2 Burning Man Honoraria Projects Two Blocks Apart in Ventura, CA? Yes! Here’s how and why to support them!
David Oliver and an Orb under construction
Ventura area artists are producing two 2025 Burning Man honoraria projects “Orbs” and “Solar Synaptic Dynamo” just blocks apart on Ventura’s Westside which you can read about in my latest article for the VC Reporter. While the Bay Area is flush with Burning Man art projects, not so this small coastal sleepy town! Only 76 projects from 18 states and 12 countries received funding from the Burning Man organization — and only after being whittled down from 600-700 ideas submitted!
Successful projects offer interactivity, high visual appeal, a large impact, and sustainability. David Oliver’s two “Orbs” will bloom on the playa, standing large on the landscape and glowing through the stain glass, each with 212 petals.
Rosel Weedn and Steve Knauff’s “Solar Synaptic Dynamo” is visually appealing and not only is it sustainable, being built from largely repurposed items, but it serves a higher purpose— it’s a model for a system that provides powers for people in remote places by harnessing solar, wind, and people power.
David Oliver’s Orb
All are welcome to bring art to Burning Man, but only a few get funding from Burning Man, and getting an honoraria doesn’t mean you’re home free. Nope— they only fund 40-60% leaving the artists and their teams to come up with the rest — usually to the sound of $25,000 to $100,000 to build, transport, and construct their art installations in the very remote Black Rock Desert northeast of Reno.
It’s easy to support these worthy projects— especially right now! Below are links to online fundraising, but tonight is a an in person fundraiser at the Oasis Read more…
Channel Islands NP VC has wildflowers galore — and places to picnic too
Happy Earth Month! Happy National Park Week! Happy Earth Day! On this day thirty years ago in 1985, I woke up on the Pacific Crest Trail not far from the Mexican border near Campo, California. As we backpacked 1400 miles from Mexico to Oregon on the Pacific Crest Trail, we passed through fields of flowers—”splashes of cactus blossoms and walls of blue ceanothus, acres of lavender iris, meadows of pink shooting stars and streamside nods from tiger lilies and red columbine brought tableaus of beauty at our trailside “tables” for breakfast, lunch and dinner” as I describe it in my most recent article for the VC Reporter “Al Fresco with Flowers: Local spots for a wildflower picnic.”
Channel Islands NP VC wildflowers April 5, 2025
“I knew that if I allowed fear to overtake me, my journey was doomed. Fear, to a great extent, is born of a story we tell ourselves, and so I chose to tell myself a different story from the one women are told. I decided I was safe. I was strong. I was brave. Nothing could vanquish me,” writes Cheryl Strayed in Wild (page 51).
Strayed Wild
During this April’s Earth Month, Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail provides the perfect motivation to keep pushing as Strayed’s struggles offer readers hope– and I’m the perfect leader for such a journey! Did you know that on April 21, 1985, my former husband Ken Alley and began backpacking the 1400 mile long California section of the Pacific Crest Trail? That’s 10 years before Cheryl Strayed embarked on her 1000 mile journey. There were no resources, no trail angels. And of course no internet or GPS! Read more…
bud break at Ojai Mountain
Each March during Women’s History Month, we celebrate women — all women! Here at Art Predator, we are taking a minute to celebrate “natural women” — that is, women who work in natural wine! Not only are we celebrating natural wine women here on Art Predator, but also on Wine Predator, and in my article in this week’s VC Reporter about five natural wine women in Ventura County:
- Natalie Albertson owner and winemaker at Wildflower Winery, now Native Bloom Winery, Ventura, CA
- Olga Chernov, owner and grower at Ojai Mountain Estate, Ojai, CA
- Gretel Compton, owner, grower, winemaker Clos des Amis and South Mountain Winery, Santa Paula, CA
- Sheila Donohue owner and importer at Verovino, Ventura, CA and Bologna, Italy
- Alexis Wade, owner of Buddy’s Wine Bar, Ventura, CA
read about these wines from these natural women below
Wine Travel Awards 2025: Vote for Me Please!
glamping in Tuscany
Please vote for me in this year’s Wine Travel Awards! You have less than two weeks to do it as voting ends March 31 so please vote now! It’s so easy — just click here! The Wine Travel Awards provide “a unified advertising and information campaign in different countries to draw attention to the nominees: people, regions, wines and local products” with the goal to form “a friendly community of wine & wine tourism professionals created to share opinions, knowledge, and information.” And YOU can vote for ME! After the March public voting period ends, “five nominees with the highest amount of public votes in each category will be forwarded to the WTA Jury Panel, who will have an honourable mission to choose the best of the best.”
hiking in Tuscany beside an organic olive orchard at La Maliosa
So why should you vote for me? Let me count the ways! Read more…
New Worlds in Words Literary Salon at the Buenaventura Art Association Gallery
February 26 – Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants
“The land knows you, even when you are lost,” writes Robin Wall Kimmerer in Braiding Sweetgrass (page 36).
“The land is the real teacher. All we need as students is mindfulness. Paying attention is a form of reciprocity with the living world,” writes Robin Wall Kimmerer in Braiding Sweetgrass (page 222).
In February’s Literary Salon at the Ventura Harbor, we will be inspired by Robin Wall Kimmerer’s insights into being connected caretakers of the natural world and see how Braiding Sweetgrass supplies solutions to the challenges of today. Chosen for Ventura College’s One Book One Campus, VC students and faculty fell in love with the message of cultivating a reciprocal relationship with the living world.
In this series, we engage our senses and heighten awareness via discussions and writing prompts led by award winning wine writer and Ventura College adjunct English professor Gwendolyn Alley. February focuses on inspiration from Robin Wall Kimmerer’s insights into being connected caretakers of the natural world from her book Braiding Sweetgrass.
As the sun sinks into the Pacific beside the Channel Islands at 5:47pm, we will arrive and settle in. We will have butcher paper up for discussion questions and favorite quotes from the reading. No need to finish the book before our meeting (or even read it), but please bring a copy of the book with you if you have it for reference as we discuss the book, its themes, and the ways we can apply its lessons to our lives finishing at 8pm. Please bring a notebook and a fast pen or two. You are welcome to bring a sketchbook if you would like to draw.
Register here: https://baa.wildapricot.org/event-6050889
February Frolics: Art! Writing Workshops! Burning Man FUNdraiser at Art City for ORBs! gauvin art show!
Solvang’s indoor troll by George Rose
Did you do dry January? While I didn’t quit drinking, it was WAY TOO DRY around here in Southern California leaving us far into 2025 and still in FIRE SEASON. Smoky, too. And a bit cramped! Now with a solid rain behind and another ahead, I’m ready for a WET February and to get out of the house! How about you? To whet your whistle, here’s a few events and activities that make for a fun February– starting with three events today Saturday, February 8!
My day will get going at the Garagiste Festival in Solvang –with a stop to check out the new indoor troll that’s taken up life there! Danish artist Thomas Dambo with a small build crew and volunteers installed the very first California “Troll” in the Tower Gallery at the California Nature Art Museum.
Tis the Season to Celebrate Everything
Happy and Merry from Ventura
2024 has offered a number of challenges but here we are solidly in the holiday season!
And I am here to wish you a very merry everything and happy happiness too.
merry and bright
May your days be merry and bright!
merry and bright on Christmas Day 2024
I am worried about what is to come with the new administration but for today ENJOY! Take in the light! Cheers!
Cocktail and Christmas lights
Giving Thanks 2024
“I am grateful for” by mb hanrahan
Last Thanksgiving I quoted Erin Geesaman Rabke: “Pay attention. Find the blessing. It’s passing. Everything is a gift, and nothing lasts.” These past few weeks have been challenging for me, and have often felt hopeless as I wrote here. As we live under the shadow of what is to come from the president elect, these are wise words to keep in mind. But today, this Thanksgiving, I am appreciating artist mb hanrahan’s simple approach: to count her blessings. Like mb, I have many blessings I am grateful for, Read more…
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