What an arts community looks like: Looking back in fondness at the Gail Rich Awards

When I first started as a pup feature writer at the Santa Cruz Sentinel in the summer of 1991 — just to remind you of how long ago that was, the Soviet Union was still a thing in the world at the time — I quickly became aware of something that first surprised me then inspired me. 

My beat was the cultural scene, and I was amazed at the number and variety of people living and/or working in Santa Cruz County as artists or performers — musicians, actors, painters, poets, printers, dancers, comedians, designers, screenwriters, you name it. Few of them, maybe none of them, were rich or famous, at least in the way mainstream culture would define those terms. But they were all making a go of it, working day jobs, chasing grants, teaching on the side, traveling to far-flung gigs. These folks were something beyond the weekend watercolorists, or the night-time novelists that exist in pretty much every town in America (noble people in their own right). They were professionals, albeit in a local or regional, middle-class kind of way. Some of them were shooting for higher visibility, bigger budgets, larger stages. I’m sure a few of them felt they could be stars. But many of them were content in just doing the work, on their own terms, for whatever audience they were lucky to have. 

A few years down the road, I decided to collaborate with my good friend and colleague at the Sentinel, photographer Shmuel Thaler, to create something that acknowledged these individuals and the sacrifices and hard work they were enduring for their art and/or craft. Thus was born the Gail Rich Awards, an annual showcase of appreciation expressed in Shmuel’s own artistic eye, black-and-white photographs. 

On Saturday, Pajaro Valley Arts will open a new exhibit looking back at the glory years of the Gail Rich Awards, featuring almost 160 of Shmuel’s images from the 22 years of the “Gailies,” 1997-2018. The exhibit is called “The Creatives Among Us,” also the name of a book we published on the event’s 20th anniversary. Taken as a whole, the GRA photos work as a kind of hall of fame, featuring many of the leading figures of the county’s art and culture scene. That first class of GRA honorees in 1997 included Atlantis Fantasyworld entrepreneur Joe Ferrara, the late KPIG founder and station manager Laura Ellen Hopper and the celebrated Watsonville muralist Guillermo Aranda, among others. In subsequent years, we honored some of this county’s most distinguished artists, from folksinger Mary McCaslin, novelist and essayist James Houston, celebrated poet Ellen Bass, the iconic masked accordion player Frank “The Great Morgani” Lima and so many others. 

The awards were named after a beloved friend and fellow arts writer in town who died unexpectedly shortly before we debuted the concept. I got to pitch the idea to her a couple of weeks before her passing, and she loved it. (A few years later, I was deeply moved when several members of her family came to Santa Cruz from New York to thank us for honoring her in a way that she would have loved.)

The idea was not only to shine a light of recognition on deserving arts figures, but also to allow Shmuel to do what he’s so good at, drawing out the personalities and the character of his portrait subjects. The whole thing became a showcase for his talent. The generous spread in the pages of the newspaper was published the first Sunday of the new year. My job was to choose the honorees, with advice from those I trusted and with an eye to diversity of artistic endeavors. In 22 years, there were no polls, committees or elections. The final list always came down to my judgment. And making those phone calls to each of the honorees was always a thrill.

Soon, with the help of the Cultural Council Associates, and especially the wonderful Sabrina Eastwood, we hosted an event. And in a few short years that event grew to be one of the highlights of the county’s social scene, at least for the creative crowd. It started at the then-named Louden Nelson Center, migrated to the Kuumbwa Jazz Center and finally, when demand grew beyond the confines of those venues, to the Rio Theatre. Over the years, the show included many memorable moments, including a short video clip by suddenly very famous Santa Cruz-born actor Adam Scott thanking Cathy Warner, his drama teacher at Harbor High School, for encouraging his career path.

It was an enormous thrill and a deep honor for me and for Shmuel to extend this recognition, however modest, to people whose accomplishments deserved wider appreciation. The oldest of the GRA photos are approaching 30 years and, looking at them now, there’s no denying a poignant sense of time passing by. Many of our honorees are no longer among the living, a few more have left the area, but many are still part of the vibrant arts scene. But they all make up a wonderful portrait of a community that takes its creative culture seriously. 

The reception for “The Creatives Among Us: Celebrating 20+ Years of the Gail Rich Awards” takes place Saturday, April 5, from 4 to 6 p.m. at Pajaro Valley Arts’ Porter Building Gallery, 280 Main St., next to the Watsonville Plaza. The exhibit runs through May 31. 

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