An artist paints a visual look to the musical feel of Monterey Jazz Festival.

Suzka Collins used to live in Sand City, her base from where she created the painted stage backdrops for the Monterey Jazz Festival (see story, p. 20). This is her 25th year doing so.

She moved to San Diego to seek treatment for cancer four years ago (she’s healthy now), and ended up writing a novel there titled Wonders in Dementialand, about caring for her mother who had gone through dementia and passed away. But while there she also soaked up some inspiration for her Jazz Fest assignment.

“All the stages are a bit different,” she writes by email. “They seem to have an R. Crumb-meets-Suzka flavor. I just finished exhibiting at this year’s Comic-Con in San Diego so I was filled with foolishness in my ideas.”

She says she uses the Jazz Festival poster as the starting basis for her stage sets, then works in a flurry for months (“letting [my] mind dress up the stages like matching attire”), then suddenly stops and walks away. When she returns to the work, she picks out the best of the bunch, like a curator of her own art. She works on through to the construction and implementation, too.

In this, the 60th year of her beloved festival, Suzka allows some time to pause and look back: “I think this year more than any other, I am personally reflecting back on the Monterey Jazz family that I have become part of.”  

More information at 619-763-3300, suzkaworld@gmail.com, suzka.com.