ARTS + LETTERS

It can't possibly be March already, but the next First Friday Art Tour is right around the corner.

All the usual suspects and venues will be participating in this Friday's event. You can start at the Felix Kulpa Gallery, at the south end of downtown, with a group exhibit of ceramic sculpture featuring the masterful work of Coeleen Kiebert and a selection of her students and disciples, among them Sharon Bosley, Kathleen Pouls, Bill Scoble, and Peggy Snider.


Pop into Hula's Island Grill for the witty graphic art of recent Gail Rich Award winner Steve Hosmer. (Here's one of his many cool Boardwalk images.)

 Visit Chris Miroyan's fanciful, colorful neo-folk paintings with a sophisticated twist in her "Put A Bird On It" show at Artisans Gallery. (That's her piece, "Tweet," above.) Then work your way to the north end of town to Art DuJour for an exhibit of book-inspired work by artist Mary Atkinson and famed book artist Felicia Rice, proprietor of the amazing  Moving Parts Press.

And speaking of books, plan to stop in at the Museum of Art and History between 5 and 6 pm for a "live launch" of a new literary venture. "phren-Z" is a quarterly online e-zine created as a venue for the work of local writers. The first issue is up online as we speak, featuring essays, poetry and fiction by the likes of Gary Young, Carolyn Burke, Paul Skenazy, and Wallace Baine, among others.

The e-mag is the opening salvo from the newly-minted Santa Cruz Writes. Founded by local writers Julia Chiapella, Karen Ackland, and Jory Post, the group hopes to foster a sense of community among the many and varied literary types who call Santa Cruz home.

Another way to get the word out about SCW is what they call the Floodlight Feature, a combined real and virtual "illumination" of a local writer, event or topic of interest to the writing community. At the MAH this Friday, the Floodlight will shine on the late poet Morton Marcus, his work and legacy.

As part of the phren-Z launch, local poets and readers will be reading from Marcus' poems. And get this: as an extra bonus, every single person who shows up at the event will receive a FREE copy of Mort's engrossing memoir, Striking Through the Masks, through the generosity of the Capitola Book Company and Ow Family Properties. A specially created broadside of Mort's poem, "That's What You Write About," from C&C Press, will also be given away as a door prize.

Arts, letters, and free books—what's not to love?