Gail Rich Awards 2013: From Skateboard Art to Musical Gibbons

If ever there was a town more proud of its luminous and prolific art scene, it was Santa Cruz on Wednesday night.

The 17th Annual Gail Rich Awards honored six artists at the Rio Theater last night—an eclectic bunch whose talents ranged from the resurrection of 400-year-old music to the popping eyeballs and humorous gore of skateboard art.

"We try to put our arms around the widest group of people possible," said the host, Wallace Baine.

Gail Rich was a Santa Cruz woman who inspired and embraced the arts community, and who died too young, said Baine. The Gail Rich Awards "pay tribute to that basic human drive: the need to create." 

Two hair-raising musical performances peppered the night of poignant speeches. *Videos included*

As a light rain fell outside, the following six artists took the warm spotlight of the Rio Theater's stage to accept their awards.

In order of appearance, the Gail Rich Awards of 2013 went to: 

Linda Burman-Hall

Musicologist and UC Santa Cruz Professor, Linda Burman-Hall plays traditional music from the 17th and 18th century—on traditional instruments, of course. She specializes in the harpsichord, organ and fortepiano.

"From birth, my mother taught me music, and I wouldn't have come as far as a keyboardist if she hadn't taught me well and often," Burman-Hall said.

Her passion for resurrecting old musical scores is what prompted her to start the Santa Cruz Baroque Festival in 1974, and she's still the artistic director.

Burman-Hall puts it like this: if modern music is 3D and full color, then the musical scores of 400 years ago are "blue prints, flat sketches that don't show much of what you really need to build them out."

The challenge is finding the right mood, the right tempo, she says, because it's usually not written down on those ancient scores.

Aside from teaching Music Theory, World Music, and Chamber Music at UC Santa Cruz, Burman-Hall also travels the world to savor and preserve traditional music—and to preserve the rain forests, too.

"I can't take a time machine to get answers about early music, but I can take a Jet," she says.

In particular, she likes to visit Bali and the surfing paradise of the Mentawai Islands of Indonesia, where she studies the communication of female gibbons and the sounds of the rain forests.

Pipa Piñon

Singer Pipa Piñon has recorded with several bands, including Spiral, Triune, Saboo, and Dreambeach, which features Daniel Vee Lewis, her long time music partner and, as she put it on the stage last night, "the love of my life."

Piñon has written over 150 songs and recorded vocals for the late Michael Hedges, a Windham Hill artist. Most recently, she presented a play Bridges Between which tells the story of her teenage years, in which she was exposed to draconian therapies in New Mexico for perceived mental illness.

Her acceptance speech was highly emotional. 

"I am very grateful, and very touched," said Piñon. "And speaking of touched, I can't believe that what I was locked up for in New Mexico as a teenager I am now being given an award for here in Santa Cruz." 

This, she said, really says a lot for the open mindedness of the art community here.

"I have found my home," said Piñon, and then she sang a song called the "Valley of the Frogs," which she says she wrote for the town she loves. The love of her life accompanied her on the keys.

Skip Epperson

Scenic designer Skip Epperson is a humble genius. When he took the stage he admitted that he'd rather be "behind the the stage lights... in the dark." 

Epperson does his best work behind the scenes, designing the sets for the Cabrillo Stage musicals. He's designed the sets for nearly a dozen musicals, from Sweeney Todd, to the Nutcracker and the Wizard of Oz. On one set, he brought in a truckload of dirt to pack down on the floor, which the looked great in the lighting, but is still not fully cleaned up.

"One of the beautiful things about it is it really pulls a lot of people together," he said of his work.

Epperson thanked his wife, saying, "for many years she's been kind of a theater widow. There's tech weeks that I'm just no there."

Recently, he and his wife have been working together to put together a children's theater. 

Tammi Brown

Songstress Tammi Brown would have had an easier time thanking the people she hasn't worked with in Santa Cruz, she's worked with that many. 

In front of her in 2013, the soulful songstress is looking forward to a new album coming out. Behind her, she leaves a long trail of performances and collaborations, from the White Album Ensemble to Altared Christmas. 

"At four years old I was playing a B3 Hammond," Brown said. "And I played it loud, radical, and worked people up into a frenzy." 

Brown then worked her Santa Cruz audience into a frenzy with a song called the Power of Prayer, written by John Morris who played guitar.  

She introduced it saying, "We might not understand everybody as an individual, but get a beat going and then we're on the same page." 

Jimbo Phillips

Jimbo Phillips is the artist behind the iconic Santa Cruz Skateboards graphics. Well, one of them, anyway. His father, Jim Phillips, designed the famous screaming hand logo, and Jimbo continues on in the legacy, pumping out equally awesome graphics full of sweat, vomit, warts and popping eyeballs and tongues.

"I just kind of grew up into it," Jimbo said, thanking his father for all of those early drawing sessions. 

If Jim Phillips helped pave the way for his son as an artist, it wasn't easy, and Jimbo remembered the beginning: a time when his dad was under-appreciated, working long hours for little pay.

"He would warn me about the pitfalls of being an artist," said Jimbo. "He'd say 'you should go to college and be a dentist or something'... but of course it was too cool of a thing to pass up, and I always had a knack for it."

His graphics appear on skateboards all over the world. He's also worked for Volcom, Snickers, Tony Hawk, Bill Graham Presents and he most recently released a mobile game app called Skate Trash.

Introduced by Danny Keith, who called Jimbo "an action sports staple," Jimbo is also involved with the local charity Grind Out Hunger.

Futzie Nutzle

County Supervisor Neal Coonerty introduced Futzie Nutzle, saying "my friendship with Futzie Nutzle is one way that I can sort of help to keep Santa Cruz weird." 

Coonerty also divulged Futzie Nutzle's one-word answer to why he came to Santa Cruz—"Sun" 

Nutzle has been honing his cartoon style since the 60's and 70's when he began to build a wide following. His career as a cartoonist included five years at Rolling Stone, 19 years off-and-on for Tokyo's English Language news paper, Japan Times, and several years with the Santa Cruz Weekly.

Nutzle, who grew up in Ohio, told the audience how he drove out to California with a friend two days after graduating High School. 

"We came up through Santa Cruz, and then we went back East, but I never forgot what I saw here," he said. 

Futzie Nutzle's style completely reinvents the cartoon, and he described his development as "trying to pair it down to a drawing that had a certain amount of wit, and hopefully some personal philosophy." 

In other words, getting away from just talking heads, he said, and trying to draw the circumstances instead. 

In the past several years, Futzie Nutzle has been painting. His latest show of 100 works is at the open, airy, upstairs space of the R. Blitzer Gallery—the west side's best kept seecret— for one more weekend only, so go check it out this weekend!

The Gail Rich Awards were presented by the Cultural Council Associates and th Cultural Council of Santa Cruz County.