Artist, Educator Victoria Montes Celebrates Diversity, Wins CDAC Grant to ‘Keep Art Alive’
Victoria Montes, a part-time artist and full-time teacher of severely handicapped third- and fourth-grade students in the Coachella Valley Unified School District, is using her shelter-at-home time to reflect on her community. “The Coachella Valley is a rich and diverse place,” she says. “I decided to paint Facets as a tribute to the differences that…
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Donna Miller-Haggerty Captures COVID Emotions in Watercolor, Wins CDAC Grant
As an artist, Donna Miller-Haggerty of Palm Desert strives to create works that stems from her heart as well as her environment. “My most recent paintings were made to inspire positive thoughts and hope during these uncertain and difficult times,” she says of pieces like Inside Looking Out, a watercolor and collage that illustrates the…
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Writer, Educator Rob Bowman Wins CDAC Grant to ‘Keep Art Alive’
“I am not built for the apocalypse,” writer Rob Bowman concedes in his new essay, “What We Sow.” “Narrow shoulders and skinny arms. I spend most of my time reading and writing and teaching reading and writing. My nails never have dirt under them and my palms are very soft, so soft that my wife…
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John Cuevas Makes Art to Help Restaurants, Wins CDAC Grant
During the COVID-19 shutdown, muralist John Cuevas set out to help local restaurants adapting their operations to continue feeding their communities — and his efforts earned him a $500 grant to “Keep Art Alive” from the California Desert Arts Council (CDAC). CDAC and affiliate La Quinta Arts Foundation established a $50,000 Keep Art Alive fund…
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Watercolor Painting Earns Adam Enrique Rodriguez Grant to ‘Keep Art Alive’
A fixture on the Coachella Valley art scene, Adam Enrique Rodriguez is known for his street art — he created murals at Desert Trip, Rhythm Wine and Brews, and Joshua Tree Music Festival — and his followers on social media know he’s equally adept at painting landscapes as well as scathing political caricatures. When COVID-19…
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Jeff Frost’s ‘Ghosts of the Future’ Wins CDAC Grant to ‘Keep Art Alive’
A year ago, Jeff Frost was the toast of the desert. His time-lapse film California on Fire had screened at Palm Springs Art Museum, and he was lining up additional dates at other museums in Southern Californian and beyond. A trained firefighter, the artist spent five years documenting 70 fires, amassing 350,000 photographs and some…
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Deanna Fainelli’s ‘Instagood’ Wins Grant to ‘Keep Art Alive’
In March, artist Deanna Fainelli relocated her studio from downtown Indio to a makeshift space in the gardening shed at her home in Palm Desert. “With limited supplies, I was forced to rethink my creative process,” she says. “Under normal circumstances, my work focused on urban scenes handprinted over abstract mixed-media surfaces. I decided this…
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DETC’s ‘Sheltering Stories’ Wins Grant to ‘Keep Art Alive’
Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, couples are seeing a lot more of each other, singles are video dating, seniors are learning to communicate on Facetime and Zoom … and the Desert Ensemble Theatre Company (DETC) is turning it all into “Sheltering Stories,” an hourlong, web-based show of monologues, dialogues, and song. Written by company members and…
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COVID Watercolor Wins Artist and Educator Mindy McEachran a Grant to ‘Keep Art Alive’
Some folks think of watercolor as a sketching medium, a pursuit to lay down plans for something bigger and, presumably, better. But nothing competes with its intimacy and, to the artist, its immediacy. Watercolor, in fact, is a medium for masters. It allows no time to hesitate; the artist must anticipate and execute every stroke,…
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