After being paralyzed from the waist down at just 18 years old, British TV presenter, writer, and artist Sophie Morgan has become a beacon for disability advocacy. A jack of all trades, she has reported for the Paralympics for three years, released her debut book Driving Forwards, and most recently co-founded W.E. Rides, a movement […]
Ariel Leira is a multidisciplinary visual artist and writer who grew up amongst the trees of Montecito, documenting her TRAVELS through glowing, abstract photography and heartfelt poetry. She was a lifer at Crane Country Day School – where we met in fifth grade – and graduated from Santa Barbara High School. Leira’s artistic proclivities began […]
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Westmont President Gayle D. Beebe has been serving as a delegate at the Fourth Lausanne Congress for World Evangelization on Sept. 22-28 in Incheon, South Korea. He has served as a college president for more than 25 years (18 at Westmont) and received his invitation through the Council of Christian Colleges and Universities. Beebe joins […]
Nicole Belton’s art studio, located at 1019 West in Inglewood, feels like walking into a museum of trees frozen in time. Dream-like hills and extending branches captured in a submerged composition (Skyview Drive); a tree in a moment of transition, poised before fading into a muted, decaying terrain (Ash). For the past six years, Belton […]
Residents of Montecito’s Hedgerow neighbourhood may be closely familiar with the tunes of the Grateful Dead, as, between the years of 2019 and 2021, my garage became the headquarters for my brother Cosmo’s Grateful Dead cover band, Curly & Co., made up of a rowdy posse of high school and college-age boys who, when not […]
After years of winning accolades as a director in Santa Barbara, New York and Los Angeles, Kylan Tyng takes to the sky for his new venture behind the camera: aerial photography. Photographer and director Kylan Tyng, born and raised in Santa Ynez and Santa Barbara, has spent the last two years exploring western North America […]
I met Kiara Lin in the place many Santa Barbara natives eventually meet–Los Angeles. She grew up in Santa Barbara, attending Montessori Center School and Santa Barbara Junior High. Even in her youth, Kiara’s dedication to film was unmistakable. After three years enrolled at Santa Barbara High School, she moved to Michigan to complete her […]
Firestone Walker Brewing Company’s 805 Beer is the official craft beer partner of the World Surf League North America. At the U.S. Open Surfing Competition in Huntington Beach, look for the Cold Beer Surf Club podcast by legendary pro surfer and 805 Beer Authentico Conner Coffin. Coffin takes the deep dive with his interviews of […]
The growing concern about personal information and privacy in the digital age has led a company based in Santa Barbara to develop products protecting consumers. MOS Equipment, founded by Westmont alumnus Ryan Judy (’08), manufactures Mission Darkness™ faraday bags, tents, and lockers that block radio waves, including cell phone signals. “A lot of people don’t […]
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My name may be familiar to you, reader. Maybe you recognize it from the fading memory of your child’s school theater production playbill, or perhaps from reading Stella Haffner’s interviews with me in this very column. Thanks to Stella and the Montecito Journal, you’ll be seeing my name on a much more regular basis as […]
My rebellious teen years formed me. I was an iconoclast, an outlier, a pugnacious and angry loner dancing on the knife edge of chaos. Refusing to play the idiot game, I skulked around the outskirts of the Established Order and its meaningless rules of conduct, taking wild, ferocious swings at this stupid world and its […]
Newish Montecitan Susan Sofronas – recently arrived from the isle of Manhattan – is settling in nicely. She already adores our little woodland getaway, and as we sip java at sun-soaked Bree’osh on Coast Village, she charmingly parses her personal Tale of Two Cities with open delight. “If you think of New York City – […]
Dear Montecito, Four years later and here we are. This column started during the first COVID-19 lockdown, when I found out that half of my exams were being canceled. “Hey Gwyn… mind if I start a column?” And, well, you know the rest of the story! One hundred hours of phone calls, emails, and interviews […]
The energy and face of Amy Alzina EdD, Cold Spring Elementary School District (CSESD) Superintendent/Principal, is well noted in our town. For the past seven years, she has led the school and increased growth levels in education, STEAM, and community interface. She and her team have maintained this through multiple environmental disasters and lockdowns, without […]
