Back in January, Crystal Birns asked the Red Bats to photograph her artwork before she sold it at a show at Vino Cruz- a show called Painting the Bees. When I saw her paintings, I had to add another adjective to the list of words I’d use to describe Crystal: beautiful, intelligent, charming, witty, and talented. (Oh, and don’t forget married.)

Crystal coordinates arts programs for the City of Santa Cruz. When I visited her office once, she had a flock of cast-iron penguin sculptures hanging around waiting to be assigned to their places on Pacific Avenue. I truly appreciate Crystal’s labors when I wander around town with my little nephew, who loves those penguins and talks about them regularly. Art like this has stimulated his three-year-old imagination and started some priceless conversations between us. Plenty of adults appreciate seeing art in their town, but it’s the kids who benefit from it the most. Public art changes their perception of reality, enhances their creativity, gives them a way to integrate their imaginations with the real world at a crucial point in their development.

One recently completed project that Crystal worked on is the giant mosaic mural you may have seen while driving down Soquel Avenue. The Red Bats will be shooting portraits of the artists at a reception to celebrate this project on October 2, and I’ll be sure to post some photos of that event on this blog. Click here to read a Sentinel article about the project. To see a flier for this event, click here.

But enough about other artists. I started this post to talk about Crystal. I love her paintings, and I’m excited about what she will create in the future. Here are a few of my favorites. I think there’s a website underway but until then, if you want to talk to Crystal about her artwork, you can email her: cbirns [at] gmail.com. Enjoy!

I knew that the first annual Santa Cruz NEXT award ceremony, aka the NEXTies, would be a big, fun party. But I wasn’t expecting the venue to be quite so fabulously decked out. Walking into that room felt like boarding some kind of super-hip spaceship, and I was astounded by what they were able to create from blank industrial space. I don’t think my photos really do it justice, but you’ll get the idea. All of this amazing design work was done by Nielsen Architects, a talented Santa Cruz group that includes Timerie Gordon, who blogged about preparing for this event with no budget and a lot of hard labor. The light fixtures were made from wine barrels and were constructed by artist Maurice Connolly. And the projected light installations were crafted by people from Digital Arts and New Media (DANM) at UCSC.

I shot this event alone, as Patrick was working late hours preparing for our appearance at the rapidly approaching Santa Cruz Bridal Expo. Usually at an event like this, one of us will use a flash and the other one will shoot with available light only. As the sole photographer, I came prepared to switch back and forth between those two modes of shooting. But when I saw how creative the venue lighting was, and how successfully the right mood had been conjured by the designers, I couldn’t bear to ruin it with bright flashes. I used available light only for most of the night, which meant shooting at maximum ISO and letting the shutter drag for the wide-angle shots.

Since that night, I’ve learned a few new techniques that will allow me to use a flash without destroying the ambiance of a room. I’m still working on those techniques. I have a very strong natural inclination towards sticking with available light because I love the sense of reality it lends to a photograph. But there were plenty of things I couldn’t get good photos of with the light that was there, such as the delicious food offered by various local gourmet vendors. (Of which I only sampled a tiny bit, because of the danger of leaving greasy fingerprints on my lens. However, I couldn’t turn down the dessert that involved bacon tucked into strawberries.)

The award ceremony itself was easier to shoot because the winners were on stage, under spotlights. The winners (click their names to view their sites): Marina Sousa, Reyna Ruiz, Enrico Ramirez-Ruiz, and Danny Keith. If you want to read more about who they are and why they won, this Good Times article has great profiles and photos of the four winners. The ceremony featured video profiles of the winners created by SoWat TV, and you can view those videos in this Santa Cruz NEXT blog post.

A band called Persephone’s Bees took over after the ceremony, and they rocked. I had to leave during the break between their sets, to go home and get some sleep before the next few days of Bridal Expo prep. But what I saw and heard of Persephone’s Bees was impressive and the party seemed to be just getting started when I walked out the door.

A belated congratulations to everyone who was a part of creating this event!

On a side note, no party is really ever complete without Jeffrey Kongslie, which is why he appears at least three times in the photos below.