- Some highlights of the Arts Council for Monterey County’s 15th annual Champions of the Arts Gala this past Saturday. Educator award winner Jacqui Hope’s rousing speech about teaching kids the arts in schools. The Monterey Peninsula Gospel Community Choir, led by Luminary award winner John Nash Jr., brought the house down in two easy steps… I mean songs. Volunteer award winner Janene Norum represented South County with modesty and class. Lifetime Achievement winner Greg Hawthorne talked about his family as much as art.Paulette Lynch, who stepped down as the Arts Council executive director last year, and her husband Ken attended as guests. And the kids of Marina Youth Arts did parts of the musicalFrozen that melted hearts. arts4mc.org.
- After a hibernation through the deep of winter, the CSUMB Salinas City Center (where my wife Enid Ryce is the director) roars back to life on the First Friday of 2020, Feb. 7. Artists Paul Richmond and Terese Garcia lead art workshops (5-8pm), the interactive exhibition Salinas History Mystery opens (5-8:30pm), scholars Cynthia Bejarano and Judith Flores Carmona talk about border issues (5:30pm), the film debut of Dream Blossoms about Japanese immigration to Salinas (6pm), an open mic (6:30pm), the Imaginary Animal literary reading series touches down (7pm). And, as always, admission, food and all entertainment is free. (Don’t sleep on the rest ofOldtown’s First Friday celebrations, 5-8pm.) 1 South Main St., Salinas, 772-7021, csumb.edu/artscenter.
- Just a week after their big gala, the Arts Council is putting on the 2020 Poetry Out Loudnational recitation contest for local high school students at the CSUMB Alumni and Visitors Center 1-2:30pm Saturday, Feb. 8. Inter-Garrison Road and Fourth Avenue, Seaside. 622-9060.
- Who better to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the passing of the 19th Amendment ensuring women’s right to vote, than the League of Women Voters of Monterey County? They present Robert P.J. Cooney, Jr. who himself presents a historical overview of the women’s suffrage movement in a talk titled “Winning political power for women: Carrie Chapman Catt and the League of Women Voters” 12:45-2pm Wednesday, Feb. 12, at Unitarian Universalist Church of the Monterey Peninsula. Cooney authored the book The Power of the People: Active Nonviolence in the United States. The talk is free; there is an optional $20 luncheon at noon (RSVP 224-3192, bkrps1017@gmail.com). 490 Aguajito Road, Carmel.
The premiere of the film Dream Blossoms, about Japanese immigration to Salinas in the 1950s, is among the free entertainment at the First Friday event at CSUMB Salinas City Center, 5-8:30pm Friday, Feb. 7.
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