Central Valley

How to Infect an Entire City with Art

Rather Than Building a Museum, We Turn Neighborhoods into Galleries

The reception for the Modesto Art Museum’s 2014 architecture movie night was well underway and about 200 people were mingling in the lobby of Modesto’s art deco State Theatre. Everyone was sampling Mediterranean foods, sipping wine, and chatting away as if these were the only reasons why they came to the event. That was actually the point.

An art museum is about more than just the art—it’s also about building relationships. As executive director of the Modesto Art Museum, I wanted to use this movie screening to build relationships among …

by Bob Barzan |

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Visalia Can Help You with Your Zombie Opera

This Central Valley City Supports the Arts—and Reaps Their Cultural and Economic Benefits, Too

by Sarah Rothbard |

Can the arts make a city vibrant both economically and culturally? Artists and arts administrators in Visalia, California, think so. At a “Living the Arts” event co-presented by the James …

Want the Arts to Make Your City Vibrant?

Don’t Just Throw Money at Artists. Give Them Places to Perform, Collective Bargaining Powers—or a Break on Permits.

For towns like Visalia, California, the expression “arts for art’s sake” doesn’t make much sense. In Visalia—as in other emerging arts towns throughout the U.S.—art isn’t just there for its …

Your Electric Car Isn’t Making California’s Air Any Cleaner

The Environmental Benefits of Rich People’s Teslas Are Canceled Out By All the Gas-Guzzling Clunkers Still on Our Roads

by Lisa Margonelli |

This is a tale of two zip codes.

First there’s 94582: San Ramon, California.

Since 2010, the roughly 38,000 citizens and businesses of this prosperous Bay Area suburb, where the median household …

I Did Not Want to End Up in Modesto

But Thanks to a Community of Poets, I Grew Into the Central Valley—and My Adopted City Grew Into Me

by Gillian Wegener |

Arable
The land around coaxes out
almonds, apricots, walnuts.
At 3 a.m., the call to irrigate.
—from “An Alphabet for a Mid-Sized City”

I am not from here, not from the …

Alphabet for a Mid-Sized City

Thanks to a Community of Poets, I Grew Into the Central Valley—and This Agricultural California Region Grew Into Me

by Gillian Wegener |

Arable
The land around coaxes out
almonds, apricots, walnuts.
At 3 a.m., the call to irrigate.

Bone
We work our fingers to the bone.
We are bone-tired.
C’mon, throw the dog …


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