Quick Take
Multidisciplinary local artists — across poetry, film, opera and more — were recognized by the California Arts Council in the first cohort of Central Coast Individual Artists Fellows.
The California Arts Council has recognized five local artists with its Central Coast Individual Artists Fellowship, which gives creatives across the region unrestricted funding to support their artistic practices.
The recipients include 14 artists from the Central Coast, including Santa Cruz, Monterey, San Benito, Ventura, San Luis Obispo and Santa Barbara counties. This is the first year the council has specifically recognized a Central Coast cohort.
Ellen Bass and Consuelo Alba-Speyer were awarded the Legacy Fellowship. Bass founded the Santa Cruz Poetry Project and the poetry program at the Salinas Valley State Prison, both of which offer weekly workshops to incarcerated people. She has received the Lambda Literary Award, a Guggenheim Fellowship and five Pushcart Prizes for her poetry.
Alba-Speyer co-founded and serves as the executive director for the Watsonville Film Festival, amplifying Latine and Indigenous voices through film and cultural programs. She also directed four short documentaries, including “The Long Labor” and “Las Mismas Manos,” which premiered at the 2026 New York Latino Film Festival.
“This recognition is an affirmation not only of my work, but of the artists, storytellers and communities who have trusted me and inspired me along the way,” Alba-Speyer said in a news release. “I feel incredibly honored and grateful, and more inspired than ever to keep creating, opening doors for others and building spaces where our creativity, our culture and our humanity can be seen and celebrated.”
Akua Naru received the Established Artist Fellowship, celebrating her current work, “Longing To Tell: A Blues Opera.” Her work, which spans poetry, theater, music and archive, is rooted in Black feminism and theorizes hip-hop as “a site of undoing, testimony, and past/future-making.” She is an assistant professor of hip hop at UC Santa Cruz.
Alexandra Rocha-Alvarez and Hossein Zarrat Shoaiee were recognized as Emerging Fellows. Rocha-Alvarez leads Palabra Campesina, an arts initiative uplifting farmworker communities in the Pájaro Valley through oral histories.
Shoaiee highlights the Iranian diaspora across the Central Coast and San Francisco Bay Area through filmmaking. He is currently working on a screenplay for an animated film confronting questions of belonging and self-discovery.
The Central Coast Fellowship was partly administered by Arts Council Santa Cruz County, providing local outreach and connecting artists with the fellowship.
“This fellowship recognizes that artists deserve investment and trust,” said Sally Green, the deputy director of Arts Council Santa Cruz County, in a news release. “Bringing this opportunity to artists throughout the region and celebrating the remarkable range of creative practices shaping our communities is an honor.”
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