The creative energy in Sacramento is surging. From the diversity in the region’s live music scene to the legacy of innovation and creative vitality among its community of visual and performing artists, the feeling of civic pride is palpable. With creative businesses flourishing, creatives are taking hold of Sacramento and giving its residents reason to celebrate the various neighborhoods that comprise this diverse city.
For graphic designer Amber Witzke, this sentiment of community pride has manifested itself in her latest project: a limited-edition screen-printed poster titled Neighborhoods of Sacramento that memorializes every Sacto ‘hood from Greenbriar to Valley High and everything in between.
And while she was born in Santa Barbara—her family moved to the region when she was 3 years old—suffice it to say, Witzke reps Sacramento hard.
The project’s evolution came out of Witzke’s love for Sacramento and celebrating the 130 neighborhoods that connects all who inhabit the City of Trees. The work is currently being shown at Archival Gallery, where fellow devoted Sacramentans can show their love for the city by scooping up one of her graphic homages to the region.
The Sunny Side of Sacramento | 18 in. x 24 in.
“I grew up in Sacramento and I’ve lived pretty much my entire adult life here, and I have loved the city from the moment I moved down to Midtown,” Witzke gushes. “And recently, my now-husband and I were looking for a home to buy, and I just kind of happened upon all these different neighborhoods and realized how many different areas within Sacramento there are. The actual city itself I didn’t realize had all of these really cool names. Each of these little neighborhoods have their own distinct qualities.”
Born into a family of creatives, the newlywed’s passion for the arts revealed itself early in life, and she was compelled to contribute to the fabric of the local creative space.
“My grandmother is an artist. My mom is an artist. I always loved drawing and painting and anything creative as a child,” Witzke explains. “So, when my dad brought home a computer, it was just like, ‘what can I do with this artistically?’ That’s kind of how I fell into design and advertising.”
This natural curiosity led Witzke to pursue a degree in design from Sacramento State. The intensity of the program she says was vital to her development of discipline as an artist.
“The program is pretty difficult, and it’s pretty difficult to get into,” she explains. “You wouldn’t think being a state school it would be something that would be so desirable for so many people in California to get an art or design degree from, but they were really impacted, and it was really hard to get into.
The Neighborhoods of Sacramento | 18 in. x 24 in.
“You had to go through a portfolio review where they would look at your work and see if they thought you had potential,” Witzke continues. “Then, once you got in, they actually did more of a fundamentals program; we didn’t spend any time on a computer—it was color theory and that sort of thing—and you come out of that with a portfolio and you go through another review for them to see if they’ll let you graduate. It was pretty tough, and I’m really glad that [it was], because it teaches you discipline. A lot of people think that as an artist you don’t need to have that, but you really do, especially if you want to create stuff for yourself.”
As the senior art director at Un/common advertising agency, Witzke taps into her creativity on the daily by serving the greater community through television and print ad campaigns for local governments, state administrations, as well as in the private sector.
“I started [at Un/common] about seven years ago,” she explains. “I started as a designer and have moved my way up to art director. There’s definitely a lot of creative freedom that we have, and it’s fun to explore different areas of other people’s business and trying to come up with creative solutions for a lot of public issues.”
My Type of Town—Sacramento is! Midtown to Downtown tote
Drawing on the vibe of other projects that celebrate neighborhoods in other cities like New York and Paris, Witzke’s black-and-white graphic map homage to Sacramento sprung to life during the course of her wedding planning (in December 2017 to fellow graphic designer Jason Malmberg) when she snuck in time over the course of several long nights spent visualizing and contemplating how best to articulate the diversity within the confines of the River City.
For the Neighborhoods of Sacramento project, while each neighborhood’s moniker leaps to life with a nod to a vintage vibe, the work is thoroughly modern, as each neighborhood is confined to the borders on the official city map—the creativity in fitting in each neighborhood was an exercise in patience and ingenuity. Letters are stretched and fit snugly within the framework of each boundary, evoking an urban feel, fitting for a celebration of the grid and all of Sacramento’s outlying communities.
Initially, the project was offered as a limited-edition run of signed, 18-by-24-inch screen-printed posters, but when the maps leapt off the shelves and quickly sold out with its first run at the ShopCuffs boutique in Midtown and Kicksville Vinyl and Vintage in the WAL Public Market, Witzke was approached by Archival Gallery to show at the space with her Sacto tribute.
The Grid Kid T-shirt
As Witzke looks forward to taking on new projects that boast the unique and diverse community she’s proud to call home, she cites her extensive research on the many communities in the area as that “aha” moment that brought everything together in the Neighborhoods project.
“I’ve been learning a lot about the city, and I’m very proud of our city,” Witzke says. “And it’s nice to see other people now appreciating it like I have for so long. That’s where it started, and it’s continued to grow, and I’m trying to think of other ways to express the amazing diversity and the awesomeness of our city.”
Left My Heart in Sacramento limited edition screenprinted poster
Keep up with Amber Witzke online at Facebook.com/shopamberwitzke, on Instagram @missamberw or on her website, Amberwitzke.com. You can purchase her limited edition screen prints, totes and pins at Amber-witzke.myshopify.com. For her T-shirts and other merch, go to Redbubble.com/people/missamberw. You can also check out Witzke’s work at Archival Gallery (3223 Folsom Blvd., Sacramento) through the end of September.
**This piece first appeared in print on pages 26 – 27 of issue #274 (Sept. 12 – 26, 2018)**
Zahra Ammar makes thriving in a world of chaos look easy.
On the inside she is chaotic, unplanned and has a catalog of creative ideas waiting to be set free. On the outside she is calm, cool, collected and truly a humble person. She likes to channel her creative ideas with paper through an art form called quilling.
For having such a “chaotic” mindset, the art of quilling involves meticulous cutting, measuring, rolling and gluing of paper. In the end, each tiny strip of paper comes together to form a beautiful piece of art that is full of texture, depth and can have multiple interpretations. When you first glance at Ammar’s work, it’s almost hard to believe that the entire piece, from top to bottom, is primarily made from cardstock. She is able to create intricate designs, shapes and images that seem they could jump off the board and come to life.
Submerge caught up with this artist, poet and idea-machine to talk about her upcoming solo exhibition at Sacramento State, Spring Delusions. The idea of finding tranquil beauty in a crazy world is a thought that she has been “germinating” on for a long time. Growing up in Pakistan, then moving to Saudi Arabia, then the Bay Area and now Sacramento, Ammar first found her love of chaos as an English Literature teacher in the words of T. S. Eliot.
“I read The Wasteland, and it just bothered me. That book really bothered me so much even to this day, in a good way and in a bad way,” she explained while sipping coffee. “But the more you go over that piece of work you realize that there is so much that he is trying to portray in chaotic matter.
Because you cannot see beauty if there is no contrast. You need to have that emergency that everything is going to wilt away.”
When Ammar moved to the United States, she not only took a big risk in uprooting herself, but she took a big risk in becoming serious about her artwork. All within 2016, she moved to a different country and became a self-published writer with her first book of poetry, also called Spring Delusions. When most people get completely broken down from stressful situations, Ammar gets things done.
“Procrastination is such a good friend that keeps coming back,” she said.
With a Bachelors in Business and MA in English Literature, she decided to take the plunge into the art world and let her ideas with paper run free.
“I really wanted to get into this [quilling], and I knew I had it in me, but it’s such a risk right?” Ammar said. “And you keep hearing it’s really hard to make it as an artist. I had no idea what I was getting myself into.”
Without taking that risk, Sacramento would not have the opportunity to view her colorful and lively pieces. The giant images that she creates are symmetrical and geometric, but still maintain a natural creative flow. Behind these intricate pieces are basic tools: white glue, paper, your hands, and time … a lot of time. These massive colorful creations can take a few days to an entire month to complete.
Throughout the years, Ammar has mastered and refined her skill in working with paper, developing her technique, style and skill. At first she started with origami, then moved to geometric shapes and now her main focus is quilling.
“I really can’t be faithful to one specific thing so I keep doing what I feel I want to explore,” Ammar explained.
From creating little paper butterflies on top of presents for her friends and family to creating geometric art that can stand more than 4 feet long, artwork so large she had a hard time fitting the entire piece for an Instragram shot. Now when she is working on a project she “jumps out of bed” from excitement just to get back to work. And she can find inspiration everywhere, even while taking a road trip and looking at shrubs along the highway.
“I usually don’t wait for inspiration. People think that inspiration is something that geniuses only have or something that creative people have but it doesn’t happen that way,” Ammar said. “You have to sit down and do the work and when you are working it’s when ideas are going to creep up. If you don’t pick up a pen nothing is going to flow out.”
But at times Ammar cannot find the right words to flow out onto pen and paper, so she has found art to help express herself. It’s hard to imagine someone who speaks four different languages fluently (English, Gujarati, Urdu and Hindi) would have any trouble finding words to express her creative ideas, but that’s where quilling comes into play.
“It’s things that you cannot put into words,” Ammar said. “At times I’m grasping for words for things that I cannot define. Art does that for you.”
With well over 7,000 followers on Instragam, @zahraammarart is gaining ground with her artwork via social media very quickly. Even though she’s only been on Instagram for the past year, she has made connections with people around the nation, sold art and even booked her upcoming exhibition using Instagram.
She is hoping her artwork will not only last for the Sacramento State exhibition, but to last for years to come. The idea of a paper art being “archival” might seem unlikely, but by choosing to use acid-free and liquid-free papers, Ammar is hoping her work will still be around for the next generation of artists.
“It’s not something that’s disposable; it’s there to last. It’s there to inspire,” she said.
In our world of new, replaceable and expendable, building everlasting art in the 21st Century seems like a challenge, but challenges do not stop Ammar, they only inspire her. She not only hopes to get inspired but hopes to inspire others around her to think or create. It’s not easy for an artist to imagine someone not appreciating their work or even admitting to it, but this young quillist has a different take on any criticism that might come her way.
“And it’s open to interpretation, not everyone has to like my work. I understand that,” Ammar explained. “But even if someone doesn’t like it, that’s a good thing because it’s better than being indifferent. It made the person do something not to like it.”
Not liking or appreciating Ammar’s work seems near impossible. She has created a model brain made out of paper by referencing medical diagrams, created a paper building with detailed architecture features and even a typographical paper cut of Lake Tahoe. Ammar’s pieces are larger than life, imaginative and might even help you find the beauty in unexpected places.
Zahra Ammar’s Spring Delusion exhibit will be shown at the University Union Gallery at Sacramento State from Aug. 27–Sept. 20, 2018. An opening reception will be held on Aug. 30 from 6–8 p.m. The reception and exhibit are both open to the general public. For more info, such as gallery hours, go to Facebook.com/sacstateunion. You can follow Ammar on Instagram @zahraammarart.
**This piece first appeared in print on pages 12 – 13 of issue #272 (Aug. 15 – 29, 2018)**
On April 26, self-produced Mexican-American solo musician Cuco will be coming to Sacramento State. Cuco plays a style of jazzy, trippy hip-hop that is relaxed, optimistic and endearing. He started playing music when he was eight, and now at the age of 19, he’s mastered a one-of-a-kind sound that combines his voice with a vast multitude of instruments, all played by him. Cuco has released two mixtapes so far, Wannabewithyou and Songs4u, which showcase his ability to play guitar, bass, keys, drums, French horn, mellophone and more, as well as his knack for writing heartfelt, quirky songs that get stuck in your head. Cuco’s live shows usually involve soulful vocal performances by the young multi-instrumentalist, and he’s generally backed up by a band of fellow musicians, creating a full and dynamic live sound. Cuco recently sold out Holy Diver in Sacramento, and he has an exciting lineup of upcoming performances, including Outside Lands Festival in San Francisco in August, Coachella this month and the Governor’s Ball in New York in June. The show at Sac State will be held the University Union Ballroom (6000 J St.) and will start at 7:30 p.m. The event is open to the general public, and all ages are invited to attend. Tickets are $18 (or $12 for Sac State students) and are available online at Theuniversityunion.com/unique/event/cuco.
**This write-up first appeared in print on page 12 of issue #263 (April 9 – 23, 2018)**
If you could sum up Lynnz Perry’s art in one word, you’d have to call it bold. Thick black lines and striking colors seem to make Perry’s choices of subjects—birds, skulls, dinosaurs and an assortment of fantastical characters—come to life. Her first solo exhibit, Transcend the Void, is currently on view at The University Union Gallery at Sacramento State (6000 J St.). The work in this exhibit, according to the artist’s statement, stems from her fascination with lines. “A line can be rigid but also have the fluidity of life,” Perry, a self-taught artist, writes. “I have fallen in love with many a work simply for a single brush stroke, for a miniscule pencil mark, for an overlooked substrate of one’s consciousness taking shape.” Transcend the Void will be on view until Nov. 16. Gallery hours are Monday–Friday from 10:30 a.m.–3:30 p.m., with added late hours from 5–8 p.m. on Wednesday and Thursday. You can check out Perry’s work online at either Facebook.com/lynnzsart or on Instagram (@tofuthiefzzz), but do yourself a favor and head down to the University Union to see it in person while you can.
**This write-up first appeared in print on page 10 of issue #252 (Nov. 6 – 20, 2017)**
When a bartender decides to the leave the game and make their exit from behind the bar, it can be a devastating moment for the cocktail scene—namely, the barflies. Gone are the days of bellying up to the bar and sitting across from your favorite mixologist eager to tempt your taste buds with one of their latest concoctions.
Ryan Seng is one of those local curators of all things spirits who has since vacated his post from behind the bar to pursue other artistic and entrepreneurial adventures. For those missing the pleasure of partaking in one of the artist/bartender’s delightful distillations at local watering holes like Grange Restaurant and Bar and Shady Lady, take solace in knowing that the former bartender has taken his show on the road—well, in the form of a cocktail in a can, that is.
Aptly named Can Can Cocktails, Seng’s new venture continues his tradition of creating cocktails that are both complex yet accessible to all palates, a talent, no doubt, that emerged out of his New York art school background.
“I was like a shitty, little 14-year-old kid getting into a lot trouble,” Seng remarks about his transformation into a serious artist with a chuckle. “And then I got into art, and then I started taking art seriously and I moved out to New York to study painting.”
{Yolo Love}
After completing his studies at the New York Studio School in Manhattan in his twenties, Seng and his wife made their way out to Davis, where he parlayed his experience in the New York restaurant scene and picked up restaurant and bar gigs to pay the bills. Seng was not only able to earn a living for himself and his young family, but he soon soared to the top of the heap of renowned bartenders in the region.
“I feel really lucky that I was able to do well in restaurants so I could support a family,” Seng admits. “I think that was the crazy thing about Can Can Cocktails, there is this funny law in California that you can’t be the owner of an alcohol company and work in the retail sector. So, then I couldn’t bartend anymore, which was crazy because that was my whole livelihood. So, now I’m full time at Can Can Cocktails, which is terrifying and exciting sometimes too.”
Photos by Kevin Fiscus
Known for creating erotic and lively scenes that evoke the freewheeling and occasionally debauched speakeasy culture, Seng will be showing his latest body of work to land on the canvas at an upcoming show at Sacramento State titled Call Your Corners!
“I used to kind of keep my art and my bartending separate,” Seng explains. “[I was] young and trying to pretend that I was a serious artist who was just bartending, but then I [came] to that point, like, ‘Who cares?’ So I just started mixing the worlds together. A lot of my bar experiences started coming into my painting and then sometimes painting stuff would come into my bar work, like the way I would compose a painting would be like a drink.”
The perfect example of the convergence of the two disciplines in Seng’s world, aside from the Can Can Cocktails project, can be seen at Shady Lady: the artist and entrepreneur’s work graces both the walls and at the bar (Seng collaborated with the master mixologists at the venerable R Street tavern). His grandiose piece, appropriately titled Blind Tiger, harkens back to the days of the speakeasy and serves as one of the main points of interest in the establishment’s lush and sensual design aesthetic.
Now that he has completely dedicated his time and talent to making Can Can Cocktails a legit force in the portable libation sector—and no, we’re not talking those malt beverage selections out on the market—Seng is bringing only the best ingredients and quality spirits to the table.
Of course, building a brand and keeping on top of the supply-and-demand machine is a challenge all on its own; a beast that Seng says is only too happy to slay. And thanks to his background and notoriety in the bar scene, the long days and nights developing a business plan and then setting that plan into motion has been rewarding nonetheless.
Especially when that first can rolled off of the conveyor belt, accompanied by that first glorious hiss from the pull tab releasing the essence of his signature cocktail, the 120, an effervescent concoction that boasts 80-proof premium vodka, raspberry and lemon juice, and mint from Del-Rio Botanical, a local farming outfit that specializes in organically grown fresh and seasonal produce.
“I had so many connections from working in town for so long and people respect me as a bartender, so at least I should give it a try, and that was my goal: it had to be a really, really good drink in a can. It couldn’t be terrible. And that was a really fun challenge, too. Like, how to get that kind of craft into a can, a high-end product with that freshness.”
{Upside Down Inside Out}
Gearing up for the Sacramento State show, Seng sees the upcoming exhibition, which opened on Jan. 23, 2017, as an opportunity for his artistic experience to come full circle from setting up provocative and engaging art shows as a young artist upon his relocation to the West Coast to the more studied and academic experience he now finds himself in.
“It’s kind of a funny show for me,” Seng explains. “When I was that shitty 14-year-old, I imagined being an artist and in my brain, I thought that art shows must be fun—like naked people walking around and crazy lights and music and drinks. And then [I found that] the artworld is nothing like that. So I started doing a bunch of art shows like that … we’d call around and do these shows in San Francisco, invite-only, and they were really fun. And now here I am full circle. The CSUS show is pretty academic.”
After being unceremoniously exiled from the bar scene that sparked some of his most creative moments: from creating signature cocktails at Shady Lady to blowing his patron’s minds at Grange, Seng encourages young artists to follow their own unique path—the opportunities are boundless, he reassures.
“When you’re a young art student, you have this idea of what an artist is and what kind of art you should make,” Seng says. “And then you get a little older and you realize it’s really exciting being in a time that nobody has ever been in before, and you’re going to do things you can’t easily define—and then you find yourself starting a canned cocktail company, but you still want to paint. So, use your talents as an artist and creative person to do creative and new crazy things.”
Ryan Seng’s exhibit Call Your Corners! will be on display Jan. 23–Feb. 16, 2017, at the University Union Gallery on the Sac State campus. The reception for the show will be held Thursday, Jan. 26, from 6–8 p,m, Find out more about Seng and Can Can Cocktails at Cancancocktails.com.
Mustafa Shaheen is a local painter, Sacramento State grad student, 2016 California State Fair Fine Art Competition Juror’s Award-winning artist, and likes to eat cake. If you take a look at Mustafa’s bio online that’s exactly what it says, well the cake part anyway.
“I mean I can easily be serious about things but it sometimes feels a little too pretentious. I mean everybody knows that I am typing up that bio for myself,” Shaheen said as he was taking a bite into his chocolate strawberry cake at Rick’s Dessert Diner. “I think the strawberry is a little too tart but it’s not going to stop me from eating it,” he joked.
Over slices of cake at Rick’s, Submerge got to dive into the mind of the dessert-loving artist, who talked about how his art has evolved throughout his undergraduate and graduate years, and his involvement in the upcoming gallery show at Sacramento State.
Two years ago Shaheen started an art group called FORM, a student-run group that brings together artists who contribute their artwork to the Sacramento State campus and community. FORM will be hosting an art gallery show at Sacramento State’s University Union Gallery called Revealing Identity, running from November 21 through December 15, 2016. It will feature realist and abstract paintings, sculpture work and even an installation piece.
“It’s a really cool show because I think it will express the variety of the level of talent that the students at Sac State have. The show will have graduate students in and it will have undergraduates in it too. So it’s going to be really cool,” Shaheen explained.
Currently a grad student at Sac State studying studio art, Shaheen has gone through different stages of creating pieces but it has all surrounded one common theme: empathy.
“Many people are able to not just see art, but experience it visually and internally. For me there was sort of a disconnect, so I became super curious about why that was happening,” he said. “I think I approach things from more of a like a very logical and analytical sort of state.”
Shaheen could never identify himself as a “romanticized” artist that can slash paint on a canvas with little to no thought in mind and create something beautiful. Every paint stroke for him is fully contemplated and thought out, there is no turning off his mind because he is always thinking of the next move.
During his undergrad Shaheen focused on painting portraits using the idea of empathy to relate to individuals doing normal day-to-day activities. He would take photographs of people doing “mundane activities” and create colorful, insanely beautiful and realistic paintings. Although the people in the portraits are doing everyday activities it seems easy to make a backstory about their lives and even see what mood they were in or what they were feeling at the time.
“With portraits it’s really interesting because I don’t have to know these people that well but I’m still going to make my version of my experience with them in a painted form. That has always been a little fascinating to me… 10 different artists can paint the same chair and they all have their own expression of that chair, and I really like that.”
But even with these incredible paintings Shaheen still felt as if he wasn’t pushing the idea of empathy enough through his portraits. He decided to still paint portraits from a photograph but from a different approach. He would ask his subjects to bring in an item of significance with them and hold “mini interviews” with each person. Throughout his photograph and painting process only Shaheen would know the backstory of each person, inviting viewers of the final product to have their own interpretation to the portraits story. One portrait from this gallery of work called “Earring Thief” won him the Juror’s Award (one of the highest awards you can receive for a painting in California) at this year’s Fine Art Competition at the California State Fair.
“They make up their own stories, which I really enjoy and I felt that I was a little closer but even with that, I also felt myself doing more hyperrealistic work and I started feeling like this was becoming more of an egocentric exploration then it is really for the sake of making strong paintings,” Shaheen said. “It felt like it was more like I was just showing off how well I could paint rather than actually make a painting for a painting sake and really expressing something emotionally.”
After his win at the State Fair and the transition of becoming a grad student, Shaheen took a step outside the norm of his usual photograph painting. Instead of using portraits, he is planning to use surreal landscapes and “ambiguous” figures that portray them exploring unknown surroundings.
“They are starting to feel more and more like they are self-portraits,” Shaheen said. “I’m interested in where those are going. I’m not sure where that will go but it’s nice to be a little lost sometimes.”
Even though creating art was pretty natural for Shaheen, from creating comics with action figures as a kid into entering the world of hyperrealism as an adult, creating art wasn’t necessarily something that was always accepted in his culture. He moved from Egypt to the United States in 1996 at the age of 11 and as a young kid, fitting into the American culture meant everything to him. He mimicked the American culture and hid his accent, even though he admitted that his friends at the time would have accepted him regardless. Growing up in Egypt his mom had convinced him that his future career was to be a doctor, he explained.
“I think the fact that I come from a culture where art is not at all seen as important, it takes a very, very sort of back role to the Sciences and Engineering,” Shaheen said. “It makes me appreciate it a lot more because it makes me in a place where I can pursue that and I really try not to take that for granted.”
Since then, Shaheen’s mom has come around and has become very supportive of his artwork. And as he moves to the next phase of truly trying to capture the theme of empathy in his paintings, it will be exciting to see where Shaheen’s art will take him.
See work by Mustafa Shaheen and other members of FORM at Revealing Identity, a group exhibition of both paintings and sculptures exploring the idea of identity that runs Nov. 21–Dec. 15, 2016, at the University Union Gallery at Sacramento State. The opening reception for the show is Thursday, Dec. 1 from 6–8 p.m. For gallery hours and more info go to Theuniversityunion.com/gallery.
It’s always a treat when the good folks at UNIQUE Programs bring amazing national talent through town for concerts at Sacramento State. In the past they’ve booked such great acts as Friendly Fires, Circa Survive, Fun., Twenty One Pilots and countless others. This semester, their not-to-be-missed show features Bay Area native and songwriter for many stars, Marc E. Bassy. Bassy has penned hits for artists like CeeLo Green, Wiz Khalifa, Sean Kingston, Ty Dolla $ign and others, but in just the last couple years, he’s really started to shine on his own, especially on his latest release, the Groovy People EP, which features the single “You and Me” with a guest spot from none other than G-Eazy. “You and Me” has a whopping 77 million streams on Spotify and has charted in the United States, New Zealand, Australia and Sweden. Don’t miss your opportunity to see a star on the rise live and in person when Bassy plays here on Thursday, Oct. 6, 2016. Tickets are just $15 for the general public, and $10 for students, available now at Sacstateunique.com. The show takes place at Sacramento State’s University Union Ballroom at 7:30 p.m. Opening the concert will be local hip-hop crew Live Manikins and one of Sacramento’s best turntablists, DJ Rated R.
The staff at Submerge knows many of you lead a boring life that involves work, sleep and more work. In an attempt to break the disastrous cycle which takes extra years off your life and makes you a recluse by default, all are hereby summoned to Sacramento State’s “Sunday Funday” event. Once more, it serves as an open window to the activities of the college’s faculty and students alike. Check out the many programs most didn’t even know existed and see if any fit into your daily regimen (or lack thereof). And while we’re certainly not insinuating your life is dull and devoid of meaning, missing this fiesta would prove otherwise. Things kick off on Sunday, April 17 at 11 a.m. on the Sac State campus, and there is even free parking at parking structure II. It goes without saying this event is free and there are also activities to keep your kids stimulated. Events include library exhibits, mask making, short films, food trucks, a celebration of both Japanese and Italian cultures, a musical petting zoo, a kazoo parade (!!!) and much more. If you’re still reading this on Sunday, put the paper down in a safe spot and head to the campus with all due speed. For more info, go to CSUS.edu/al.
Days before Thanksgiving, Felipe Silva and a few close friends woke up and started a photography road trip that would span more than 3,000 miles through four states.
In the first two days, the crew got lost in the sand dunes of Death Valley, stood above Zion National Park in Utah and Horseshoe Bend in Arizona, then headed back to Utah to Canyonlands National Park and Arches National Park, where they caught a sunrise and their first day of sleep. The last leg started with a drive up to Salt Lake City, then west to Lake Tahoe on the way home.
The five days were life changing for Silva, he says.
For a newly minted photographer still learning his craft, the trip’s sites, surprises and people all made a massive impact. These were heavily frequented and photographed destinations, but Silva has always had a knack for being impactful, for standing up against challenges and for being highly competitive.
A scroll through the photos on Silva’s Instagram page—his only means of photo sharing at the moment—reveals a young man who loves looking over the edge of tall towers and steep cliffs, standing a few steps behind an equally brave and curious son and continuously giving back to a community that hasn’t always returned the favor.
Silva moved to Sacramento from Brazil 15 years ago, when he was 13. By the time he was 17, he had been repeatedly expelled and had dropped out of high school. His mother did her best, he says, but he admits he was the one that screwed up. At 18, he became homeless. That’s when he decided he had to finish school.
“I went to a charter school and I started helping kids that were younger than me,” Silva says about the experience. “They said I was a good teacher, that I had patience. I even coached football. That’s when I decided to be a teacher.”
Silva graduated and began attending Sacramento State. In 2014, when he was preparing to graduate from college, he made a total of $8,000 the whole year.
“I always joke to this day I should have been sponsored by Top Ramen because I ate that so much,” he laughs.
While in college, Silva would run long distance, especially at night when he had time. He would sometimes run by an interesting place or a view along a freeway, but only had his cellphone to take photos.
One day, he decided to return his Beats By Dre headphones and exchange them for a real camera. He bought a Nikon, and so began his new journey.
“I’d be running and tell myself I need to come back and get a photo,” he says. “I like landscapes because I like the ability of being able to sit there and observe. I like sitting on top of a freeway and seeing the people driving by. Embrace the moment and observe city life. My love is definitely landscape and nighttime, because I think it’s more difficult to shoot.”
Scroll through Silva’s photos at a slower pace, stop to read the captions, and you’ll notice the subtle changes over time in his photography as you move closer to present day. The editing lessens, the photos get crisper and the night scenes become more intricate and colorful.
The caption on a photo Silva took last year of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge captures his personality and interest perfectly: “I remember when I first got Instagram, like almost three years ago, I followed this great photographer who’d title his images simply ‘f/16 30 sec. ISO-160 52mm.’ For the longest time I had no idea what that meant. However as I got into photography I would always go back to his pictures and see what the settings were, so I can try to do the same. Jay doesn’t have an active Instagram anymore but he helped me out a lot. So I try to do the same and post the settings in every picture. I don’t always remember but I do my best. It’s all about helping others get better.”
Silva has only been shooting for a year and eight months, but he’s immersed himself in a newfound love and can no longer imagine his life without it.
In true photographer form, any chance he gets, Silva grabs a weekend here or a school break there to drive across photogenic landscapes around the West Coast. It’s partly to continue to build his skill, but more to showcase through Instagram all that his world has to offer. Silva even created a collaborative Instagram page, West Coast Exposures, to help other photographers get themselves and their geographical subject matter on the map.
“When I started it, a long-exposures landscape page didn’t really exist,” Silva says. “My goal was that common people would see a picture and say ‘I wanna go there.’ That’s what I wanted people to do. And today I see it happening. The page just hit a year and we have 27,000 followers. We get 300 hits a day.”
When he’s not managing social media or taking on freelance photo assignments from the Sacramento Kings, wedding couples or local businesses, Silva is teaching fourth graders in Oak Park how to code.
Silva doesn’t have a formal education in coding, but has been tasked with teaching technology to grades K–5. On the side, he’s helping with the annual yearbook.
“If it was my way, I would just do landscape photography,” he says. “But I’m naturally a teacher, so I might teach photography.”
That’s not to say Silva doesn’t love helping his students today. In fact, he sees them the way he was himself at their age.
“I want to help kids who are in my shoes,” he says. “There aren’t many male Latino teachers out there. I didn’t have someone telling me I can go to college. Our school emphasizes college on a daily basis. Everything we do is toward directing them to college.”
Another way Silva wants to help is by raising money for public schools that are cutting, or have cut, arts programs. Over the years, photography classes and the like have become more rare in the public school system, so Silva and his friends are working on a concept called the Uprise Collective that would do fundraising by selling art, and also provide lessons in basic photography and editing for students interested in the subject who don’t have access to classes.
“I like to give back—I did a toy drive recently, and my son and I, on Thanksgiving, we gave out food on B Street to the homeless,” Silva says. “I was a little scared at first, but I had my son with me and it was a good experience for us.”
On Christmas morning, Silva and a friend gave out necessities to the homeless downtown, such as toothbrushes, socks, ponchos, hand warmers and face wipes. Having experienced homelessness, Silva says he knows the struggles in the winter and during the holidays can be especially trying.
The same goes for art education. Silva says he’s been lucky to be able to learn by following others’ examples. He spends at least an hour a week watching videos on how to try new photography tricks in different software programs or on his camera. He feels children should have that same opportunity.
The Uprise Collective’s first event will be held Feb. 25 at Blue Lamp. The event will include original photography for sale, nearly all Sacramento-based and inspired. The photographers will also be raffling off free editing classes. This time around, all proceeds will be donated to Shriners Hospitals for Children.
“We don’t see a lot of art like ours on the wall,” Silva says about the photography being shown at the event. “There is definitely a lot of great stuff on the walls in Sacramento but what we shoot is not common. It’s not your everyday piece of art. We want to expose ourselves as far as that goes. We want to show that side of Sacramento. Nighttime, nightlife. And we want to teach people how to shoot at night. It’s a movement. That’s the only word I can think of.”
A photo posted by California | Sacramento (@the_lost_coast) on
See Felipe Silva’s photography, along with the work of other great Sacramento photographers, at the Uprise Collective photography exhibit Feb. 25, 2016 at the Blue Lamp, located at 1400 Alhambra Boulevard, Sacramento. The event is free and starts at 7 p.m. with proceeds benefiting the Shriners Hospital for Children. Follow Felipe on Instagram: @The_Lost_Coast.
Not even the Taliban could bring down Malala Yousafzai! This incredible young Pakistani female activist and Nobel Peace Prize laureate was famously shot by Taliban gunmen in October 2012, when she was just 14 years old, after speaking out for many years about equal rights and education for girls all around the world. Davis Guggenheim’s documentary, He Named Me Malala, takes a look at the events leading up to that attack, as well as how Yousafzai not only survived, but continues to grow and thrive while spreading her positive messages. Sacramentans can enjoy a free screening of this enlightening film on Thursday, Jan. 28, 2016 at the University Union Ballroom on the Sacramento State campus. The film airs at 7:30 p.m. and is open to the public. All ages welcome. Visit Sacstateunique.com for more information.
