It wasn’t so long ago that Cole Porter mused:

“In olden days a glimpse of stocking
Was looked on as something shocking,
But now, heaven knows,
Anything goes.”

Of course, times have changed since 1934, and today’s brand of “Anything Goes” would likely lie the late maestro back in his grave. Yet in this age where simple nudity might seem quaint in comparison to the sexual banquet offered up by a virtually infinite assortment of websites, we find ourselves bound by cutural mores as much – or more – than ever.

Since the time the great masters took brush in hand to capture and (though they might not have realized they were doing it) codify beauty, we have lived in self-consciousness, seldom measuring up to the celebrated beauties of art and song. The ethic exploded in the age of media, when film and video took renaissance-age archetypes of beauty and raised them to another level.

There’s an irony at play, as the sexual revolution seemed to establish a new sensual elite, as rigid a caste as this culture has ever seen. Yes, we learned in the pages of Playboy (and Cosmo and Glamor, and a thousand other publications, shows and movies), sex is beautiful. Sadly, we were also shown “real” beauty to be an impossibly elusive ethic, beyond the reach of everyday people. Such beauty, we learned, is stricty the province of youth’s first flowering, evinced in gravity-defying breasts and bottoms, in Pepsodent smiles, and immaculate skin.

The result of such an elitist visual ethic: a pandemic of eating disorders, self-esteem issues and even self-loathing, and an explosion in the cosmetic surgery industry. Somehow, this wasn’t the freedom that was envisioned when successive post-war generations threw off the mantle of their progenitor’s modest mores.

All ages, shapes, sizes

With The Skin Deep Sessions Scolari, a professional photographer who lives and works in Ventura, set out to overturn such elitist paradigms of beauty, and to explore the hypothesis that while, as the adage attests, “beauty is skin deep,” there is a much deeper, authentic and lasting beauty that transcends mere epidermis. Thus he endeavored to capture that ethic, inviting all ages, shapes and sizes of both genders to model in the nude, photographing them in the studio, and in nature.

Scolari shares a simple revelation as the genesis of the project: “I use a well-known industry website to cast models for commercial fashion work,” he explains, “and I’d frequently see photographers’ profiles that claimed to ‘specialize in the beauty of the human condition,’ or some such nonsense. I’d check the portfolio, and find nothing but beautiful naked young women, all variations on a centerfold theme. I’d think,” he concludes, “what b.s.: if they truly specialized in the human condition, they’d photograph the fifty-eight year-old plumber in the nude – the sixty-six year-old fat hairy truck driver, of either gender.” He shrugs, “With that thought, a light came on, and I thought  should probably put my money where my mouth is.”

Thus the shoots commenced and Scolari began to invite would-be models to participate, recruited from among his many Facebook “friends,” (most of them actually strangers or bare acquaintances) without any nod to visual parameters: “My intention was that nobody was too much or not enough of any characteristic,” he explains. “The only requirement was that models had to be at least eighteen, and willing to model completely nude.”

The result  — both immediately and now, on the veritable eve of the show, after some ten thousand exposures, scores of shoots and dozens of models — confirmed his thesis beyond even his imagining. “To be honest,” he confides, “when I first wrote ‘authentic beauty shines from within,’ it sounded like so much marketing copy. One of my first models,” he continues, “was a woman in her sixties – someone I was acquainted with from church! When she agreed to model for the project I was stressed out. I had no idea how it was going to turn out – she was far from the type I was used to casting for commercial fashion and glamor work, and honestly, I wasn’t sure I was ready to even see her naked, let alone to focus so intently upon her.”

Yet the shoot went on as planned, and the photographer found himself knocked out by the imagery. “I realized right away that I was on to something important,” he recalls. “She looked absolutely radiant – both to my eye, and to my camera. She was far outside the conventional paradigm of beauty, especially for a nude, yet there she is, for all the world to see, a clear manifestation of the feminine divine.”

From that point Scolari was off and running – extending what was planned for a three- month shooting interval well into the fall and beyond. “Every time I thought the work was just about complete, I found a new model, and the body of work, no pun intended,  broadened still farther. In one week I shot women on successive days – one 5’4” maybe 250 pounds, the other 5’11”, 135 – opposite ends of the spectrum physically; one heavy, one thin, one black, one light – and yet, again, they were both completely beautiful in their skin – each in their own distinct way.” As the project draws toward opening night, the work has featured men and women in their twenties, thirties, forties, fifties and sixtes.

Let the dialogue – and the workshop – begin

Regardless of how audiences view the work, in one sense the show is already a triumph, even before opening night. Scolari recounts how, as the project grew, the importance of the work itself became increasingly evident. “For the most part,” he explains, “the Skin Deep models are people with no experience with modeling of any kind, let alone doing it au naturale. It was a new experience for them, and it required a significant energetic journey of self-acceptance to see it through. Nearly every model brought some degree of negative body image to the shoot, and it was something they had no choice but to deal with: first in disrobing and posing, and subsequently in viewing the images – to say nothing of allowing them to be shown to the general public.”

From many models’ perspective, that journey was life-changing; for one in particular, it proved worth exploring more deeply. “When I first heard about  Skin Deep,” recounts Maria Bucaro, “I knew there was no way I would ever take off my clothes and pose.  But as I read some of the comments on the Skin Deep Facebook page, it started to feel like it could possibly be a healing process.”

Like many people in our society, especially middle-aged women, Maria had long carried a negative body image. Yet as she participated in the project, she found in the project the means to confront and even discard long-held disparaging thoughts about her body. “I really felt like if Jim meant what he was saying, that we could find inner beauty in being naked, I had to give it a shot,” she explained.  “Since I’ve always had a negative, distorted body image, I hoped this could be a welcome relief.”

In the shoot, Maria found more than just liberation: “On the day of the shoot, taking off my clothes in a beautiful river in the mountains, it was the first time I ever truly embodied being one with all that was around me,” she recalls, “and to be able to look at myself and feel love and see beauty.  I thought it would be difficult to actually look at the pictures, but I loved them all. It was a profound and life-changing experience that words cannot truly convey.”

With the shift in place, Bucaro, an author and speaker, wanted to share her experience with others who might identify with her own journey. “As I shared my experience with others, I found that we all spoke the same language, and that distorted body image is very common,” she continues.  “I found that people are hungry for an honest dialogue about our bodies. The idea of a workshop was born so that we can give voice to what our body image is, and begin to change the way we see each other and change how we see our own bodies.”

Bucaro and Scolari joined forces in the concept, conceiving and offering What Lies Beneath: A Skin Deep Workshop, to be offered on the afternoon of April 21,  before the exhibit opens to the public on Saturday night. The three-hour exploration, which runs from 12:30 to 3:30pm, takes on such topics as:

• Mainstream definitions of beauty: who creates them, and why we accept them;
• Why Barbie never – and always – gets naked;
• Overcoming fear and vulnerability issues with nudity;
• The story the mirror tells, and what it means;
• Between sacred and profane: the spiritual side of nudity;
• The secret to looking good naked.

The workshop will also include a panel discussion with a group of Skin Deep models, who will describe their own experiences and participate in a Q&A. Tuition for the workshop is $49 in advance, $60 at the door.

Bucaro sums up her motivation for the workshop succinctly: “As a community we can begin to see that what is portrayed in the media as beautiful is not valid. We can look at the beliefs we carry around about what is beautiful and see that those beliefs are no longer valid. With the kind of dialogue that a focused workshop offers, we can begin to heal not only ourselves, but our community as well.”

Lions and tigers and bears, oh my! (re: nudity, sex and pornography – and the big difference between all three)

A major theme in the work is our obvious tendency to associate nudity with sex, and by extension, to associate any public exhibition of nudity with pornography – an association that, Scolari warns, is frequently a spurious one. “Certainly there are viewpoints which will see this work as just another kind of pornography,” he notes, “and the conversation fascinates me, in terms of what’s sacred and what’s truly profane. As a society we’re quite comfortable with imagery of Christ’s skin being flayed off in nauseating detail, or with ubiquitous hyper-realistic depictions of violence and murder for the sake of entertainment. Yet when people are depicted making love, or even getting out of their clothes, all the alarms are triggered, and we rush to protect our children.”

Scolari acknowledges an obvious connection between nudity and sex – but also allows for an equally natural disconnect between the two. “It is possible to be seen naked, even to be photographed in the nude, and not be making a sexual statement,” he declares. “Yes, there is always someone who might sexualize a given image, regardless of the photographer’s or the model’s intent, and that’s perfectly natural. I treasure a favorite — and completely chaste (bizarre that I even have to qualify that energy) – image of my kids in a bathtub when they were children, yet to certain people with pedophiliac tendencies, it will probably comprise a very sexy scene. Same goes with any fetish, from feet to, you name it, cleaning products. The point is,” he concludes, “the energy that each person brings to an image is just that – their energy. I’m a model in the show as well, and if a given viewer attaches erotic energy to an image of me in the nude, well, that’s splendid – a blessing and a compliment. But it’s also their energy; I don’t have to take that on, and I certainly don’t have to do anything about it.”

The Problem with Private Parts

Scolari was keen to likewise overturn the prevailing notion that women have more beautiful bodies than men. “There is such diversity in the human condition, and such great latitude in beauty, really, our emphasis on comparisons becomes silly to the extreme.” That comparative ethic in mainstream culture, that leads us to seek and celebrate the best, or the most beautiful, is not only silly in his view, it’s frankly counter-productive. As such, well represented in the mix of Skin Deep models are men, and couples. “With male nudes I found myself facing another sort of taboo,” he explains. Not only are we conditioned that only slender young females are “appropriate” for nude modeling, he continues, the culture also conditions people to loathe and censor the penis. “People’s reaction to it are all out of proportion – both sexes can be threatened by it, either in implicit or overt rapist archetypes, or in homophobic abhorrence.”

Needless to say, the revelation of the genitals comprises a sort of energetic primacy for the nude – the photographer notes that such is the only real difference between a nude model and a swimsuit model. “I frequently see professional models’ portfolios – women who emphatically state that they ‘don’t shoot nudes,‘ who routinely pose in bikinis so brief they literally comprise scraps of material no more than a few inches square. At that point, I wonder, why bother?” More to his point, how do we decide that so much skin is appropriate, yet a last few square inches not so?

As he goes on to point out, as a culture we are intensely curious about what’s beneath those little scraps of swimsuit – a “best kept secret” to which everyone is privy. “We only come in two flavors, so it’s really no secret “what lies beneath” the clothing. Yet we really, really want to see, even as we agree we aren’t supposed to. What’s one of the first things that a kid does with a Barbie doll, or a G.I. Joe?” Scolari asks. “Of course, they strip off all the clothes – and frequently get in trouble for doing so! And what do they find? They find this bizarre anatomical omission – the dolls have no nipples, no genitals. What message does that send them about their bodies?”

The Mattel Corporation has taken Barbie’s modesty even a step farther, actually molding a suggestion of panties onto the doll, thus presumably nullifying the naughty – and completely natural — intentions of the average six year old, at least as they are projected onto the doll. “Clearly, Barbie does NOT get naked, ever,” Scolari dryly observes.

The lesson, he concludes, is that from the earliest age, kids are taught there’s something wrong with their bodies – the completely natural curiosity about their and others’ anatomy is censured – and censored, and the repercussions play out throughout our lives. “What would this culture look like if we didn’t have this puritanical take on nudity – and the hyper-energetic focus on it that results?” Scolari answers his own question, “Some might say we’d become a nation of sex addicts – which, in my view, not incidentally, we already are. I say that we’d de-energize much of the taboo around it, and likewise leach much of the energy away from anti-social, even criminal sexual behavior while we’re at it.”

“Mind you,” he concludes, “I’m not saying that we’re curing all the ills of society here, just by shooting and showing photos of everyday people in the buff. We have a long way to go to overturn centuries of repression, misogyny, and guilt. From our Judeo-Christian roots we inherited a sort of schizophrenia where sex is concerned: intense desire along with very powerful taboos – along with a basic tendency to confuse the sacred for the profane, and vice-versa.” It’s a social view that’s not going away any time soon, he concludes.

About the show:

The Skin Deep Sessions appears at Ventura’s WAV Theater Gallery, (175 S. Ventura Avenue, Ventura, CA.) for two nights: Friday, 4/20, the show opens with an invitation-only reception, 7-11pm; Saturday afternoon the space hosts What Lies Beneath: A Skin Deep Workshop from 12:30 – 3:30pm; Saturday evening the exhibition opens to the public, from 7-11pm.

Unlike the typical gallery show, and due to the large volume of work, the show will be projected on a larger-than-life screen. “It’s in the flow of imagery that we can really begin to appreciate the amazing diversity of beauty,” Scolari explains. “From one image to the next, every single model can be seen to be uniquely themselves, and yet clearly a relative in the same human family.

Since the time of antiquity, cultures throughout the world have revered those arcane arts by which otherwise ordinary ingredients are blended to create savory elixirs. From those who produce wines and ales to the more potent practices that bring us spirits and liqueurs, to the layman’s eye such artisans practice a sort of alchemy; the art shrouded in mystery, but the result coveted by refined palettes everywhere.

While those with a taste for such elixirs know well the places where such bottled wonders can be found, what they might not realize is that an eminent alchemist dwells and practices among us; Ventura Limoncello’s James Carling, in partnership with Manuela Zaretti-Carling.

Ventura Limoncello’s stated mission is “to the be premier producer of Limoncello liqueurs in the United States,” and armed with time-honored family recipes, the Carlings seem well on their way. Their handcrafted artisanal citrus liqueurs have been America’s highest rated for four years in a row, under such esteemed scrutiny as the San Francisco World Spirits Competition.

Totally Local VC’s cameras were invited into the labs of Ventura Limoncello recently, and we’re pleased to share this glimpse of alchemy in action. Enjoy!

Whether reminiscing about local hangouts, witnessing the rise of up-and-comings and the legacy of the ones who have made it, all comprise snapshots in the incredible album that is Ventura’s music scene – anyone who’s taken in those snapshots knows Ventura has always been a music town, even as that music scene continues to evolve. Ranked 4th in the top ten music industry centers in the United States, Ventura County has long been not only a rising star for listeners but also a hub for the behind the scenes music industry as well, providing a home for off-the-beaten-path recording studios, and for big-name management companies; a home for a diverse array of festivals; a home for industry players large and small. In short, here is a music scene where there’s always something going on.

Ventura, Ojai, Oxnard and the surrounding county have long offered a haven for many famous music superstars like Dave Mason, Jack Johnson, Big Bad Voodoo Daddy, The missing 23rd, Suicidal Tendencies… right down to Mr. Cash himself. With so much local talent all set in such a picturesque setting, there can be no doubt that Ventura is the ideal place to come, sit, listen and enjoy the sounds. Just take a walk down Main Street on any given day, and you can’t help but be drawn in by the local sounds.

This is Ventura. We’re a music town; always have been.

Today kicks off Ventura Music week: from February 15th to the 19th we hope you’ll step away from your screen and enjoy some quality time with our local musicians.

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Ventura-Music-Week/136588953076054

By Kat Merrick

It’s well known that small businesses are not only the backbone of our economy, they’re the heart of our community. With Christmas just around the corner, and as we all hustle about to get our holiday shopping done, why not earmark some portion of your spending to local small business?

Consider it an investment in community — one that pays off in community benefits long after the holidays are over. Studies show that for every $100 spent at local businesses, $68 remained in the community versus $43 for chain stores. That’s a big difference.

In shopping at a local business one has the opportunity to not only find unique gifts, socialize with other locals, eat at local restaurants with world-class cuisine, wines and locally brewed beers – at the same time one helps create and support a vibrant sense of community that one can feel from interacting with our local businesses and their owners.

What a great way to get that holiday sprit going… by supporting our neighbors, who actually own those small businesses and who really can’t make it without your patronage. Truly, there are many good reasons to shop locally and to support small businesses, among them:

• Better Customer Service. Local retailers tend to get to know their customers, and the community they’re serving. Providing stellar customer service is the way that most small businesses set themselves apart from “big box” retailers.

• Improve the Community. Buying local has positive long-term benefits to local economy, because a higher percentage of money stays in the community. This enables cities to afford civic improvements, to better support schools, and to revitalize business districts.

• Support Local Charities. According to a survey by American Express, three–quarters of small business owners report that they donate a percentage of their profits to charity, with 5% of small firms donating more than 10% of their bottom line. They can’t continue to do so if we don’t do our part to keep them in business.

• Local Shopping Supports Local Hiring. According to the Small Business Administration, small businesses accounted for 64 percent of net new job creation in the past 15 years.

• Be Green in Every Aspect. The impact on the environment is reduced, because local retailers make more local purchases, which require less transportation, contributing less to congestion and pollution.

By Chris Sayer

The world was changing rapidly in the 1950’s. The economic and population boom that followed the Second World War was keenly felt in Southern California. Ventura County  agriculture began another period of change as well. Huge population growth in Orange County and the San Fernando Valley began to absorb cropland and displace farmers.

With a thriving economy, some farmers simply retired, and watched the next generation move into jobs in development or aerospace, rather than returning to the fields and orchards from which they came. But some came to Ventura County instead. Land was still plentiful and reasonably affordable, particularly for those who had sold at a premium down south. After the benefits of a benign climate, being well capitalized is a farmer’s fondest wish. These growers arriving in Ventura County during the ‘50’s and ‘60’s enjoyed both. Primarily vegetable growers, they were able to acquire land and consolidate into larger farms to feed the increasingly large-scale supermarket chains emerging across the country.

As had happened at every phase of Ventura County’s agricultural history, seismic changes in crop mix coincided with major changes in transportation. In the 1950’s, it was the interstate highway system that influenced the way America got its food, and what Ventura farmers could profitably produce.

It was against this backdrop that the strawberry appeared on the scene. Ventura County’s mild winters are comparable to spring in many other parts of our country. Today strawberries are grown here nearly year-round, but the real attraction in the 1950’s was the ability to deliver strawberries in winter when they simply didn’t exist anywhere else. Using our climate to capture markets is a classic strategy for this area; it was the basis for the orange’s long success. But strawberries took things to a new level. Fragile and very perishable, strawberries require careful handling and efficient distribution. Susceptible to a variety of diseases, they also required careful cultivation. Strawberries simply could not have become a major crop at any point earlier in Ventura’s history. But the confluence of capital, distribution, and crop science allowed them to finally explode. It took some time, but strawberries would grow to become Ventura County’s leading crop, with more than 12,000 acres producing more than a half billion dollars worth of berries by 2010.

It is tempting to think of contemporary Ventura County agriculture as being in the “Strawberry Era.”  Other iconic crops are decreasing in significance. Oranges are a shadow of their former glory, and lemons surrendered their position as the County’s top crop after 50 years. But as always, change is underway. Container nurseries followed the vegetable grower’s escape from the suburban takeover of Southern California, and briefly reigned as the County’s #2 crop, before the housing crisis slowed demand. Raspberries, unknown locally except for the occasional farmyard bramble, have surged into the top 10, and are continuing to grow rapidly. Celery, which had been around since the vegetable boom of the ‘50’s and ‘60’s, recently emerged as a major crop, with $182,000,000 produced locally in 2010.  So despite the strawberry’s pre-eminence, Ventura County agriculture retains the dynamic, evolving nature that has always been its defining characteristic.

Next time: What does the future hold for Ventura County agriculture?

This is the fifth chapter in Chris Sayer’s series on agriculture in Ventura County: Where it’s been, what it has meant to the community, and a bit of informed speculation on where it is headed.

Previous chapters:

Chapter 1: The land before thyme…
Chapter 2: If you build it, they will come…
Chapter 3: The Golden Age
Chapter 4: The Stalk Market Boom

photo by Robert Lemaire

by James Scolari

Autumn, we love you and your glorious days of bounty. Since the time we first dared to conspire with the soil to not merely sow but intentionally reap, autumn has been our time to hail the fertile goddess with thanks and celebration. Between summer’s toil and winter’s chill lies the splendid autumn and its iconic horn of plenty.

And as autumn is the season of plenty, so must the jolly pumpkin be its poster child, as it shows up fat and sassy, clad in a technicolor hue that on a lesser being might be considered outrageous. Whether it’s lying wanton on the soil, still in the embrace of the vine, or stealing the show in the cornucopia, or bearing candle-fired expressions from jolly to sinister on Halloween night, the pumpkin is surely autumn’s first born native son.

Though we’re not tied to the seasons as in the pilgrim’s days, where a summer’s toil and the autumn’s reaping spelled an unequivocal margin of survival through an implacable winter, we still take their example and honor the autumn feast. Even if with the impending winter we no longer fear the specter of starvation, the will to feast dwells deep. And feasting aplenty was on hand last week when TLVC closed out their hit al fresco dining series “Dinner At the…”, this time, appropriately, with Dinner At the Pumpkin Patch.

photo by Robert Lemaire

The evening began with a reception featuring Cantara Wines, the beers of Surf Brewery and spirits of Tequila Alquimia, complementing appetizers by Main Course California and preceding a tour of the historic McGrath House.

Designed and built by A.C. Martin in 1909, the house is one of just a handful of the famed builder’s homes on the Oxnard Plain. Martin left his mark on the area not just in residential endeavors; those in attendance at Ventura’s City Hall for Dinner At the City this summer might recall that the famed municipal seat was also an A.C. Martin design. “Growing up, I was able to tell a Martin house the minute you walk in,” notes Mary McGrath, who hosted the evening and is a principal at Great Pacific Pumpkins — and who, not incidentally, grew up in the house and with her relatives, assumed the mantle for the family business, and took up her place in the sowing and reaping of the McGrath soil.

And what soil, indeed: the very reason for the fete, the bed of the bounty of Ventura County agriculture, the bedrock of the community. The soil that yields the food, in this case the evening’s main attraction. While the mutli-course affair arrived from Main Course California kitchens, such was bequeathed by this soil – the soil of the McGrath Brothers Farms, of Petty Ranch, of Dave Palmer, Rio Gozo Farms, and California Mushroom. “We had 138 people seated at a king’s table down the middle of a pumpkin patch,” notes TLVC founder and Dinner At the… master-mind Kat Merrick – “a perfect setting, perfect weather, perfect food, a full moon: we could not have asked for a grander finale to the season.”

Among the culinary highlights were Watkins Beef with figs, and afterward, from Marie Shannon Confections, diners were wowed with a spice pumpkin cake with a dark chocolate ganache topped with caramel sauce. “Then people took their dessert with Main Course’s spiced warm cider to hay bales,” recounts Merrick, “where Richard Senate told story after story of the ghostly histories of the community. Everyone said it all felt so magical, they left feeling like little kids.”

Other standouts Merrick notes, “Of course, the Food Share volunteers – they’re just unbelievable. They work their tails off, and put everything they have into it, because they care. They’re just amazing. And Cantara Wine paired perfectly with the evening, offering FrankenZin and The Bride – perfect names for a perfect evening. Surf Brewery was back, as was Ventura Limoncello and Tequila Alquimia – they all just bring so much.”

by Chris Sayer

Celery? That’s correct. More crunchy than sweet, celery may not seem like the sort of sexy produce that would come from Ventura County, but 2010 saw $182 million dollars of it grown on local farms. After the mid July release of the annual crop report, many were surprised to see celery named the number two crop in the County. Perhaps that should not have been so surprising. 2010 is an all-time high for local celery production, but it has been one of the region’s top crops since urban development began to displace it from Los Angeles and Orange counties in the 1960’s.

Like all successful Ventura County crops, celery responds well to our moderate coastal climate. There are many areas with cheaper ground where celery can be grown, but without a consistent climate, the growing season can be limited. Edgar Terry of Ventura grows 500 to 600 acres of celery every year, and discusses our county’s comparative advantage. “Alternate growing areas in the Imperial and Yuma areas have such wide fluctuations of temperature during our time frame, that the window for harvest is only about six to eight weeks long.”  By contrast, celery is nearly a year-round crop in Ventura County. “Nearly” is an important word here.

Farmers ensure that there is no celery growing between July 15^th and August 5^th of every year. This three week break is enough to disrupt the lifecycle of the Western Mosaic Virus, a plant pathogen for that finds celery an ideal host. This simple but practical solution has proven highly effective at controlling the disease. It also lends itself to another strategy employed by celery growers: alternating celery with other crops.

The ground from which celery sprouts may find itself covered in parsley, cilantro, spinach or radishes at other times of the year. Peppers are a popular companion crop.

“Peppers and celery work well together because peppers are a summer crop that is harvested from mid-July through the end of November” says Edgar Terry.  “So, when peppers start to come out of the ground the celery crop can be planted right after the peppers.”  With a 2010 value of $45 million, peppers are the ninth ranked local crop. The ability to harvest two valuable crops from a single field is one strategy for keeping farming economically viable on expensive Southern California soil.

Deardorff Family Farms of Oxnard rotates celery with tomatoes, and find it plays well with their emphasis on sustainable farming practices. “Celery leaves a lot of bio-matter in the field”, says Scott Deardorff.  These decomposing roots and stalks help to build the soil once they are plowed under. Summer crops like Tomatoes draw nutrients from across the soil profile, making maximum use of any fertilizers applied. Since 2007, Deardorff Family Farms has included organic acreage among the 1400 acres of celery that they grow annually. “If things go right, you can get relatively the same production” with organics, although that is balanced by smaller size and increased risk of disease.

Anyone who has eaten celery knows that it contains a lot of water. While it might be reasonable to think that makes it a poor choice for perpetually thirsty Southern California, much of the local celery crop is grown during our winter and spring wet season. Seasonal rainfall helps a great deal, but supplemental irrigation is needed. Modern drip irrigation systems use roughly half the water of older techniques, keeping celery’s water needs in line with other local crops. “With drip, you get better production and better quality, while using less water” says Scott Deardorff.

Having made it to “Number Two” will celery ever dethrone strawberries as the County’s most valuable crop? Barring a catastrophe in berries, that seems unlikely to happen any time soon. Unglamorous and often overshadowed, celery is likely to remain a central component of the broadly diversified crop mix that drives Ventura County’s $1.89 billion farm economy.

by James Scolari

Despite the rising popularity of the tattoo, the practice is anything but new. Our relationship with ink in the skin predates even our ability to put ink on paper. Some of the earliest known examples of tattooing date from as far back as the fifth millennium, BC. Yet after seven thousand years, the practice of tattooing remains distinctly marginalized in mainstream Western culture, carrying an enduring stigma that speaks more of the bias of the beholder than the proclivities of the tattooed themselves.

By the same token, while with the stereotypical tattoo the uninformed might imagine skulls, flames, tribal bands or even Popeye’s anchors, in fact the imagery is as diverse as the imagination of the bearer, the art as intricate and fine as nearly any canvas.

It’s a point much on the mind – and intention – of Ventura’s Christina Diaz, whose Pistol Productions was recently announced as a finalist for a 2011 Ventura County Art Star Award in the Business Category for helping keep the arts community in VC thriving. With Pistol, Diaz – whose own skin bears numerous tattoos, including stacks of books, feather quills, and reproductions of the work of renowned artists like Dali, Kahlo, Escher and Picasso – is effectively working to blend the world of body art and fine art.  Representing a growing stable of some four score artists – the bulk of whom derive from the world of body art and other “alternative” media, she has emerged as one of the county’s most prolific and creative arts curators, mounting a new show for each “First Friday” in Ventura (at Stoneworks Gallery), and another in Oxnard’s Second Saturday (at The Kitchen).

As if that weren’t enough, Pistol’s other agenda item, Ink For a Cause, returns to the Ventura Fairgrounds this weekend for its third annual festival of art, music and ink, all  (as the name suggests) to the benefit of a worthy cause. This year’s beneficiary is The Best Day Foundation, a non-profit dedicated to helping children with special needs build confidence and self-esteem through safe, fun, adventure activities like surfing, bodyboarding, kayaking, snow sports, and more.

The 2011 event will include over one hundred world renowned artists, live tattooing & piercing, fine artists, a two hour portrait seminar by Nikko Hurtado, “Using the Neuma with Carson Hill” – a one hour seminar on Neuma Tattoo Machines, a kids arts & crafts corner, burlesque, sideshow entertainment, live bands, dozens of tattoo contests, unique vendors, a silent auction and more. For those still going strong after so much activity, each day’s festivities will give way to an afterparty at Zoey’s Cafe.

With so much going on one might guess there’d be little time left over, but still Pistol’s busy mastermind found a few minutes to chat with Totally Local VC:

TLVC: I don’t mean to blow smoke, but wow – your one/two punch of First Friday/Second Saturday shows are really making an impression.

CD: Yes, that actually just started in June.  It’s worked out pretty well.  I’ve had other gallery owners like Josh Addison approach me to start working with them, but I’m taking it one step at a time.  My shows are on the Stoneworks calendar, themes are complete for the rest of the year.

TLVC: Stoneworks & First Friday / The Kitchen & Second Saturday are splendid successes, and for many people that would seem to be more than enough, but not for you, it would seem.

CD: You know what they say about “idle hands.” I have an idea, and I get really excited, and I try to make it happen. People tell me, “Give yourself a break!  You’re going to get burned out!”  They don’t understand that my “day job” is me sitting at a computer with the most stressful deadlines.  So when I get to come home and design a flyer or type up a “call for art,” or get to collect art for that Friday, to me, it’s fun and relaxing.  It’s my creative outlet.  Yes, it’s a lot of work, but I love it.

TLVC: Such a kick; we’re talking about this very busy agenda, and then almost as an aside, you reference, “oh and my day job”…

CD: Not only am I the editor of Tattoo Savage magazine, I’m also the copy editor for Rebel Rodz. So I have another hundred and twenty pages to edit from front to back, three times, each page, to make sure the corrections are done.  And I work for Easyriders too.  We publish fourteen magazines, and I work on three titles full time.

I’m happy to be there; I’m the youngest person in the building, and I’m pretty much the only “tattooed freak.”  Whenever they have a new idea about a new ad, or want to try something with the new market, they’re, “Hey!  What do you think about that?”  Because I’m in the demographic.

TLVC: Speaking of “tattooed freaks,” Ink for a Cause is nearly upon us. With such a busy art agenda, you find the time and inspiration to found this major event?

CD: With my day job I have to attend tons of events.  Every year, I’d say I go a dozen, all over the nation, and I see what they do right and what they do wrong.  I recently went to a weekend show – “Ink and Iron”.  These guys are rock stars, but they treat you like crap.  They just want your money.

So I thought, “God I’d love to put on a show for an actual purpose.”  I wanted to do something that was about giving back to the community.  And me being a parent (my son was a year and a half when I put on my first show), I’ve had a lot of negative reactions to my body art – let’s just say I haven’t exactly been welcomed into the PTA.

People unfortunately stereotype heavily modified people in general, but as a woman it’s even worse because it’s a masculine thing to do.  That’s something I’ve had to get used to, and if anything, I want to change the way people are stereotyped, so with Ink For a Cause my mission was to not only give back to great non profits, but also show the body art community in a positive light.  We’re not criminals, we’re not drug addicts, we’re not delinquents.  We are contributing members of society, we care about others, we’re parents – and if you stop and look at what the actual tattoo on that body is, it’s going to tell you something about that person’s personality.

Obviously, if that tattoo is a swastika, hello!  But if you look at mine, for example, and you see books, you think “bookworm.”  You’re going to see facets of someone’s identity.  That’s my goal, to invite people to stop and just appreciate the art form of tattooing, and what it represents to people who collect, like myself.  It’s a lot of time, a lot of money, it’s a part of who we are.  I just wanted to put a positive staple on there.

TLVC: Clearly, body art has penetrated our culture more than ever before; it’s more mainstream than ever.  My seventy-seven year-old mother has three, and didn’t get her first until after age seventy.

CD: My father got his first when he was fifty-five.  At first he was just like, “OH MY GOD! WHAT ARE YOU DOING?”  He’s a retired detective for the Miami PD, so very conservative.  Every time I saw him, he had a new complaint about it.  Until – the day I got my Masters Degree, he shut up.  My education put another spin on it, another context.

TLVC: You’re a high achiever.  You inspire people with what you’re accomplishing, you might be talking about what you’re going to do, but unlike many people you then go out and do it.

CD: I want to make a dent while I’m here.  I want to make a difference.  I’m passionate about art and body art.  Despite the negative connotation, if someone comes to my show and sees what someone with ink can do, I’m just hoping it can change the mindset.  I want my son to be proud of me.  I want to make a difference.

TLVC: You’re pushing buttons and you’re daring to see stereotypes redefined and that’s a splendid thing.

CD: There’s much to be done – magazines like Inked and reality TV shows are glorifying a certain kind of rock star persona and it’s just sad.  They’re enforcing it as it’s hip, it’s cool.  That’s going to change, if I have anything to do with it.

TLVC I believe you.

CD: That’s what happened with First Fridays: all my friends were tattoo artists, and they all have multiple media under their belt, not just ink. They had oil paintings, 3D sculptures, and masks, and all these things.  And I was saying, “Oh my god, you gotta show these things off.” And they were like, “No, who wants to see this?”  At the time, in Oxnard, there was nothing, especially for our genre of art, which was regarded as kind of the lowbrow art scene.  And I was going to Santa Barbara’s First Fridays, LA’s First Fridays, Las Vegas’s First Fridays; I was going to all these shows, and I said, “Man!  All we need to do is get a building.”  So I put on this show, and people were there like, “Wow!  Something’s going on!”  I realized, “We need this. There’s a problem: this isn’t happening here.  This was meant to happen.”

It’s working out, so I’m obviously doing something right.  I don’t take a commission, I’ve never taken a percentage.  All my artists, for a year have been saying, “You’ve got to charge us!  Take a percentage!”  And I’m like, “No!  Just give me a piece of art!”  So I started charging five dollars.  I just want to make back my printing, that’s all.

TLVC: The approach is off-the-hook creative, each time a new theme, so much fun.

CD: People love the themes.  And I love the response of the artists, how they’re challenging themselves because it’s out of their box.  I’m truly honored to work with them, they’re like my little family and I love to see them grow and challenge themselves, and I never know what to expect.  When I’m hanging a show, which is a three or four hour process, I’m “in the zone” and I get this rush, and when it’s done, labels up, I’m just so pumped up and I want to sell them!  I want the Average Joe, whose niece is in the show, to be blown away and just buy a piece or sign up for my newsletter.

TLVC: You know, I haven’t heard you use a certain word, that a lot of people make a big deal about with this stuff. It’s about status – the word is “Curator.”

CD: I think there’s an unfortunate division in art between classes and even cultural boundaries. Many of the galleries that i’ve approached and the people that I’ve met, they wouldn’t even consider my artists as fine artists. But I have people that come to my shows and they spend six hundred, eight hundred dollars on pieces; maybe this isn’t the typical art that’s on some people’s walls, but others seem to get it.

TLVC: Boundaries and bias, yes. In this certain mindset, art belongs in a frame, on the wall, in the right kind of space, and it seems like you’re not about that at all. I’ve had close friends in the art community who seem terribly concerned about their colleagues’ perception — i.e., “you can’t do it this way or you’ll get a bad reputation.” There seems to be a certain pretense in the “establishment” that one flouts only at their peril – or that’s the overriding perception.

CD: Exactly! Excuse me, this isn’t The Great Gatsby, get over it! Certain galleries won’t give me the time of day. It just makes me stop and say, “You know what, you guys are missing out on something amazing.”

You know, from another perspective it’s valid to ask, “how many beaches and waves can you paint?” And technically the way I see it, in the artists that I admire and love, that are tattooed all over me, you put heart and your soul and your body and your sadness, you put it into your paintings. Your paintings should speak to you, you should feel them.

TLVC: That’s describing a great trend in art history, I think; in the evolution of art, it’s always been advanced by edgy characters who had to hack their way out of status quo parameters as other people were trying to box them in.

CD: I’m sorry but for me, painting of a wave isn’t gonna do it for me. Where’s the depth, where’s the substance? There’s a quote, “in the darkest times, all you need is art.” People want to look at a painting and feel and let it really resonate. We are the middle class, the hard working, economical; hence my idea for the “blue collar blow out” show. We are the working folk, and our creative outlet just happens to  be done in a different way.

Ink For a Cause at the Ventura County Fairgrounds, September 16-18 – Friday 4-11pm, Saturday 11-11, Sunday 11am – 7pm. Tickets, $10/day, $5 with military ID, $5 kids 12 and under, $25 weekend pass. For more information go to www.inkforacause.com

Jennifer Livia (r) and Phyllis Gubins (l) of Red Brick Gallery. Photo by James Scolari.

by James Scolari

If one intends to move in the art world, the veritable ‘thick of things” is a good place to be; and in an age where Art Walk has gone private and the ArtScene at large subject to wild reinvention, the thick of things looks more and more like the spot where Jennifer Livia lives. With her Red Brick Gallery prominently situated on Main Street in the heart of downtown Ventura, hers is a  presence in the community that’s impossible to overlook. She’s the winner of a 2008 Mayor’s Arts Award, an experienced photographer, prolific painter, and athlete with a taste for outdoor adventure.

It’s no secret that hard economic times can frequently sound the death knell for art endeavors of all sorts, and independent galleries are no exception. Grants dry up, municipal coffers grow dusty, and the intrepid curator is faced with the prospect of fancy footwork on the high wire of solvency, up there all alone and without a net. The only way to avoid a fall is to get very lucky or very creative.

Red Brick Gallery is a splendid example of just how creative the union between art and commerce can be. As any small business-person knows, downtown real estate isn’t cheap, so unless a proprietor is independently wealthy, a steady revenue stream represents a do-or-die imperative. For an art gallery, that means rampant creativity and a will to adapt to the prevailing traffic – ethics that are fully in play at Red Brick, where arts patrons can take home art for as little as a few dollars, or as much as a few thousand, can take a class on a variety of art styles, or can simply take part in an events outlook where art is always the headliner.

This weekend the events ethic takes center stage at Red Brick, for the return of their groundbreaking Paint Ventura,a plein air art explosion that was a runaway success last Spring. The brainchild of Livia and her partner and mother Phyllis Gubins, Paint Ventura debuted in April and brought scores of artists to publicly ply their skills in the open air of downtown Ventura.

This time around, Paint Ventura opens Friday night, September 9th with a “Paint Out and  Arty Party,” a kick-off event styled as a fundraiser for the Ventura Education Partnership. The public is invited to watch as fifteen Paint Ventura artists begin work on pieces at Red Brick Gallery.  Saturday the 10th will find Paint Ventura in full swing, with one hundred-plus artists be creating plein air pieces along Main and California Streets in downtown Ventura. Totally Local VC has stepped up to assist with the effort, sponsoring and hosting a PopUp Gallery in downtown Ventura’s Mini Park, and featuring the blend of Art, Music and community that is the centerpiece of our mission.

Paint Ventura continues on Sunday, with a variety of workshops, including acrylic painting, 3-D mobile making and more. See www.PaintVentura.com/workshops.html for more details and to sign up. Sunday continues at the WAV (Working Artists Ventura);  twenty-five of the ground-breaking community’s studio lofts will be open to invite visitors to meet the artists and to enjoy viewing visual arts in private studios. From 5:00 to 7:00 PM there will be a lineup of easy listening music at the WÃV Theater Gallery, which will give way to a lineup of rock bands that evening, until ten PM. The day – and the event – promises to immerse visitors in the arts of all types and styles.

Totally Local VC spent a few minutes visiting with Livia recently as she wrangled the many details of the ambitious slate:

TLVC: One of the things that struck me the first time I visited your gallery is the creative way you marry art and commerce – which must be wed, of course, or none of this is possible.  When push comes to shove, if you’re going to have a life in the arts, your life in the arts must to sustain you.

JL: Yes.  I mean, it’s challenging; a lot more challenging now than when it first opened.

TLVC:  There’s a lot of that going around.

JL: When things get tough we sit down and regroup and say, “Okay, what can we do different?  What else can we do?  How can we change?  What do we need to focus on?  What’s working?  What’s not working?”

We really take it from a business standpoint and say, “Okay, let’s be creative in our business.”  And yes, this is our business and we have to make money or else we can’t keep our doors open next month, so let’s see what else we can do that’s going to work.

We started offering classes two years ago, and that really has helped.  The challenge right now is that no one has extra disposable income.  If you can’t give them something to put on their wall that’s pretty, you can give them an experience and enrich them.

TLVC: Help them to better integrate art into themselves, if not their homes. Love that.

JL: It’s great.  That’s really what classes have been helping push.  And then Paint Ventura came up because we wanted to create an event.  We wanted something that would be like Art Walk, in terms of people, but be different than what the city did.

TLVC:  Now the second installment is nearly upon us.

JL: Yes!  Friday night a group of local artists will be creating local pieces within a time span; I’m thinking two hours. I just think that the sheer number of that many artists creating in the same place would be really interesting.  Have it feel like a big party, have food, just throw open the doors, everybody’s welcome. Saturday will be like what we did last time, where it’s outside in front of all the businesses all up and down Main Street and California.

TLVC:  The ArtScene, expressed in community: a community of artists, meeting the community at large, all mingled into something everyone can share. Love it.  Art party, and everyone’s invited.

JL: I hate to call it a party, because that can be such a loaded word… we want for the people to have fun, artists and spectators alike; just a fun, approachable event.  That’s the biggest thing I got, with the first Paint Ventura – that so many people came up and said they loved it because they got to watch the artist work and that the artists were so approachable and they could ask questions and they felt comfortable – which I think is the hardest thing with art because so many people put it up on a pedestal, like “It’s the finished project, it’s perfect, it’s this, it’s that, it’s the other.”

I mean there’s so many different kinds of galleries.  It would be wonderful if we could all be the high-end galleries that they have in downtown San Francisco, that I used to go to and go “Wow, this is amazing!”  But in reality, it’s not my style.

TLVC: What you’re doing with Red Brick is very exciting – not stuck on formulas, going with what works, getting rid of what doesn’t. It’s diverse, it’s welcoming and it’s clear to see that something’s happening here.

JL: There’s so much to learn along the way.  There’s no manual for it.  You have to be willing to learn.  I remember our first show was a kind of organic combination of things.  I called it “Brick-By-Brick” because I literally built the whole gallery.  I didn’t know many people so I had to meet someone through someone else through someone else through someone else and eventually we had the walls covered but it took a few weeks.

And we learned to serve the organic process.  It flows.  WE change our show every six to eight weeks.  It’s fresh.

TLVC: Alongside that curatorial ethic, I see you in here creating, turning art into products, expressing your own art, guiding others as they’re working their own. Doesn’t seem like there’s grass growing under any feet in here.

JL: I definitely think my art has evolved leaps and bounds since I started this.  I see how I’ve changed and how I’ve really enjoyed changing, just being influenced by so much art.  Just seeing so much art.  Getting new submissions every day, just seeing the richness of art.  We all kind of learn from each other.

TLVC: I used to confuse galleries with museums.  You walked in and you looked at art and you enjoyed it and you thought about it and you walked out with nothing in your hands. I think that’s a misapprehension that lots of ordinary people share.  They might not realize that they can be touched by a piece of art and take it home and continue to be touched by it. You seem to be bridging that gap.

JL: I definitely think so.  I think most of my collectors are just average people.  I have this one lady who owns six of my pieces.  She tells her friends when she brings them in, “This is Jen!  Her works are on my wall!  I’m one of her collectors.”  To me that’s just so sweet.

TLVC: Everyone’s home is a gallery, more or less.  That’s kind of the point of a conversation like this, is to open people’s eyes to the idea that they’re welcome here.  Come and see art, no one’s going to tackle you; and guess what? You might find something to take home with you.

JL: There’s a gallery in town that didn’t last very long – every time I walked in, even though they knew me, they still pounced.  I think people just enjoy lingering and doing what they do.  If it feels like it’s going to fit in your house as a part of your life, than that’s it.

TLVC: Yes, it can’t just fit on your wall.  It’s got to fit in you.

JL:  That’s good art, at least.  It has a relationship to the world it’s in.

TLVC: Your own relationship with art seems to play out in many forms.

JL: I paint five days a week, even if it’s just at night.  I love it, it makes me feel better.  If I’m in a bad mood, I usually get better by painting.  Because you’re creating; doing something different than just watching TV and being lazy.

TLVC:  Time shouldn’t be that disposable.  There’s so many ways to dilute yourself or your energy.

JL: We used to have internet at home.  Because I do graphic design too, I’d bring my computer home at the end of the day and work on stuff online.  We had it six months when we opened first, and I said “We need to free focus.  I don’t want to have to spend all day working and then come home to work more.” So we don’t have internet at home anymore, I don’t even bring my computer home.

JL: We use the term “our art family”.  It’s become the people we’ve been with for a very long time.  Jim Martin, he’s been with me since the very beginning.

TLVC:  Well said.

JL: When I went to art school, it was such a challenge, because you put your heart and soul up on the wall.  You take your pictures and you spend 30 hours developing them and then you put them up on the wall for the class to talk about.  Some weeks you feel real good about yourself and some weeks I go home and cry.  And it totally beats you up.

JL: But I definitely think that this helped me with this, because the average person doesn’t realize that this piece is a piece of my soul.  They say, “Oh my god, that’s so ugly” and you have to not internalize it.  Even when it’s someone else’s piece of work, it reflects on me because I chose it.  I’ll be, “Hey, that’s my family!  Don’t talk bad about my family!”

JL: San Francisco art institute; that’s where I went to grad school.  Then I went to FDIM for graphic design, because I could hold down a real job with my Arts Masters program.

•••

Red Brick Gallery presents Paint Ventura, this weekend, September 9-11. For more information, log on to www.PaintVentura.com, or www.RedBrickArt.com, or stop by the Gallery at 315 E. Main Street, Ventura. (805) 643-6400.