In preparing to write this article, I contacted the Marysville Art Club. President Charline Gonder was kind enough to share with me the 100 year history of service to the community the Club has provided. The Club started due to a lack of a suitable gallery space to show the works of Rosa Bonhuer who painted an iconic image of Buffalo Cody on horseback. An exhibit of this famous work along with her animal studies had to be cancelled due to the lack of suitable display space in our area. And so the Club was formed with a mission to provide “enlightenment and education in the arts” including gallery space.
Yuba Sutter Arts (YSA) shares a similar mission. In its 30+ years of existence, YSA has also had a profound impact on the cultural well-being of the community. And what a year it was at YSA. We stabilized many of our longstanding programs and added a few new twists.
We are especially proud of our Veterans Mural Art Park and the Veterans Bronze Face Casting projects. We held a Shakespeare’s Birthday party and dedicated a memorial rose garden in honor of local music icon, Joaquina Calvo Johnson. We hosted ten Applause performances to help raise money for the creation of the Sutter Performing Arts Center. We hosted musical acts and student recitals and had art shows in our main gallery and at our satellite galleries all over town expanding our Art Everywhere into new venues. Our F.L.I.P. program provided arts education and entertainment to preschoolers and their families.
We have set an aggressive schedule of programs and events for the year; some old, some new, some easy to achieve and some that will require a considerable amount of work, creativity and resources. All of our efforts are in keeping with finding new means of arts-engagement with our community and finding areas of interest for everyone from preschoolers to students to adults and seniors.
Here’s what’s new for Yuba Sutter Arts in 2017. In January, we’ll feature a talented group of country western and bluegrass performers in a Yuba-Sutter Grand Ole Opry style concert. We will help to grow the Writer’s Group headed by local writer and visual artist, Susan McNally including publication of a quarterly literary journal, Winged Poesies, making it available in print and electronic versions.
Our Artists-in-Residence program will begin with specific outreach programs to schools and businesses to bring various art forms to everyone. In early January, we’ll hold our first Theater Work Shop series for high school students as a sort of “in-school field trip.”
February is Poetry Out Loud month when we bring together high school students to compete in the NEA funded poetry recitation program. We’ll also host the internationally acclaimed Duo Delorio flamenco guitarists in concert celebrating Spanish culture. And we’ll welcome back the Yuba College Speech team for an evening of competitive speech fun.
Thanks to the artistry of the “Storytailors,” we will honor the ancient art of traditional story telling in a series of programs that aim to entertain while bringing to life cultural tales for young and old. We will hold a Spring Art Fling, Croquet and Wine Party and this year’s fall Harvest the Arts event will be bigger and better than ever.
Newly arrived musicians in town Tom and Gay Galvin will bring us a series of singer/songwriter programs. Acclaimed pianist John Paris will again grace our theater with three concerts throughout the year.
The Yuba College Office of Student Veteran Services will partner with us on a new Veterans Art Project with a gallery show in March. Our Color Up! recidivism reduction grant program will begin to provide an artistic outlet for juvenile offenders.
Our Murals of Live Oak project is well underway with mural artists and design selections about to begin for Phase 1 of the three year program during which we will literally “paint the town.”
We are applying for grants to bring a new “Festival Arts” business to Yuba-Sutter. Vocational and artistic training will be provided to students who will then have the opportunity to be a part of a commercial enterprise which will sell “walking head” characters to municipalities, businesses and other groups with a need for totally unique, eye-catching creations to help promote their brands.
In addition to all of this, we have our ongoing programs including Press Play lectures on culture and art, Shakespeare Readers’ Theatre, the Writer’s Group and Women’s Creative meetings for promoting other art genres and much, much more.
For an updated and comprehensive view of “What’s On” at Yuba Sutter Arts, visit our calendar or call 742-ARTS.