If one thing is true about Santa Barbara, it’s that our young people have a world-class entrepreneurial spirit. Sisters Aaliyah and Bella Rubio are no exception. Starting as a way to escape pandemic boredom, Aaliyah (14) and Bella (12) dreamt up the Youth Makers Market as a space for the young people of Santa Barbara […]
Hot tea or golden toast topped with a drizzle of locally crafted honey in the morning is therapeutic… and delicious. Crafted locally in Ventura, each drop of the delicate, sweet molten gold of Blue Ridge Honey is 100% pure, raw, and unfiltered. Beginning as a family hobby in the late 1970s, Blue Ridge Honey has […]
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On a recent Santa Barbara spring morning, with early clouds with a chill in the air, Dr. Deborah Smilovitz Foster and I sat down together at Pierre Lafond in Montecito. The red umbrellas were up in anticipation of the sun’s appearance as we sipped our tea and chatted. It soon became apparent that I was […]
When you think of the words “girl band,” the first thing that comes to mind might be the nostalgic groups of the ‘90s: Spice Girls, Dixie Chicks, The Cranberries. But what makes a girl band is its truest definition: a group of women who harmonize together. Enter Montecito mom and GRLBND founder, Kara Welker. Kara […]
Chernor Diallo arrived at LAX after a long, exhausting flight in May 2021. His host for his two-year stay in Santa Barbara met him. He had come a very long way in both time and space. He had imagined that Santa Barbara would have skyscrapers and wide boulevards, like other American cities. But when he […]
The pantheon of male American writers is a grab bag. Terkel, Mailer, Hamill, Hemingway — these tough guys and their generally hormonal prose are almost a literary brand. Plimpton — with his willowy erudition, patrician accent, and Paris Review creds — runs with another herd. Our Joe Donnelly is a third species, as evidenced by […]
The war in Ukraine is leveling cities and devastating lives, including friends and family of the Westmont community. Igor Rozhko, Westmont’s network manager since 2005, has shared the desperate need from his sister-in-law, Vera, in Kyiv, where she and her husband are missionaries with Ukraine Christian Radio and Video and where they attend the large […]
As the third female and a second-generation Santa Barbara Yacht Club (SBYC) Commodore, Andra Escola led the club renovations that started last year and were completed this April for its 150th anniversary. Escola held the position in 2021, following Joanne Gordon (2015) and Francie Lufkin (2013), the only females of the 149 commodores in the […]
Bestselling author Michael Lewis shared insight into his blockbuster books such as Moneyball, The Undoing Project, and The Fifth Risk, at the 17th annual President’s Breakfast on March 4 at the Hilton Santa Barbara Beachfront Resort. Exactly two years ago, Daniel Kahneman, the subject of Lewis’ book, The Undoing Project, spoke at the breakfast on […]
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The iconic multilevel campus of the historic Santa Barbara High School was my destination to meet James Claffey, English teacher extraordinaire. An instructor at the Visual Arts and Design Academy (VADA) division of the school he was highly recommended by a most reliable source: one of his students! In an attempt to make a timely […]
Every picture tells a story. On February 11, while researching a Black History Month story to report on, I had a phone meeting with the new Montecito Journal (MJ) Managing Editor Zach Rosen. That same day, Dr. Joseph Pineda DPM dropped off a photograph he had on his office wall to the MJ. Rosen said, […]
What’s an ancient, mindful practice people have engaged in all throughout time to help focus on the present, relax, and unwind when the threads of life get knotted? Correct: Embroidery! In past generations, the traditional sewing-art was a common, peaceful, and pleasant pastime most females knew how to do. The slow, meditative, and artistic stitching […]
“I was twelve years old when I decided I needed to change the world.” Olivia Seltzer, an 18-year-old Santa Barbara local, was shocked and scared by the results of the 2016 election and by what that meant for her and her peers. While attending Santa Barbara Junior High, many of Seltzer’s friends came from families […]
When I first heard the term “Dirtrider,” I imagined something á la Mel Gibson in Mad Max. But far from being chrome and oil junkies as we might associate with the apocalyptic franchise, Dirtriders are the lean, green worker bees of the Isla Vista Compost Collective. Founded in 2017, the Isla Vista Compost Collective (IVCC) […]
