“When I’m painting, I’m in a state of discovery, and it’s always an adventure,” says Eureka abstract artist Aminah Herrman, who creates her artwork using cold wax and oil. “I’m constantly experimenting.” Cold wax is an oil painting medium made of beeswax mixed with a small amount of solvent and resin, forming a buttery soft […]
Louisa Rogers
Posted inGet Out
Get Lost in Greig-French-Bell Grove
Lost! Again! Glints of sunlight streaked the trail and the old-growth trees on either side stood as silent as snow. As I wandered deeper and deeper into the forest along tiny threadlike paths, surrounded by more sorrel than I’d ever seen in my life, I felt as if I was in a fairy tale and […]
Posted inGet Out
My Very Own Sit Spot
I’m lying on a bench underneath an arbor, looking up at the wisteria on the trellis. Sun peeks through the cracks of the bench. I sit up and look at the tree to my left, my eyes following the fractal beauty of the branches, watching how they replicate themselves in ever-smaller degrees of scale. I’m […]
Posted inLife + Outdoors
No More Falls!
A journey to increasing bone strength Though I wasn’t very physical as a kid, I became an “adult-onset” lover of fitness in my 20s, and have enjoyed walking, running, hiking and exploring the outdoors ever since. So in 2017, when I was diagnosed with osteoporosis, I couldn’t believe it. Two years later, I fell and […]
Posted inArt Beat
Angie Tustison:Award-Winning Quilterof Humboldt Scenes
“Quilting is a very forgiving medium,” says Humboldt fiber artist Angie Tustison. “When I was starting out, my designs didn’t have to be perfect to look nice, whereas the mistakes I made in my drawings or paintings tended to stand out.” She also loved the colors and textures of the range of fabrics available to […]
Posted inLife + Outdoors
Painting Animals as a Refuge
I seem to be a rare breed: I’m not an animal lover. I have nothing against animals, but I have no interest in owning a dog or cat, or being a “pet parent,” as a vet told me is now a common phrase. The closest I come to being an animal lover is supporting the […]
Posted inArts + Scene
‘What Life was Like Here’
At the California College of the Arts in San Francisco, from which Nicolette Reinsmith recently graduated, her Bay Area peers were mostly urban and moneyed, unlike Reinsmith, who describes her family as “lower middle class.” When she told fellow students stories about Humboldt County, they were baffled. They barely knew where it was. “They thought […]
Posted inArts + Scene
Sasha Lyth’s Place-based Cyanotypes
There is a beautiful Welsh word that resonates with me,” says Sasha Lyth, “Hiraeth means a longing or grief for a place, akin to homesickness, perhaps even for a place that was never your home to begin with.” The Humboldt-based mixed media artist says much of her art revolves around the connection to place and […]
Posted inArts + Scene
Lily Haas’ Muse is Nature
“I’ve been making art since as far back as I can remember,” says sculptress Lily Haas. “I still remember my … ceramics class in second grade.” From the beginning, she says she has used art feel grounded. Her relationship with clay offered her a vehicle for self-investigation and expression, and a place where she felt […]
Posted inArts + Scene
Annette Makino’s Life in Collage
Annette Makino has been an artist all her life but it wasn’t until 2010 that she became interested in incorporating haiku into her artwork. For her birthday that year, her Arcata friend and fellow artist Amy Uyeki gave her a book of senryu, a poetic form structurally similar to haiku but with more humor and […]
Posted inArts + Scene
Anna Oneglia: Humboldt’s Traveling Artist
“Humboldt’s weather is great for making art,” says Arcata artist Anna Oneglia. “I love rain and even fog makes for good long studio days.” As she spoke via Zoom, Oneglia was sitting on a porch, iridescent green fronds swaying behind her under an ironically blue, cloudless sky. She was house sitting in Hawaii, far from […]
Posted inArts + Scene
Jan Ramsey’s Pilgrimage
“I can’t remember not drawing,” Jan Ramsey says. She was the oldest of three kids and they’d sit in a circle and draw from books. Today, Ramsey sees art “as an extension of my life and my prayer.” Ramsey is well known in Humboldt County for the many ways she’s brought art to the community: […]