Established | Santa Clara
Pilar Agüero-Esparza is a mixed media artist working in painting and spatial processes through which she explores issues of colorism and social hierarchies while engaging with ideas of materiality, meaning, and the handmade object as entry points for discussions on race, equity, and empathy. She received a BA in Art from the University of California, Santa Cruz, and an MFA in Spatial Art from San Jose State University.
Legacy | Madera
Steve Alcalá is a local musician, retired educator, and music publisher (3-2 Music Publishing). As an educator, Steve taught marching band, Latin jazz, and mariachi at Roosevelt High School and Latin jazz at Fresno City College. He was a board member of Arte Americas and created the first Latin jazz festival in 1989. Steve currently teaches mariachi and band part-time at ETAA Charter School in Madera.
Emerging | Fresno
Julie Araujo can remember wanting to fade into the background as a teenager because of harmful societal standards and the objectification of women. She has struggled but has come to a point in her life where she is more comfortable in her skin than ever before. She strives to be a role model for her three young children knowing the imprint of who she is will be a big part of who they become. Through her art, Araujo wants to do her best to break the cycles of damage and harm, especially with body image.
Emerging | San Mateo
Nathan Aurellano is a director, writer, and producer from Pacifica. His work focuses on Asian-American identity, masculinity, and young adult malaise. He is currently a Futures Fund fellow at the Chinese Cultural Center of San Francisco, as well as a former fellow at Balay Kreative and the Bay Area Video Coalition. His work has also been shown at the Kearny Street Workshop.
Emerging | Kern
Deanna Barahona is a first-generation multidisciplinary artist from Bakersfield. Her practice is inspired by her Guatemalan-Salvadoran upbringing, and centers on the aesthetics of adornment and exchanges of ephemera. Barahona has been producing mixed-media art that incorporates textile, photography, installation, sculpture, and bookmaking. Informed by her parents' homeland, her work is characterized by vibrant colors and a playful aesthetic. She examines the connection between her family’s geographical origins to the diasporic experience in Southern California.
Emerging | Fresno
Jared M. Barbick, born in 1976, was raised in Palos Verdes, a picturesque seaside town in Southern California. He studied at the California Institute of the Arts (CalArts) and is mostly a self-taught artist. Barbick’s work has traversed various mediums and subjects over the years as he moved from Southern California to Minneapolis, Minnesota, and back where he has made a home for the last 17 years in the central valley - Fresno - with his wife and cat.
Emerging | Santa Cruz
Nina Barzegar is an Iranian composer, pianist, educator, and actress. Her diverse musical styles encompass concert music, film, and theater compositions. The New York Times described her music as "thrilling in its fusion of experimental, extended-technique effects, melodic and chordal inventions." She holds a bachelor's degree in piano and a master's in composition from the University of Tehran. and is currently pursuing a Doctoral degree in composition at the University of California, Santa Cruz.
Established | San Benito
Kirti Bassendine is a fine art photographer and documentarian based in California, with a BA Honours in Fine Art Photography. Her work weaves together still photography and short films to tell cultural stories. She has always been intrigued by human relationships and how they interweave with different social and cultural contexts– especially how these complexities impact the discovery of one's sense of identity and belonging within one's culture and in the wider world.
Established | Fresno
Venita Blackburn is the award-winning author of the story collections Black Jesus and Other Superheroes (2017), How to Wrestle a Girl (2021), and the debut novel, Dead in Long Beach, California, forthcoming in January of 2024. She is the founder of the non-profit Live, Write, which provides free creative writing workshops to communities of color. Blackburn serves as an Associate Professor of creative writing at California State University, Fresno.
Emerging | San Mateo
Shari Bryant captures the beauty of expression and form in her portrait and narrative works. She loves getting her hands dirty with charcoal, pastel, and ink. Her current series "Meladies: The Fantastic Black Woman" is an exploration of Blackness and fantasy — reimagining Black women fantastically in roles of beauty, power, and brilliance.
Emerging | San Mateo
Eva Chen is a student at Yale University and a performing poet from the Bay Area. She is a Scholastics Art & Writing Awards Gold Medalist, San Mateo’s 2022 Young Women of Excellence, and founded Burlingame's first Youth Poet Laureate program. As a strong advocate in social justice, her community impact has been recognized by the Princeton Prize in Race Relations, San Mateo’s Commission on the Status of Women, and SF Chinese for Affirmative Action.
Emerging | Monterey
Natalia Corazza is a Colombian-American painter, muralist, mentor, and arts advocate working for and within the Monterey Peninsula. Through painting, she creates mystical sceneries that reveal the intimacy that exists within vulnerability as we seek for guidance through gifts, dreams, faith, imagination, and connection.
Emerging | Santa Barbara
Adrienne De Guevara’s work weaves the solitary practice of the assemblage, deconstructing and reconstructing disparate objects, into the social practice of assembly of people into experiential situations with the intent to reveal how form informs our perceptions and how those biases can be remade into new narratives. The work aims to invite curiosity and reflection through sensory experiences to affect change and to seek alternatives to open doorways and invite exploration.
Established | Santa Clara
Born and raised in a Mexican and Puerto Rican household in San Jose, Ivan Flores is a multi-instrumentalist/producer focused on bringing the accordion-led, socially-conscious Bay Area cumbia to the international musical arena.
Emerging | Fresno
Tommy Duch is a Cambodian American artist who was born and raised in Fresno. He first began studying art in 2012. After six years, he began his career in animation in 2018, working on projects while also holding part-time jobs. During the pandemic, he began to pursue animation full-time by collaborating with local artists.
Emerging | Stanislaus
Esther Eliais from Turlock. She received a BFA in Illustration from California College of the Arts, and a Masters of Fine Arts in Painting/Drawing from the University of New Mexico. Her art practice focuses on the Assyrian experience in diaspora, and uses painting and sculpture to explore themes of creating a homeland and culture as a currently stateless nation.
Emerging | San Mateo
Katerina Eng Beckman is a freelance dancer and choreographer. She holds a BFA in dance from The Juilliard School. Her choreographic work has been featured at The National Gallery of Art, The Peter J Sharp Theater at Lincoln Center, and The de Young Open 2023. She is the founder of OTHER ODE, a movement collective that seeks to strengthen dancer’s voices and produce pop-up immersive art experiences where artists and audiences can create together.
Emerging | Santa Cruz
Farnaz Fatemi, an Iranian American poet and writer, and Santa Cruz County Poet Laureate 2023-24, is a founding member of The Hive Poetry Collective, a member of Writers of Color – Santa Cruz County, and a former Lecturer in Writing at UCSC. Her book, Sister Tongue, won the 2021 Stan and Tom Wick Poetry Prize, selected by Tracy K. Smith, was a finalist for the 2022 Foreword Indies, and received a Starred Review from Publisher’s Weekly.
Established | Santa Barbara
As a rural dweller in his home community of the Cuyama Valley, California, Jack Forinash brings empathy and consideration to the practice of applied arts, architecture, community development, and good old-fashioned fun. He’s a cultural producer, community connector, builder, list-maker, spreadsheet artist, and amateur stargazer.
Emerging | San Luis Obispo
Born in Rome, Anna Fusco is an artist and a writer. One of ten stewards living in an intentional community on California's central coast, her recent work explores the idea of manifest destiny in the American west and its natural friction with the current sentimental and fleeting possibility of modern home ownership. “Unsupervised” is the Substack newsletter where she writes that comes out three times a month, it is also a 2023 featured publication.
Emerging | Fresno
Diana Gaspar-Peña believes that some people are lucky and know their purpose in life. Diana believes that she knew since she was very young that she was an artist. She has worked in many industries when she worked and lived in the Santa Clara Valley also known as "Silicon Valley." Diana couldn't be a full-time artist because as a mother she had to help support her children. She created art when she could, and dreamt of the day that she would wake to create and lay down to sleep to plan the next day of touching magic. She especially likes to create projects to help children learn about Indigenous history and customs.
Established | San Luis Obispo
Shell Beach artist, Colleen Gnos, is best known for for her ocean and agriculture inspired murals, gold-scaled mermaids painted on surfboards, and her idyllic scenes of surfers and breaking waves. In the last few decades, Colleen has completed public art projects, created art for dozens of wine labels, and has shown her paintings across the USA and Italy.
Established | Monterey
JC Gonzalez is a multidisciplinary visual artist whose medium includes paintings, photography, murals inspired by nature, infused by his Mexican-American abstract style with a queer sensibility. JC’s mission is to empower people through arts and culture as a powerful tool for healing and voice contemporary issues. JC is a Public Arts Commissioner for the City of Salinas and founder of Urban Arts Collaborative, a non-profit.
Established | Kern
Gina Herrera holds a BFA from the School of the Art Institute (Chicago) and an MFA from the University of the Arts (Philadelphia). She creates unexpected assemblages using post-industrial waste and natural objects, a spiritual and aesthetic ritual drawing from her Native American (Tesuque Pueblo) and Costa Rican heritage, 25 years of military experience, passion for environmental justice and deep connection with youth through her work as an educator in Arvin and Bakersfield.
Established | Santa Barbara
Debra Herrick is the editor and co-founder of Lum Art Magazine, the associate editorial director of University of California, Santa Barbara’s The Current and magazine, and serves on the board of trustees for the Museum of Contemporary Art Santa Barbara. She holds a Ph.D. from UC Santa Barbara, where she completed her doctoral studies in Latin American literature before pursuing a career in writing and publishing. She is the past managing editor of Coastal View News and former senior editorial manager of the Journal of Mexican Studies, published by University of California Press. Her writing and photographs have also appeared in Artillery Art Magazine, The Santa Barbara Independent, Noozhawk, Réplica21, and La Nación, as well as several academic anthologies. Debra has held teaching positions at UC Santa Barbara, Santa Clara University, University of Miami and la Universidad Autónoma de Benito Juárez de Oaxaca and was guest curator at Santa Barbara Center for Arts Science and Technology.
Emerging | Santa Clara
Amy Hibbs’s work addresses issues of environmental decay and human dis-integration through drawing, photography, printmaking, and social practice. Inspired by her surroundings in San Jose’s urban streets, gardens, and wild places, she brings attention to discarded material. Hibbs’s practice spotlights ideas that increase healing for individuals, communities, and ecosystems, highlighting dualities of hope and grief, beauty, and disgust.
Legacy | Santa Cruz
Dr. Osa T. Hidalgo de la Riva received her Ph.D. from USC’s School of Cinematic Arts in the Critical Studies Division. She taught at UC Berkeley from 2008-2013. In 2012, Osa received the Chancellor’s Public Scholar Award. Her film Mujeria: The Olmeca Rap premiered at the Kabuki Theater in San Francisco; Mujeria: Primitive and Proud debuted at the Roxie Cinema, SF. In 2007, her animation artwork Las Olmecas was included in 500 years of Chicana Women’s History, edited by Elizabeth Martinez.
Legacy | Santa Clara
Roy Hirabayashi co-founded San Jose Taiko in 1973 in San Jose Japantown and led as the artistic and executive director. Roy is an activist, composer, performer, teacher, and lecturer, and he has toured internationally, performing the taiko and shinobue (Japanese drum and bamboo flute). Roy received the NEA National Heritage Fellowship and is a co-founder and Multicultural Arts Leadership Institute Program Director at the School of Arts & Culture at the Mexican Heritage Plaza.
Established | Monterey
Ava Homa is an award-winning author and activist. Her novel Daughters of Smoke and Fire won the 2020 Silver Nautilus Award and was a finalist for the 2022 William Saroyan Prize. Her book of short stories, Echoes from the Other Land, was nominated for the 2011 Frank O'Connor Prize. She holds a master’s degree in Creative Writing and her articles has been featured in the Globe and Mail, BBC, Toronto Star, Literary Hub, and more.
Emerging | Santa Clara
Alice Hur has performed, battled, and taught a street dance style called waacking for the past decade. Originally called punking, this dance was birthed out of Los Angeles' gay clubs and centers free expression. Alice has battled in this style throughout the West Coast, Midwest, and Canada; they are the organizer of one of the largest recurring waacking events on the West Coast and lead weekly training sessions dedicated to this dance.
Emerging | Santa Barbara
Spenser Jaimes is a Šmuwič and Island Chumash tomol paddler and caretaker of the Xax' 'Alolk'oy and 'Eleye'wun, two traditional tomols. His family comes from the villages of Syxutun (Santa Barbara) and Swaxɨl on Limuw (Santa Cruz Island). As a paddler and caretaker, his focus centers on the continued natural relationships with his homelands, the revitalization of cultural practices such as traditional fishing, and advocating for fishing rights for his tribe. His documentary short "Connected by Water" premiered at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival in 2021 and highlighted the traditional connection in paddling between coastal tribes in the Southern California area. He is currently working on several projects that highlight and document ancestral and modern ways of life and untold history of his tribe.
Legacy | Santa Barbara
Sojourner Kincaid Rolle is a poet, playwright, cultural and environmental educator, and peace activist. An accomplished literary artist, Rolle served as Santa Barbara Poet Laureate. Her illustrated children’s book, "Free at Last: A Juneteenth Poem,” received national acclaim from Kirkus Reviews, PBS, Publisher’s Weekly, and Booklist. Rolle was recently honored as Congressional Woman of the Year for her storied record of grassroots and global community engagement. She holds a J.D. from UC Berkeley.
Emerging | Santa Cruz
Winsor Kinkade, LCSW is a multimedia artist, community mental health social worker, and educator living and working in unceded Awaswas Amah Mutson Territory, Santa Cruz. Winsor’s work is particularly invested in the intersection of art, post-traumatic community resistance and healing, our bodies innate wisdom, connection to the land and animal kin, and collective liberation.
Emerging | Santa Clara
Ever since Anh was a little girl, she always had a passion for writing. Penpalling to her friends and family from all over the world, she explored various cultures and explored fascinating stories with just ink and paper. Now, Anh translates her love of stories through filmmaking, telling stories that heal the wounds of society.
Established | Fresno
Inspired by her grandfather, a muralist from Central Mexico, Gema Lopez is a representational painter working in oils. She’s drawn to the interplay of light and shadow on everyday objects, and how light reveals the delicate nuances of a subject’s color and form. She strives to create paintings that draw the viewer into these deceptively ordinary objects to discover the extraordinary beauty hidden within the seemingly mundane.
Emerging | Ventura
Ashwin Manthripragada is currently working on a novel called “The Annulment.” Set in the 1960s in the Nilgiri hill stations of Southern India, the novel is about the tensions between individual freedoms and family bonds, human progress and terrestrial desecration, worldly cares and mystical beliefs. Recently, the National Library of Austria published his first short story, “Steig,” that reimagined the real-life meeting between Stefan Zweig and Rabindranath Tagore at the Salzburg train station platform.
Emerging | Tulare
Cesar Martinez is a young artist from Porterville. Martinez started painting about three years ago and since has been relentlessly working to make his visual language more of his own, universally understandable and approachable while speaking on various pressing world issues.
Established | San Benito
Born in Mexico, Aidet Maupomé trained at the Centro Dramático de Michoacán, earned a Bachelor's degree in Communication Sciences and a Master's degree in Inclusive Education, a diploma in Human Rights, and completed several courses related to education and emotional intelligence. Her professional experience focuses on the planning and development of projects and activities in communicative, educational, and emotional processes for resilience, inclusion, transformation, and social justice through the arts, mainly theater.
Established | Fresno
Donte McDaniel, MSW, is the founder and lead djembeföla of African Drum Interactive. As a cultural bearer born in the Central Valley, Donte’s mission is to honor African arts by teaching and providing accessible West African djembe drumming. He provides performances, group drumming, classes, and cultural arts-based programs across the Central Valley. Donte is committed to unifying and uplifting all people through the rhythm of the djembe.
Emerging | Santa Cruz
Passion for art has fueled Moze's lifelong journey, beginning in high school with diverse mediums like watercolor, acrylic, oil, and sculpture. Moze's dedication led to a senior portfolio and active involvement in the art club. After graduating from the Art Institute of Atlanta in graphic design, Moze ventured into studio art for movie and theater sets. Immersed in the Goat Farm Artist Community, where Moze was inspired to truly pursue their dreams. Moze embraced glassblowing through apprenticeships and workshops, expanding their horizons. Internships at Corning Museum of Glass and work in Los Angeles solidified their path. Now rooted in Santa Cruz, Moze has showcased, built their first commercial space, as well as co-curated their first show, nurturing their art and community connection.
Emerging | San Mateo
Artist Barbara Mumby considers herself to be a Narrative Shifter and uses the arts to challenge inaccurate and outdated perceptions of Indigenous Peoples and other marginalized groups. Her work embodies an interwoven record of the artist and subject’s interactions and inter-connectedness, pays homage to the stories that are often ignored, and captures the beauty in those that are often denied admiration by mainstream society.
Established | Santa Cruz
Adela Najarro is a poet with a social consciousness who is working on a novel. Her extended family left Nicaragua and arrived in San Francisco during the 1940s; after the fall of the Somoza regime, the last of the family settled in the Los Angeles area. She teaches at Cabrillo College, serves on the board of directors for Círculo de Poetas and Writers, and works with the Latinx community nationwide, promoting the intersection of creative writing and social justice.
Emerging | Santa Barbara
Cheri Owen is an artist with a penchant for tactile mediums like ceramics and printmaking. She aspires to share her work with a world she can no longer see: touching people emotionally through piercing, poetic phrases and the beauty of the natural world, all of which she can still hear, deeply and fully. She is a blind U.S. Air Force Veteran who served during the Persian Gulf War and lives and works in Goleta.
Emerging | Fresno
Connie Owens Patton is a writer, poet, and spoken word artist residing in Fresno. Her work has appeared in publications like Black Fire This Time Volume 1, COVID, Isolation and Hope: Artists Respond to the Pandemic, and The Fresno City College Review (2019-2021). She has performed at spoken word events throughout the Central Valley. To hear her work in spoken word, visit Kaanee on SoundCloud.
Emerging | Fresno
Tiśina Ta-till-ium Parker/Native One is a California Indigenous cis-fem, filmmaker, traditional regalia maker, and community cultural art activist. Tiśina is the grandchild of Ralph and Julia F. Parker, child of Louis and Patricia Parker. Their people are Yosemite Southern Sierra Miwuk/Kutzadika’a Mono Lake Paiute from their Grandfather’s lineage and Kashia Pomo from their Grandmother’s lineage. Tiśina was born and raised in their sacred tribal homeland of Yosemite/Mariposa, then resettled in the Central Valley. Born into a strong Native lineage, Tiśina has practiced ceremony with their Yosemite Indigenous community since birth and has worked as a cultural artist within the inter-tribal Native communities for over 15 years.
Emerging | San Benito
Venecia Prudencio is a multimedia artist who loves serving and representing their community through the arts. Venecia has a passion for social justice, and recognizes that the arts cross ethnic and cultural barriers and celebrate diversity.
Emerging | Kern
Diana Ramirez is an introspective creator, poet, and visionary leader. With a passion ignited in her high school days, she discovered the healing power of words through poetry. Over a decade in the nonprofit sector culminated in her founding a transformative organization, which fosters kinship with incarcerated youth and adults through poetry and art. A devoted mother of two, with a profound enthusiasm for service, Diana hopes to continue spreading light and inspiration through her poetic expression.
Established | Santa Barbara
Jennie Reinish is a documentary filmmaker; her production company is Tidepool Pictures. Her films center human stories: those impacting community, encouraging action, and inspiring understanding and compassion. Through the lens of very human experiences, her films have addressed climate, health, and social justice, all of which seek to inspire engagement in the community. Her current film I Cannot Be a Bystander addresses the power of speaking out against antisemitism and hate, featuring Holocaust survivors and community leaders.
Established | Fresno
Joseph Rios was named Fresno's Sixth Poet Laureate in 2023. He is the author of Shadowboxing: Poems and Impersonations (Omnidawn), winner of the American Book Award, and was named one of the Notable Debut Poets by Poets & Writers Magazine for 2017. He is a Stegner Fellow at Stanford University. He lives in Calwa.
Emerging | Fresno
David Roberts creates both community and artist-built ceramic bas-relief murals to facilitate an understanding of the natural world. He is a Ceramic Artist, licensed General Contractor, and certified General Biology/Science Teacher.
Emerging | Santa Barbara
Tai Rodrig's art merges mathematics and computation, unveiling infinite patterns. Drawing inspiration from systems that generate endless splendor in nature, Tai delves into uncharted territories. By understanding these foundational rules, he encourages a deeper appreciation of both art and math. This innovative fusion educates and inspires, fostering a profound love for the interconnectedness of our world.
Emerging | Santa Cruz
Samantha Bounkeua (RogueViolin) is a queer performer-composer-producer whose work blurs perceptions of acoustic performance. Integrating issues of mental health and activism, she specializes in cross-media collaborations that amplify queer/femme voices. A graduate of Oberlin Conservatory, RogueViolin performs internationally and participated in the Re-Presence Artist Residency at Stanford University (2022). Her work has featured in the International Meg Quigley Vivaldi Symposium, Kerala Short Film Festival, Breaking Ground Contemporary Dance Festival, and more.
Emerging | Fresno
Based in Fresno, Garrett Ruiz has been styling wigs for theater productions and drag entertainers for the past four years. With a Fresno State bachelor’s degree in Art, he was able to translate his sculpture practice into sculpting hair. He has showcased his wigs throughout the central valley with the Selma Arts Center and Madera Theater Project and has received national recognition for his work being featured on RuPaul’s Drag Race.
Emerging | Kern
Charlee Ryan is a movement artist with a passion to bridge the gap from movement and mental health/coping skills for local youth and adults. Together with support from community, Ryan is able to bring low-cost and now sponsored arts to the mountain communities in hopes that we can bring future adults into a studio in times of crisis.
Established | Fresno
Brynn Saito’s third book of poems, Under a Future Sky, was published in August by Red Hen Press. Brynn is the recipient of the Benjamin Saltman Award, a finalist for the Northern California Book Award, and her work has appeared in the New York Times, VOGUE, and American Poetry Review. Brynn teaches in the MFA program at Fresno State, located on Yokuts and Mono lands.
Established | Fresno
Dixie Salazar is a Central Valley artist who has been working in oils, watercolors, collage, assemblage, and hand-colored photography for the past forty years. Her work has been shown in the Central Valley, San Francisco, Las Vegas, New York, and Merced. Her work has won a number of first place awards and Best of shows. She has also published five books of poetry and two novels.
Emerging | Tulare
Central Valley-based art student Eden Santos has embarked on an imaginary journey aiming to intervene in the public space through printmaking and ceramics that inspire a sense of belonging, encourage conversations, and make people proud to be part of it. Her creativity is sparked, and a constant learning experience from the community she shares realities with, she relates to, and by collaborative work with other artists. Art is her continuously growing language.
Established | San Mateo
Farah Yasmeen Shaikh is an international Kathak dance artist, choreographer, instructor, and Founder/Artistic Director of Noorani Dance - a nonprofit organization, a performing company and a school. A TEDx speaker, and podcast host of "Heartistry Talk Show," Farah’s work has received support from numerous funding institutions. Internationally, Farah regularly performs and teaches throughout Pakistan.
Established | San Mateo
Na Omi Judy Shintani creates assemblages incorporating traditional Japanese arts and crafts. She is an advocate of unearthing hidden stories and exposing injustice. Solo exhibitions include those at Triton Museum of Art, the SF International Arts Festival, and the Japanese American Museum of Oregon. She earned a MA in Transformative Art at JFKU and a BS in Graphic Design at SJSU. Shintani lives in Half Moon Bay and is on the faculty of Foothill Community College.
Established | Ventura
brooke smiley is a 𐓷𐓘𐓺𐓘𐓺𐓣 𐓣𐓟 Osage earth artist, dancer, and somatic movement educator who uniquely make works in relation with land. Rooting in risk and love, her work enlivens public art experiences as both diplomacy and education. She re-centers public spaces and who they serve by guiding creative processes with Native and non-Native communities, National Parks, and institutions worldwide. brooke uplifts the complexity of Contemporary Native Identity across generations through the collaborative creation of embodied earth markers and multisensory dance performances to re-map our worlds.
Emerging | Santa Clara
Siana Smith utilizes fine art paintings to explore the societal, environmental, and psychological dimensions of commodities. She obtained her MFA from CCA in 2021 and has showcased her paintings at the de Young Museum, the New York Academy of Art, various museums, and galleries. Beyond her artistic endeavors, Siana is driven by a deep passion for public art and community service, having contributed to public art projects in both San Francisco and San Jose.
Emerging | Santa Barbara
Asian Americans are underrepresented in our visual culture. Tama Takahashi is half-Japanese and creates vivid, richly textured paintings using traditional design elements to illustrate contemporary issues. Takahashi graduated from UC San Diego with a double major in art and cinema and began working in Hollywood on features and TV before moving to Santa Barbara. Takahashi returned to painting during the pandemic. Their work was recently shown at international shows, including at the Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum.
Established | Monterey
Jerry Takigawa is a photographer, designer, and writer. He has received many awards including: the Imogen Cunningham Award; the Clarence J. Laughlin Award, New Orleans, LA; CENTER Awards, Curator’s Choice First Place, Santa Fe, NM; and the Rhonda Wilson Award, NY. His work is in the permanent collections of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; and the Brooklyn Museum. His monograph for Balancing Cultures was published in 2021.
Emerging | Santa Barbara
Kai is a visual artist, illustrator, healing advocate, photographer, musician, connector and collaborator. Kai specializes in healing through creativity and creative mediums. He believes life mimics art and art mimics life, which is why he continues to create anything he feels inspired to. He has a Master's in Counseling Psychology from Pacifica Graduate Institute that adds a deep and unique perspective to his creative process and art development. He is a self-taught, highly-talented, and skilled artist. Visual art mediums most familiar with: digital, graphite, colored pencil, watercolor, acrylic, and gouache. Proficient use of Adobe Photoshop and Lightroom and used extensively as a freelance photographer.
Established | Santa Barbara
Emma Trelles is the ninth Poet Laureate of Santa Barbara, and a Poet Laureate Fellow at the Academy of American Poets. The daughter of Cuban immigrants, she’s the author of Tropicalia (University of Notre Dame Press) and winner of the Andrés Montoya Poetry Prize. She curates the Mission Poetry Series and is the series editor of the Alta California Chapbook Prize, awarded to Latina/e/o/x poets in the U.S. and published in bilingual editions by Gunpowder Press.
Emerging | Tulare
Tim is a Taiwanese American filmmaker whose feature debut, SEADRIFT, chronicles the racial hostilities that erupted during the early days of Vietnamese refugee arrival in Texas. Other work includes short films on early Chinese Texans for Austin PBS and editing POWERLANDS (AmDocs ‘22 Best US Feature). Tim is the former executive director of the Austin Asian American Film Festival and is a Firelight Media Documentary Labs alum.
Emerging | Merced
Karina E. Turner is a Director and Cinematographer who won an award for the Best Long Short Documentary at the Merced Queer Film Festival for her first documentary, Robert and An American Dream: The Premiering of An American Posada, in 2022 and later that same year became one of the ten winners of the Big Tell Competition for her Invisible Love short documentary on the subject of Alzheimer’s.
Emerging | Santa Cruz
Sylvia Valentine has shared her love of nature photography for 15 years, in juried shows, galleries, and retail stores. Her photos are a reflection of moments in time, capturing unique angles and light. She’s been voted Santa Cruz Best Photographer three years in a row. Her heartfelt book, Sanctuary, combines meaningful quotes by favorite authors that match the essence in each image. Sylvia recently introduced "HeartFelt & Found," her custom felt, vintage and floral art designs.
Established | Fresno
Michael Vasquez is a graphic designer and digital illustrator based in Fresno. They specialize in creating digital illustration inspired by Native American, Indigenous, and Mesoamerican cultures. Vasquez creates and sells original artwork along with apparel, embroidered patches, enamel pins, and vinyl stickers. Vasquez also create murals around the Central Valley.
Emerging | Tulare
As a child, Gerardo Vazquez was engulfed by the energy, emotion, sacrifice, and spirit of actively taking part in the historic unification of poor farm workers in the United States. Striving towards social justice was beautiful, colorful, and alive with passion. Social movements can unleash commitment to a cause greater than any one individual. With visual arts, Gerardo expands awareness and compassion towards achieving social equity for the unhoused, the victimized, and those discriminated against.
Established | Fresno
Bobby is an award-winning registered artist of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma who resides in Fresno. Bobby is currently working on illustrations for a book by author Kim Rogers that will be published by Harper Collins in 2024. He is currently contracted with the Save the Children World Organization, teaching children the craft of arts in the rural schools of Fresno. In his spare time, he likes to work on his classic cars with his children.