 cup brandy 1 apple 1 28-ounce bottle carbonated water, chilled Chill one orange and one lemon for garnish. Squeeze juices from the orange and lemon into a large pitcher or punch bowl. Add wine, sugar and brandy. Stir to dissolve sugar and chill. Just before serving, prepare the fruit. Slice lemon and oranges into wheels and cut apple into chunks. Add fruit to the chilled wine mixture and slowly stir in the chilled carbonated water.

Serve. Makes 12, 8-ounce servings.

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PAJARO VALLEY MAGAZINE | SEPTEMBER 11 -17, 2020

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PHOTO GALLERY

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Tarmo Hannula

SEPTEMBER 11 -17, 2020 | PAJARO VALLEY MAGAZINE

Have a recent photo you’d like to share? Send it to us for consideration by emailing it to echalhoub@weeklys.com or mailing it to 21 Brennan St., Suite 18, Watsonville, CA 95076. Please include a brief description of the photo as well as the name of the photographer.

FINDING SHADE These people use a parasol to guard themselves from the sun on Sept. 7 while visiting Lighthouse Point in Santa Cruz.

MAKING A SPLASH

A snowy egret marches through the surf.

Tom Brezsny’s

REAL ESTATE OF MIND

Provoking thought since 1990

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playing in the grass on a warm day.

THANK YOU Paper hearts recently were hung on a fence in

Santa Cruz to pay thanks to firefighters during the ongoing rash of wildland fires hitting the state.

Tom Brezsny

Realtor® DRE#01063297

831-818-1431 getreal@serenogroup.com PA I D A D V E R T O R I A L

PAJARO VALLEY MAGAZINE | SEPTEMBER 11 -17, 2020

Tarmo Hannula

Debora Norz

STAYING ACTIVE Peggy Sue enjoys

Musing about Buyer’s Remorse, that insidious part of real estate that takes great pleasure in showing up like an unwanted guest in the middle of so many escrows. I’m sure Realtors use the phrase too much but what else can we call “it?”

Is there another word to describe all those clandestine meetings that happen in our clients’ heads while they’re struggling to navigate the home-buying process? Or the crazy cascade effect that ratchets up when their worry centers start tossing “whatifs” into the air like random ping pong balls?

Is there another way to describe the crucial moments that inevitably come when a buyer’s initial dreaming about a house is forced to confront the reality of actually buying one? Particularly when there’s a flood of decisions that keeps rushing them toward the point of no return known as the close of escrow, accompanied by an insistent inner voice that keeps asking: “Yikes, what if I make a mistake?

Will God give me a mulligan?”

Yep. Buyer’s Remorse - it’s a staple of real estate. A dish found hanging around the table whenever the heat gets turned up in the kitchen and the escrow pot starts boiling. A daily special cooked and served up in all kinds of strange and interesting ways. Steamed.

Grilled. Poached. And definitely fried.

Funny, the more ways Buyer’s Remorse gets prepared, the more unprepared I seem to be when it rears its all-too-human head.

Call it an occupational hazard; the dreaded specter of escrow- interruptus hangs around like a shadow in every corner of every real estate transaction.

When buyers fall in love with a house, they are struck by waves of emotion that sweep them forward into the offer process. But as an offer is accepted, the tide turns and immediately they start hiring the equivalent of private detectives, in the form of home, termite and roof Inspectors, to find out everything that’s wrong with the perfect place they just fell in love with.

Meanwhile, their agent is required by law to keep supplying them with thick tomes of boilerplate warnings detailing, ad infinitum, all the things about their future home that could end up harming or killing them. Asbestos. Radon Gas. Lead Paint.

Mold. Floods. Earthquakes. Who knew there were this many horsemen of the Apocalypse?

Buyer’s Remorse isn’t some awful, earlyescrow-onset aberration of the psyche. I’m not sure there’s any buyer on the planet who doesn’t wake up with night sweats at least once or twice during the course of escrow, plagued by tremors of doubt and existential terror. It’s a completely normal response to the way the real estate process is designed.

Next Week: Seller’s Remorse, the other dark meat.

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Just when you thought it was safe to go outside. What have we done to deserve this? It’s of such biblical proportions I am expecting locusts and frogs next.

HOME OF THE WEEK

This current fire event is going to have a huge impact on our already challenging housing market. Supply and demand will be at a critical level. The demand will greatly outreach the supply. People will be forced to leave and move to other areas, other states. Let’s hope landlords will be sympathetic and keep normal rent levels.

Based on numbers from the last two major fires in California – the Camp Fire that destroyed Paradise and the Wine Country Fires that devastated Santa Rosa – home values in the outlying areas of the fires will realize a 15- 20% increase in value depending on how many people are displaced.

Houses currently and soon to be on the market will see multiple offers and bidding wars.

I lived in Paradise for 10 years before moving to Watsonville. After the town burned, I was called to duty by my brother, a Realtor in Chico, to help our friends and family find new homes in the surrounding areas. The insurers acted very quickly and generously so the suddenly homeless people could find shelter and comfort. I hope the same for our neighbors who find themselves in this life-changing experience now. Interesting note: While helping a dear friend look for a replacement home in Chico that fall, he was wearing a hat I had not seen before, so I asked him, “Is that a new hat?” “Yes Ed,” he replied. “Everything I have is new.” This is the reality; people are literally starting over.

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Local Real Estate Specialist

SEPTEMBER 11 -17, 2020 | PAJARO VALLEY MAGAZINE

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Having seen first-hand how fire can destroy everything, having listened to harrowing stories of escaping and surviving such destruction, my heart goes out to all of those going through this. “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger,” is easier said then done; but it is true. The community will embrace and care for our neighbors in need. I have seen it and experienced it.

EUREKA CANYON This Corralitos home offers plenty of views

of trees and wildlife.

Living in the woodlands Corralitos home sits on more than three acres with large deck

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HOMEOWNER’S SERVICE GUIDE Keep your home in top shape with the help of these local professionals.

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For information on how to include your business, email sales@pajaronian.com

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EQUIPMENT RENTAL

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PAJARO VALLEY MAGAZINE | SEPTEMBER 11 -17, 2020

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