Arts Council for Monterey County
2008 Champions of The Arts Gala

Michael Houston - report on the 2008 Champions of the Arts event

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2008 CHAMPIONS OF THE ARTS | Videos

Saturday, January 19, 2008.
Annual Champions of the Arts Gala, Embassy Suites in Eastside CA

Honoring: Gus Arriola, the creator of "Gordo"; Ric Masten, poet; Elsie Dill of the Salinas Valley Art Association; Todd Krupper of CSUMB and Sand City's "Westend Festival"; Bruce Graham of King City High's music programs; Orlando Castro of Alisal Center for the Fine Arts; and the Aromas Hills Artisan; and Martin Macareno of Greenfield.

Michael Houston - Report on the 1008 Champions of the Arts event

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GUS ARRIOLA |

Gordo was more than an ethnic goodwill emissary. The comic strip was profoundly about people and humanity, as San Francisco Chronicle columnist Herb Caen recognized: “We all need families, our own and at least one other,” he once wrote. “For more years than I care to think about, my other family has been the singular creation of Gus Arriola — Senor Gordo and his extended menagerie of diverting humans and spectacular animals."

Arriola matched his literary achievement with graphic wizardry. He was a supremely inventive stylist, and his artwork always displayed design qualities unusual for a comic strip.

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RIC MASTEN |

ACMC TV - Arts Council videos on the Internet

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Rick Masten - Poet and performance artist

ACMC TV - Arts Council videos on the Internet

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Elsie Dill |

ACMC TV - Arts Council videos on the Internet

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Elsie Dill

A native Californian, Elsie was born in Oakland, but has resided in Salinas for many years. While majoring in Home Economics at San Jose State University, she met her husband, Murray, whose encouragement and supportiveness have been most helpful to Elsie's artistic endeavors. Her family of five children and 13 grandchildren are her best critics - more Elsie Dill art and info here |

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ACMC TV - Arts Council videos on the Internet

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Bruce Graham

ACMC TV - Arts Council videos on the Internet

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Todd Kruper

ACMC TV - Arts Council videos on the Internet

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Kim and Gina Weston |

2008 Champion of the Arts / Philanthropists

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Kim and Gina Weston |

Offer artists, educators, students and the community the opportunity to experience the richness of photography through exhibitions, workshops, publications, lectures, videos, artists-in-residence and scholarships.

The Gina and Kim Weston Scholarship Fund was established to support high school and university/college students studying art photography in Monterey County. Both Gina and Kim wish to foster photographic education as a way of nurturing a medium that they love. It is specifically targeted for those students practicing conventional analogue processes as well as traditional alternative process such as platinum printing. Student photographers using digital capture and/or digitally printed photographs are excluded from the scholarship competition. | Fine Art TV | links | about us |
ACMC TV - Arts Council videos on the Internet

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Orlando Castro - Director, Alisal Center for the Fina Arts / Rondilla Alisal

ACMC TV - Arts Council videos on the Internet

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Martin Macareno of Greenfield

ACMC TV - Arts Council videos on the Internet

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Aromas Hills Artisans

ACMC TV - Arts Council videos on the Internet

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NEWS REPORTS

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Arts Council honors all its 'champions'

Saturday's gala gives special recognition to Lifetime Achievement winner Gus Arriola
and Luminary awardee Ric Masten

By MARC CABRERA
Herald Staff Writer

Gus Arriola is the creator of the Gordo comic strip

The Arts Council of Monterey County does not honor its champions with a ring or belt or trophy. Instead, it uses a video tribute and ceremonial dinner, where dancing and dining are mandatory and acceptance speeches are optional.

This year's Champions of the Arts gala, Saturday at the Embassy Suites Hotel in Seaside, honors some of the most influential artists and arts supporters on the Monterey County scene. Two champions in particular, Lifetime Achievement winner Gus Arriola and Luminary awardee Ric Masten, are being honored for bodies of work that represent a combined 80 years of artistic achievement.

"This is a chance to honor people in the community, all Monterey County residents, who have some way or another advanced in the arts," said Paulette Lynch, executive director for the Arts Council of Monterey County. "Each year, we take a look at who in the community really has been exemplary in these particular categories. These are certainly people who have been particularly outstanding."

This year's honorees are: Arriola, Lifetime Achievement; Masten, Luminary; Elsie Dill, Friend of the Year; Orlando Castro, Volunteer of the Year; Aromas Hills Artisans, Nonprofit of the Year; Bruce Graham, Educator of the Year; Todd Kruper, Professional of the Year; and Kim and Gina Weston, Philanthropists of the Year.

"The one we're excited about is lifetime achievement and this year's winner in that category is Gus," said Lynch. "We're looking for someone who has national stature and has a long list of achievements in that field, and (Arriola) fits right into that." Arriola is the creator of the "Gordo" comic strip, which ran on Universal Features Syndicate from 1941 to 1985. The strip twice won Best Humor Strip from the National Cartoonists Society. His work has been exhibited numerous times by the Carmel Art Association.

Mary Frances Arriola, Gus Arriola's wife, said her husband has been feeling the ill effects of his two-year battle with colon cancer and subsequent chemotherapy, but that he was honored by the award.

"People are being very good to us and helping us," she said. "It's just a difficult time in our lives right now."

Dick Crispo, a longtime friend of Arriola who first met the cartoonist while Crispo was in high school, said Arriola's work is deserving of a lifetime achievement merit.

"He's a wonderful person, one of those people who have given us a great gift, especially in California," said Crispo, who runs his own art studio in Carmel. "To really understand Gordo is to understand another level. He took the comic strip to another level. He made it art."

Crispo will be part of the celebration, having filmed a video tribute to Arriola.

"He's a signature of the area," said Crispo.

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Another signature is Masten, the Big Sur poet who has been serving up poems and one-line drawings for 40-plus years. The Arts Council selected him as the Luminary, a title he's taken with even as the awards stack up.

"I've discovered that all you have to do is grow old and have a terminal disease and the awards and honors keep falling out of the trees," said Masten, who is suffering from prostate cancer.

Since announcing his illness, Masten has been named poet laureate by the city of Carmel and at the National Conference on Prostate Cancer in Washington, D.C. He was awarded an honorary doctorate at CSU-Monterey Bay in 2007, where he gave the keynote address to the graduating class.

"I'm just terribly honored again that the Arts Council of Monterey County has chosen me as a luminary," he said. "I've been sending word out to Gus that he better be there to hold me up."

Masten has been working on his acceptance speech, which is voluntary for awardees. Last year's lifetime achievement winner, children's book author Beverly Cleary, initially turned down the chance to speak. But after a fourth-grade student presented her the award and shared what an inspiration Cleary had been to her, the author was moved to share a few words of her own.

"The moments when the fourth grader gave the tribute to Beverly Cleary, those are the moments that I really live for," said Lynch. "I think it's one of the things our attendees keep coming back for, they wouldn't miss it because it's so exhilarating. At this time of year, when people are looking ahead, they become very inspired and (the event) becomes very exciting."

Marc Cabrera can be reached at 831 646-4345 or email: mcabrera at montereyherald.com

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ChampionsOfTheArts.org |

Our Short Videos
The Arts Council is partnering with PictureAmerica.org to provide video cameras to Monterey County artists and arts nonprofits to tell their stories. PictureAmerica is the Internet webpage site host for our Champion of the Arts Gala, in Seaside at the Embassy Suites |

All the best,

Michael Houston
President of the Board Arts Council for Monterey County