MANZANITA ARTS EMPORIUM

Step into my parlor said the spider to the fly…I can’t help it. It’s what happens to me when I get my art fix.  I want to be part poet and part artist wannabe, all mixed up.  No flies here. Inside Manzanita Arts Emporium the bold work of Cate Culver greets you. Deep glorious colors. A small entrance draws you in to her powerful work.

Then the next long room; great wall space filled to capacity. Here I view wood cuts done by John Trinkle.

He made this table that retains the shape of the tree trunk, polished to enhance the natural grain.  Don’t miss the bottom shelf. Gorgeous.

I mentioned bold. This gallery is like something you’d see in San Francisco. Some hotelier will find Gary Rose’s pieces perfect for a lobby. This installation takes up about 10 feet in length.

Gary does smaller pieces suitable for the average home, too.  Again, the word powerful comes to mind.

In the next room is Monika Rose, busily editing a 500 page book…

…with her partner Joy Roberts. They are working on different chapters.

The Arts Emporium is a co-op owned gallery and office. Another partner, Connie Strawbridge is researching something on the computer. This is Calaveras County? Local talent? I’m impressed. I kept moving from room to room.

Giles Parrish does abstracts of women. Again, they are bold, engaging paintings.

I have to admit a bias for his work since I own a couple of his pieces.

Dimensional metal sculptures, catch the eye. Sizable pieces as well are from Wanda Macioszek and her husband Robert Santiford.

I detect the difference in style, but who does pine cones and who does quail, I do not know. They are all good.

Patty Payne horses are unique.

If you love a paint pony, this rendition is quite literal.

Another Cate Culver painting, but look at the copy cat quilt made by Linda Bass. A different kind of partnership, in art.

Kevin Brady is also a well-known area artist. This small rendition is the Frogs Last Supper.

You will find beautiful art cards. Also local writer’s books for sale.

Ceramics by James Aaron and others.

Another room in the building, is owned by another person I did not meet. There I spotted a Judy Caine Papais painting, an old friend whose work I know and admire. She has a rammed earth studio in the high country. Her work is well-known in the area, as is Monika Rose for her teaching writing, and publishing the work of local writers in prose, memoirs, and poetry. It has been her passion for, I’m guessing, 30 years. She is an amazing force for literary talent in this county. Connie Strawbridge came out of the Calaveras Arts Council Gallery and is now flying with a place on the street in Angels Camp,  Manzanita Arts Emporium.  She sells Giles Parrish’s work.

I like that there is much to choose from.

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Under this display is an antique table for sale. We know that art and antiques are a splendid mix.

I’m blown away by what this small group is offering and by the quality of local talent. Manzanita Emporium offers a series of lectures and speakers, one coming about Navy aircraft carriers with Bob Rogers and Judy Laws. Another on social media by Brett Bunge. And in honor of Valentines Day, Romantic Poetry by Suzanne Murphy.

Check out their website at: http://manzapress.com/

MEET AGITATOR, JIM HIGHTOWER.

Jim Hightower writes the Hightower Lowdown, a national newsletter that exposes injustice in America, only he calls it exposing bushwackers, bullshitters, gooberheads, plasticized morons, moon howling…well, the adjectives, some invented by him, are numerous and humorous. He says he is an agitator…”the center post of the washing machine that gets out all the dirt.” And, right now, he doesn’t like the hucksters running a Democracy where 4 people, all of them hedge fund managers, each earned 10 Billion dollars last year, where 108 Kindergarten teachers split 1 million. The hedge fund managers pay taxes at a rate of 15% and the teachers pay at a rate of 35%. Democracy works best from the bottom up and includes everybody. That’s you and me folks. Its revolution time for people tired of being the fire hydrants for all of those top dogs. And, the chorus sang, Hallelujah.

They did, but it wasn’t quite in that order. First, the Mother Lode Martin Luther King Jr. Chapter, active in our area for 23 years, drew over 500 people to hear Hightower speak. Amazing because this is a very white, rural community.

The program began with Martin Luther King Jr.’s last speech on a movie screen. I had forgotten what a powerful and passionate speaker he was. It was an emotional moment to turn back the pages of time and remember, the women who died in a baptist church, Rosa Parks refusing to move to the back of the bus, little girls being escorted to all white schools by the National Guard in the fight for equal rights for black Americans;  a fight that is on going to this day, 48 years after his death.  Hightower reminded us that Katie Stanton, and the jailed and punished suffragettes didn’t get the right to vote that they fought for either, but WE got it because of them.

And, that my friends is his point. Money now flows upward and the rich have so much money they can air condition hell while the poor and middle class struggles to make ends meet.

“We don’t want charity, we want economic justice. And Congress, the House and the President is stealing from us with a fountain pen.” He pointed to the current NAFTA agreement where 500 corporations and that included the Koch Brothers, met in secret, and hammered out an agreement and stuffed it down our throats without one member of a Union or anyone from the middle class and small business sitting at the table.

Hightower believes that people like Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, who don’t accept money from the big super pacs can overcome the moneyed elites who have corrupted our politics and rigged our economy to squeeze the life out of the middle class.

Bernie’s average donation is $23. Hightower says, you can’t buy a presidency with $23. His campaign is about We The People. Hightower convinced me that, with Bernie, its time to rock the boat.

No one addresses him as Senator Sanders, he is just Bernie, and one of the poorest Senators in the pack. He hasn’t parlayed his position to great wealth like most national office holders have.

He came from a low-income working class family in Brooklyn. He first worked as a carpenter, then film maker, writer and agitator. An agitator in college during the 60’s, he moved to Vermont and began exposing Burlington money boys who ran the town for their own fun and profit. Then he stunned everyone by winning an election for Mayor in Burlington. Bernie has never abandoned his working class roots. I’ve changed my position to clearly stand with the candidate who says: “I can’t do this, but WE can.”

The program ended with everyone singing the song:  We Shall Overcome. Hightower was available to talk to people at a reception after the program.

wecanpetition.moveon.org.