Shoka is a special sections editor for Comstock’s magazine. She has worked as a journalist, copy editor and photojournalist for more than 10 years. She specializes in writing about the arts, culture, animal rights and sustainability.
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In the Making: Where Flowers Bloom
“We are flower nerds to the max here,” Melissa Cowan, owner of Placerville Flowers on Main says. “We squeal on the daily when new products come in or when seasons change.”
Art Exposed: Jose Arenas
Davis-based artists brings migration, culture and his experience as a first-generation American into his paintings
Belonging to two places and not quite fitting into either is a familiar feeling for many first-generation Americans.
Brand Builders
Cousins Katherine Bardis-Miry and Rachel Bardis continue the family legacy of building homes with their own approach
A latex unicorn mask hangs on the back wall near the window of Katherine Bardis-Miry and Rachel Bardis’ shared office.
“We’re kind of weird,” Katherine laughs.
Art Exposed: Julie Clements
A veterinarian technician left behind the clinic for the studio, but continues to work with animals
Julie Clements worked for 15 years as a veterinarian technician in Alaska, the Monterey Bay Aquarium and the San Francisco Zoo before moving to Sacramento to be a full-time ceramic fine artist.
In the Making: At Conscious Creamery, a Good Dessert
The walls of Conscious Creamery’s commercial kitchen in Sacramento’s Del Paso Heights neighborhood are lined with stainless steel freezers, constantly humming loud and keeping chef Andrea Seppinni’s plant-based gelato frozen.
Art Exposed: Brandon Gastinell
From street art to corporate commissions, a Sacramento digital-mixed-media artist is finding success with his artistic clickbait
Because of some bold moves on his part and the exposure and connectivity that social media provides, Brandon Gastinell has transitioned from doing street art to work for major film studios and musicians.
Art Exposed: Adam Wever-Glen
Sacramento fine artist explains his business model and how the city could become a national art hub
Wever-Glen says he wants to stoke a sense of wonder in his viewers, often with surreal results — “kind of like a dreamscape.”
In the Making: One-of-a-Kind Sound Machines
Vintage suitcases, canteens, metal carrying cases and wooden boxes of varying colors and sizes occupy nearly every inch of a ceiling-scratching shelf in Kaden Hill’s suburban Sacramento garage workshop.
Art Exposed: Colleen Sidey
A ceramist in South Lake Tahoe reaps inspiration from her natural surroundings and motherhood, and ventures into opening a studio for the community with her husband
The charming effect of the forest finds its way into her ceramic sculpture, along with her greatest inspirations, her two children, ages 11 and 7, and her formative years being surrounded by the urban environment in Southern California.
Art Exposed: Natalie McKeever
A video and digital media artist finds opportunities in Sacramento
Natalie McKeever creates fine-art digital video, abstract and without narrative, with analog collages that are digitally manipulated to put the viewer in a meditative state.
Art Exposed: Angela Tannehill
Elk Grove graphic designer on finding a second career in her first choice of fine art
Angela Tannehill considers herself lucky. Although the Elk Grove-based graphic designer of more than 26 years earned her bachelor’s degree in fine arts, she only began working as an artist a few years ago, and now her mixed-media work is drawing the attention of private art collectors, art consultants and public-art project organizers.