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Creating Art for Everybody to Enjoy
Public sculpture and mosaic creations inspired by nature have been the specialty of local artist Kathleen Crocetti. Her colorful murals adorn walls, sidewalks, plazas and buildings throughout Santa Cruz County. After a 30-year career teaching art in middle school, Crocetti embarked on community collaborative projects that keep her busy all year around. Q: Did you grow up wanting to make art? A: Kids tend to become what they see as possible. I was lucky because my mom is an artist and so was my grandmother. I grew up in a house full of art and artmaking, in my young mind being an artist was just something that women did, akin…
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Exploring California’s Wildlife Through Printmaking
Stephanie Martin is a well known painter and printmaker based in Santa Cruz. Her beautifully hand-colored etchings depict the wildlife of her native landscape. Martin’s illustrations are part of many Bay Area collections and publications, including Fruit Trees for Every Garden: A Organic Approach, by her husband, Orin Martin, manager of UCSC’s Alan Chadwick Garden. How did you discover etching? SM: I fell into etching by pure chance: it was offered in the evening! I was in my mid-40s, working as an elementary school teacher, and interested in a new challenge. I enrolled in Introduction to Drawing at Cabrillo, and the following semester found an Intaglio Printmaking (etching) class offered…
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Vizzusi’s Glass Featured in Collections Around the World
For the past 40 years glass artist Peter Vizzusi has been blowing molten glass into wildly colorful tumblers, goblets, bowls, and just plain beautiful objects. Based in Santa Cruz, Vizzusi’s studies in the Bay Area and Italy fueled his ambitious career. Now his blown artglass can be found in museums and collections all over the world. – Christina Waters Q: How did you chose making glass art as a profession? PV: I found my life’s work, inadvertently- seeing hot glass action across the hall from the ceramics studios at San Jose State where I was an avid student, then at Old Town, Los Gatos, where the self-styled glass maesetro…
