Sunday Reads: Ambitious new downtown art project, period equity at UCSC & latest news quiz

Dancing Waters: ambitious new downtown public art project to reflect water’s centrality to Santa Cruz history and culture

(Kevin Painchaud / Lookout Santa Cruz)

Mosaic artists are working on a stained-glass art piece that is expected to be unveiled sometime in June on what is known as the River Front parking garage. “Dancing Waters” will eventually be a series of panels of stained-glass mosaic, brought together to form one large mural-like image that evokes the centrality of water to human life in the area, particularly Santa Cruz’s continuing dependence on both the ocean and the river that flows into it. Read the full story from Wallace Baine here.

➤ MORE FROM WALLACE: Birth of a mural downtown, from a familiar hand

If toilet paper is free in dispensers, tampons should be, too: UCSC needs more period equity

(Kevin Painchaud / Lookout Santa Cruz)

Third-year student Amanda Safi wants UC Santa Cruz to pay more attention to menstruators. She is a period activist who was thrilled in December when the university started supplying free period products in bathrooms. It’s a great step, she writes, but the university should put the products in regularly serviced dispensers — just like toilet paper. And the products should be safe for users and for the environment, which they are currently not, she says. “Having period products in baskets when we put toilet paper in dispensers sends the message that menstruators are an afterthought,” Safi argues. Read her Community Voices opinion piece here.

➤ LETTERS TO THE EDITOR: Make your voice heard and read what Santa Cruzans are saying about local issues

Test your newsy knowledge with this week’s Lookout news quiz

How closely do you follow Santa Cruz County goings-on? Our 10-question quiz based on stories from Lookout correspondents and contributors puts you to the test. Click here to see how you fare.

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