Tag archives: Q&A

As we wrestle with the evolving ramifications of the COVID-19 pandemic, Santa Barbara’s commercial real estate world is learning how to conduct business at a distance, leaving previously on-site activities on the sidelines. MJ recently caught up with Santa Barbara native and real estate appraiser Greg Brashears to discuss navigating through a pandemic and all […]

The unprecedented stay-at-home orders because of the pandemic have been a double whammy for service nonprofits such as the Council on Alcoholism and Drug Abuse, whose mission is to provide services for preventing and treating alcoholism and drug abuse to youth, adults, and families throughout Santa Barbara County. Not only has 70-year-old CADA had to […]

Every Sunday evening at 7 pm Gordon Morrison, bagpiper, husband, father, and VP of Engineering at Freedom Photonics, steps onto the porch of his family’s Summerland house and plays the bagpipes as the sun sets. It’s a comforting lament during these difficult times. I asked Morrison our usual “People of Summerland” questions. I also sat […]

Back in January, 2020 was looking to be a pretty exciting year for the Music Academy of the West. Not only had the summer music institute respected around the world just hired Jamie Broumas, the former Director of Classical and New Music Programs at Washington’s famed Kennedy Center, for the newly created position of Chief […]

Montecito Journal spoke with photographer Dewey Nicks and design incubator Derek Galkin about the recently launched Dewey Nicks + Autotype Design Club Photography Scholarship Dewey Nicks is a world-famous photographer who has shot many of the world’s most famous people for the world’s most well-known magazines and design firms. He moved to Carp in 2009. […]

Festival artist Jennifer Lemay, who started street painting with chalk for I Madonnari in the festival’s second year in 1988 and has missed only a handful of I-Mads over the ensuing 32 years, is joining nearly 60 other artists in creating works in her own driveway to celebrate the Memorial Day Weekend event. We caught […]

If things were different, if the novel coronavirus that causes COVID-19 hadn’t turned into a global pandemic shutting down almost everything across the world, this would have been a weekend of wonder for Otto Layman. The theater director had planned a big blowout of a show to serve as his crowning achievement in a career […]

Rick Caruso, Founder and Chief Executive Officer at Caruso, owner/developer of Montecito’s luxury resort The Rosewood Miramar Beach, and philanthropist, was appointed on April 14 to U.S. President Donald Trump‘s Great American Economic Revival Industry Groups Task Force Committee, a task force created to combat the economic impact of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Days later, […]

Q. With COVID-19 changing the way we interact as a community, how are you making it work through this difficult time and do you have any tips to share? A. Here at the Summerland Salon & Spa, we’ve worked together as a team to think of innovative ways to stay in touch with our clients. […]

Responders Eligible for Affordable Child Care Families of first responders are the heroes behind the scenes, those supporting loved ones as they leave to do essential work. Thankfully, the Emergency Child Care Initiative (ECCI) is offering free and affordable child care to first, second, and third responders. Scholarships and opportunities for tuition reduction are available […]

When you ask Dr. Lynn Fitzgibbons what’s new, you don’t hear stories about reordering her spice rack in quarantine, streaming the latest show on Netflix, or growing her own victory garden. She’s kind of busy. Quarantine is a luxury for others. She did mention that she’s taken up marathon running, which is pretty remarkable, considering […]

Michael Baker, CEO of the United Boys & Girls Clubs of Santa Barbara County, is turning the COVID-19 lockdown into an all-community outreach program with his new project, Lend a Socially Distant Hand. The project is multi-faceted, but its overall mission is to take advantage of this time when the clubs are dark and give […]

Tina Schlieske and her sister Laura are sheltering in place separately in Santa Barbara, but it’s hard to keep sisters apart for weeks on end, especially if they get along as well as the Schlieskes, who have been making music together for nearly all of their lives. Tina is best known for her solo gigs […]

Contemporary artist/sculptor and thinker Richard Aber and his wife, Carol, have lived on bucolic Greenwell Road in Summerland, where he has created art diligently in his home studio on their property, for the past 41 years. His contemplative pieces have been exhibited nationally and internationally, including in several exhibitions in Italy, where the coronavirus has […]

The Quarantine Economy Julie McMurry lives in Santa Barbara and is a specialist in public health with a degree from the University of London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. She is currently an assistant professor, senior researcher, at Oregon State University in the College of Public Health. She wrote the manifesto which became flattenthecurve.com […]

Montecito’s singer-songwriter hero is logging his time during the pandemic. Kenny Loggins is staying at home during the shelter-in-place era as the COVID-19 pandemic stopped everything in its tracks. Actually, make that homes. The 72-year-old singer-songwriter, who began scoring hits back in the early 1970s in a duo with Jim Messina, found fertile ground with […]

AHA! equips teenagers, educators, and parents with social and emotional intelligence to dismantle apathy, prevent despair, and interrupt hate-based behavior. The organization prides itself on a program based on mindfulness, awareness, connection, empathy, and resilience. Resilience certainly is something we all need and can use in this time of crisis. The teenage years for many […]