Wow! A Grand Success By Any Measure
Thank you to all the wonderful Champions, performing artists, visual artists, sponsors, volunteers, board members, media teams, donors and guests who made our latest edition of Champions of the Arts Gala such a thrill, so moving and a grand success by any measure!
We’d like to extend our great appreciation to Nicollette Eason Trottier, our gala chair, for her visionary leadership! Also, the team at the Hyatt Regency Monterey Hotel and Spa took amazing care of us throughout the process; from planning how to stage our aerialist to zooming a band-aid to our volunteer tear-down crew, they were a great partner all the way! Special thanks to our board of directors for leading sponsor development and event planning. Thanks to each of our staff members and volunteers for arranging and handling everything with such grace and good humor! And, a million thanks to our wonderful MC Erin Clark and each of our presenters, including CA State Senator Bill Monning, CA State Senator Anna Caballero, Monterey County Supervisor Luis Alejo, Monterey County Supervisor John Phillips, Monterey County Supervisor Jane Parker, Monterey County Supervisor Mary Adams and California State University, Monterey Bay President Eduardo Ochoa.
Special shout-out to Meheen Ruby and her amazing team from the Youth Arts Collective for making us look so good! Meheen provided the original art we used in everything from name tags to the printed program guide, centerpieces to the award stage backdrop!
Now that the gala is over, we are turning our attention back to our arts education programs all over Monterey County. To get involved with the Arts Council, please let us know as soon as you are ready. We’ll find just the right spot for you that fits your needs and your schedule. There’s so much more we can do together!
— Paulette Lynch, Executive Director
Enjoy footage of the event, courtesy of MCAETtv:
Be sure to check out our photos on Facebook here or at Richard Green Photography here.
February 2, 2019, 5-9 p.m.
Hyatt Regency Monterey Hotel & Spa
On February 2, we will once again roll out the red carpet to celebrate our champions of the arts at our annual gala! Honoring champions in their own specialties since 2006, we celebrate individuals and organizations that make our region the best in the world to live, work, and visit.
Dress
Parking
Meals
To start, enjoy a baby spinach salad with local honey, roasted pears, ricotta salata, candied pecans, and white balsamic vinaigrette.
For the entree, you’ll have your choice between:
- Pan-seared Pacific salmon with honey mustard glaze, sour cream herb-whipped potatoes, garlic broccolini, sweet bell peppers, and blood orange gastrique pan.
- Roasted beef tenderloin and smoked cheddar mash potatoes with local mushroom ragout, black truffle, Cipollini onion agrodolce, and chives.
- Vegetarian, vegan, gluten-free root vegetable and white bean cassoulet with apple smoked sausage (vegan) and garlic-herb breadcrumb (gluten-free).
For dessert, we’ll be serving chocolate coconut tart (vegan) with fresh berries and raspberry coulis.
Tickets – We are sold out.
Special Thanks To Our Wonderful Sponsors
Diamond
Our Champions
Dottie Dodgion
“Lifetime Achievement Award”
Dottie Dodgion was born in Brea, California. Her early years were spent in a musical environment as her father was a professional drummer. She began her musical career as a singer in the San Francisco area with groups that included the likes of Nick Esposito and Charlie Mingus. Her love affair with jazz continues until this day. In 1990, she settled in Monterey where she immediately went to work with the best artists in the area. Today, Dottie is behind the drums every Thursday night playing with young greats like Gary Meek and Steven Uccello at the Inn at Spanish Bay!
Juan-Carlos Gonzalez
“Luminary Award”
JC Gonzalez is a visual Interdisciplinary and community-based artist. His work includes acrylic, oils, watercolor painting, drawing, murals, installations, and creative happenings. Gonzalez has been facilitating healthy youth leadership development through impactful creative expression and the nexus of arts, health, culture, and healing. Gonzalez infuses visual interdisciplinary arts and wellness lifestyle informed by contemporary issues affecting communities of color; his artwork has been included in many exhibits in Salinas and Monterey County. Gonzalez founded the Urban Arts Collaborative in 2012, a cadre of urban artists that curates and creates safe spaces for youth healing, creative expression, leadership, and advocacy for health equity and social transformation through the arts.
Marcie Chapa
“Educator Award”
Marcie Chapa, an international percussionist, is a leading educator in our region as a teacher and band leader for all six North Monterey County Unified School District schools, and a contributing educator with the Monterey Jazz Festival. Chapa performed as a touring member of Beyoncé’s ensemble, and is now directing the band and drumline at North Monterey County High School. Marcie previously taught alongside the Monterey Jazz Festival’s Education Director Paul Contos in a special program for at-risk youth at Glen Deven Ranch in Big Sur in 2013.
Silka Saavedra
“Volunteer Leader Award”
Silka Saavedra has brought arts and community programming to the city of Greenfield for over ten years. She has improved the community’s quality of life by supporting the preservation of traditional art in Greenfield. She has brought dance and art programs with the Sunday’s In The Park program and through her leadership as chair of the Greenfield Cultural Arts Center. Saavedra has been instrumental in supporting the Greenfield Harvest Festival as the volunteer program director. She also helped to bring back the Greenfield 4th of July Celebration, and she works with businesses and schools to bring free programs to the migrant farming community.
Dionicio Mendoza
“Professional Artist Award”
Dionicio Mendoza is a dedicated artist whose recent projects include a solo exhibition and artist residency entitled PROCESS IN PROGRESS: New Mixed Media Works and Works in Progress at the Monterey Museum of Art. This exhibit was the museum’s first artist residency where Mendoza engaged the community in issues of social practice and reciprocity through socio-cultural inquiry around artmaking. Mendoza was born in Uruapan, Michoacan, Mexico. His professional development includes a BFA from the California College of Arts and Crafts in Oakland, CA. After he completed his Bachelor’s degree, Dio was invited to several artist-in-residence programs and exhibitions in Europe. He now teaches in the visual and public art department at CSUMB.
Denese Sanders, Open Ground Studios
“Nonprofit Award”
Denese Sanders came to Monterey about 15 years ago from Minnesota. She first worked with Arts Habitat upon settling in Monterey. She taught a few classes at CSUMB and many at Monterey Peninsula College. While teaching and working with Arts Habitat, she saw a need for a community print studio and art center. After a year of talking with people of the art community, Denese found a space and began Open Ground Studios. For five years, Denese has dedicated her hours to making the finest printmaking facility in Monterey County. Although OGS began as a print studio, it now serves painters and offers classes and workshops in printmaking as well as painting. Denese has provided guidance, opportunity and support to many, many artists, both young and old through her teaching, counseling and studio space.
Malcom and Judith Weintraub
“Art Supporters Award”
Malcolm and Judith have influenced hundreds of creative individuals on the Monterey Peninsula, in Sacramento and beyond though curating, teaching, advocating, and support. For decades, they have mentored young artists, providing a platform and working as living advocates for the transformative power of art. Through Malcolm’s film series, both at the Cherry Center and the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at CSUMB (Ollie), as well as Judith’s mentoring of new artists in her Sacramento gallery, they both have consistent participation in the arts community. Together, they have widened the aperture and increased the reach of the arts in numerous lives. Both Malcolm and Judith have an abundance of quiet heroism. This gives them great influence in the world and they have put that influence to admirable use.
Fine Art Auction
At this year’s auction, we’ll have select pieces from the following artists:
Cheryl Kampe
Kampe started painting full time after retiring from her career. In her early experience with watercolors, she fell in love with the qualities of this medium – the vivid colors and the expression of fine detail. From those days, she has worked to develop a full range of skills and techniques for each media she uses. She has enjoyed the benefit of learning in workshops from Oneida Hammond, Anne Pember, Guy Magalanes, Karen Honaker, Dale Laitinen, Jane Hofstetter, Mark Farina, Warren Chang, and Randy Sexton. She paints at her studio in Pacific Grove and is currently working on local subjects on the Monterey Peninsula.
Bradley Harms
Harms received his BFA from the University of Calgary in 1996 and his Master of Fine Arts from the prestigious School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2004. Harms has exhibited extensively throughout North America, Europe and Asia, including Chicago, New York, San Francisco, Miami, Munich, Sydney, Singapore, and Tokyo. For the past number of years, Harms has been on the front lines of the new wave of abstraction, building upon traditions within the medium, while creating work that both reflects and critiques contemporary social and technological developments. Harms lives and works in Monterey, California and Calgary, Canada.
Paul Richmond
Paul is an internationally recognized visual artist and activist whose career has included exhibitions in galleries and museums throughout the United States as well as publication in numerous art journals and anthologies. His work is collected by individuals around the globe. In his role as the Associate Art Director for Dreamspinner Press and their young adult imprint, Harmony Ink Press, he has created over four hundred novel cover illustrations. He is a co-founder of the You Will Rise Project, an organization that empowers those who have experienced bullying to speak out creatively through art. He lives with his husband Dennis and two whippets in Monterey, California. He works and teaches at Open Ground Studios in Seaside.
Bryan Gage
Gage‘s passionate pursuit of art and design has spanned globe. Since growing up in PG, he spent a decade studying and working in Holland, England, and India. Bryan obtained a Master’s of Design degree from famed automotive design program at Coventry University, England. From there, he worked alongside the British automotive industry producing future design concepts for Land Rover and Aston Martin. Bryan‘s love for creativity and expression across multiple dimensions of the arts eventually led him to the burgeoning tech city of Pune, India, where he taught and developed curriculum’s at a newly established art and design university. While in India, he produced fine art, designed and built motorcycles, and explored the vastness of the Indian culture. Upon returning to Monterey, Gage recently opened his own independent fine art and design studio off Cannery Row at the American Tin Cannery.
Paul Seftel
Living across the U.S. for the last 25 years, Paul Seftel’s paintings are in private collections internationally. Seftel has been based in Monterey County for three years, prior to which he was in NYC for nearly a decade. Paul also spent many years living in Colorado, LA and New Mexico as well. Studying art at school in London and Edinburgh, Paul has traveled deeply through cities, deserts, mountains, islands. Now living on the coast, his paintings capture his journey and reflect the experience. Environmental change, mineral mining, oceans rising, space exploration, and spiritual realization are conveyed in an organic abstract language of color and texture. Creating his own paint mixtures with stone and metal minerals, raw pigments and gravity painting techniques, there’s alchemy at work in the surface of Seftel’s paintings. Seen close up and at a great distance, a glimpse of something infinite at work is captured.
Scott Jacobs
Scott Jacobs gained worldwide fame after releasing his fine art portrait of Senator Barack Obama, entitled “Someday has come” during his campaign for president in 2008. Subsequently, he painted this portrait of comedian-actor Bill Murray entitled “There’s Always Hope.” Jacobs creates work in a photorealistic style that he describes as “bold, figurative art.” You can find him painting at Scott Jacobs Gallery on Mission Street between 5th and 6th Streets in beautiful Carmel-by-the-Sea.
Andrew Jackson
Working fine artist since 1991, Andrew Jackson was previously the youngest gallery owner in Carmel by-the-Sea, California, where he opened and ran his one-man gallery from 1995 through 1998. Now Jackson brings 20 years of experience working with galleries, publishers, collectors, and artists to the Outer Edge Studio at The American Tin Cannery. In 2018, Jackson was the recipient of the fine art professional awards for the Champions of the Arts gala.
Mary Hill
Hill was born in Texas, moving to Carmel in 1988. She is a travel agent with Carmel-Monterey Travel and has had the opportunity to travel to some of the most beautiful places in the world. She believes that she lives in the most beautiful of them all. Her photography is about the silence in details and quiet places, as well as the appreciation of the world around her. Since 2001, she has had several solo exhibits at the Pacific Grove Art Center, the Carmel Mission, and the Sea Ranch Lodge. Her images have been selected for display at the Community Hospital of the Monterey Peninsula. Her photographs can also be seen annually in the Monterey County Artists Studio Tour, the Bach Festival Art Raffle, and the Miniature Show at the Monterey Museum of Art.
Ray Magsalay
A resident of Pacific Grove, Magsalay has participated in Native Images Workshop exhibits, a studio dedicated to the education and expression of Native American themes. He has shown at several museums, galleries and group exhibits throughout the Western United States. Inspired by Native American traditions and folk art, Magsalay’s creations convey a contemporary iconography. These imaginative sculptures are mirrors of the past and reflections on the future. Through intuitive response to natural objects–bones, feathers, and skulls that are indigenous to this continent–Magsalay creates a new way of seeing in his artistic creations.
Erin Hunter
Hunter is a trained science illustrator with a background in graphic design. She splits her work between fine art paintings depicting the natural world, and technical illustrations for an academic science journal (Annual Reviews). Her personal work focuses on the interactions between plants and animals, with a special interest in plant-pollinator relationships. She also teaches the occasional weekend workshop, giving classes in natural history, drawing, and painting.
Entertainment
Latin Jazz Collective
The Latin Jazz Collective is a high energy eight piece ensemble led by percussionist John Nava and drummer Martin Binder. The blend of Afro-Cuban rhythms together with jazz improvisation makes highly engaging listening as well as perfect dance music. The band received a standing ovation from a full house at the 2017 Monterey Jazz Festival and has been playing to sold-out audiences ever since. LJC members have shared the stage, recorded, and taught with the likes of Carlos Santana, Pete Escovedo, the Yellowjackets, Malo, Kim Stone (Rippingtons), Wayne Wallace and many other respected artists.
Erin Carey
Erin Carey began her circus arts career in the UK where she studied at Circomedia Center for Contemporary Circus and Physical Theatre. She then completed the Professional Track Training Program, Aerial Teacher Training Certification, and Artist Residency Program at the New England Center for Circus Arts. She has performed extensively with renowned circus talent across North America, Europe, Asia and the Middle East, most notably at DAR Constitution Hall, the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Central Park’s famed Summer Stage, MASS MoCA, Bristol’s Old Vic Theater, King Hussein Amphitheater in Amman, Jordan, and the Samsung Pavilion at Expo2012 in Yeosu, Korea. She also co-founded the Radical Movement Factory in Santa Cruz, CA and enjoys teaching others to fly!
2020 Champions Nominations
Nominations for Champions 2020 will be open soon; send a note requesting the form to [email protected]
To view past Champions since 2006 click here.
Sponsorship
When you support arts education through sponsorship, benefits include recognition at our champions gala as well as complimentary tickets. Click here for more details.