Dining with the Artists

Dining with the Artists is an annual fundraising event hosted by the Fresno Arts Council in downtown Fresno.  Local artists (both upcoming and seasoned) are invited to the event where they serve as the host per table for the evening.

2009 Dinner Event

The following artist's were invited to the event:

1. Michael Luis Medrano
   Michael is the author of Born in the Cavity of Sunsets (Bilingual Press 2009); his first book of poetry. He holds an MFA in creative writing from the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities. Medrano has performed his work at Stanford University, the Loft Literary Arts Center in Minneapolis and the University of Colorado, Boulder. He served as poetry editor for the literary journal, Flies, Cockroaches & Poets, and is featured on the Spoken Work CD, “The Central Chakrah Project” (Metamorfosis Productions), and has taught writing workshops in Fresno and Minneapolis. Once again based in Fresno, Medrano is teaching and is the host of Pakotelas, a literary radio show on KFCF 88.1 FM. He is currently at work on a novel and a second collection of poetry.
2. Sue Sampson-Dalena
   Sue has a passion for dance. Since 1982, she has been the Owner/Artistic Director of The Dance Studio of Fresno, and Co-Owner of the Dave Studio 2. The studios have attracted thousands of dancers from throughout the State of California and especially from the Central Valley. Sue is currently the KMPH Fox-26 Local Expert Commentator for Season 6 of “So You Think You Can Dance.” During her career, she choreographed for the San Francisco 49ers and the Sacramento Kings Cheerleaders, as well as various other profession sporting events. Sue has served as the Director and Choreographer for the Miss California Pageant for nine years. In recent years, she has trained and mentored numerous students who have achieved notable success in the dance world. To name a few, Jason Glover was recently featured as one of the Top 8 dancers on the 2009 season of “So You Think You Can Dance.” Gina Starbuck has appeared in the LA Company of the Broadway hit “Wicked,” as well as “Bring It On 5” in 2008. Allysa Shorte sang and dances on “Dance Wars” and also appeared in “High School Musical 3.”
3. Jacqueline Doumanian
   Jacqueline attended California State University, Fresno (CSUF), receiving both her B.A. and M.A. degrees in art. In 1974 she helped co-found Gallery 25 where she served as an active member for many years. Jacqueline designed and implemented an arts program for the City of Fresno for elementary schools and taught art at both State Center Community College and CSUF. From 1979 to 1992, she owned and operated, with her husband Ray, Not Just Paper, a successful retail business that garnered her two Distinguished Women in Business awards. Jacqueline has participated in numerous solo and group exhibitions in Fresno and has shown at group shows in Sacramento, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chico and Chicago. Recently, she was included in the exhibition “A Studio of Their Own” at the Phebe Conley Gallery at CSUF that celebrated the 40th anniversary of the Feminist Art Experiment. She also participated on the artists’ panel at the Fresno Art Museum in conjunction with that exhibit.
4. Stefani Booroojian
   Stefani remains one of the most recognizable names in KSEE 24 News history. Stefani feels fortunate to be part of such a rich broadcasting tradition in her hometown. She has been with KSEE 24 for 25 years bringing the news to Valley viewers. Over that span of time she has witnessed and reported on tremendous changes and events in the Central Valley. While monitoring the daily news Stefani’s number one responsibility, watching out for people’s health and well women’s health issues remains critical. She has been instrumental in bringing KSEE 24’s Buddy Check program to the Central Valley. Stefani brings award winning experience to the news team with significant community and industry recognition. She received two Emmy’s and a distinguished Media Service Award from Fresno State University. She hosts a monthly ArtHop information spot.
5. Juan Arambula
   Juan is a prominent California State Assemblymember in the 31st District. He is a self-taught photographer who seeks the unique and unusual in his subject matters. Since his election in 2004, Arambula has chaired and served on a number of committees. Currently, he is the Chair of Budget Subcommittee on State Administration and is serving on the Education, Water, Parks and Wildlife, and Local Government committees. He has been named “Legislator of the Year” by both the California Small Business Association and the California Association for Local Economic Development. He graduated with high honors from Harvard University, and went on to earn a Master's Degree in Educational Administration and Policy Analysis from Stanford University and a law degree from the University of California, Berkeley. Arambula is the son of immigrant farm workers. In his youth, he harvested crops with his family throughout California from which arose his commitment to improve the living conditions of those around him. Assemblymember Arambula lives in Fresno with Amy, his wife of 30 years. He has four adult children-Joaquin, Carmen, Diego, and Miguel and his grandson, Izel.
6. Gina Lenee Perkins
   It is said that hearing an artist’s music can give you a glimpse into their soul. If this is true, then experiencing Gina’s music reveals a passion for art and a talent that truly is a gift. Born and raised in Madera, Gina began playing the piano “by ear” at the tender age of four. Realizing their daughter’s talent, her parents began private lessons where she received classical training. Even then, she enjoyed spending hours composing her own songs. She soon began performing at school, church and community functions. Throughout her life, Gina has been fortunate enough to work for some amazing nonprofit organizations in the Central Valley. She used the release of her CD’s as an event to benefit Wish Upon A Star and Fresno Youth Advocates. She has created four memorable CD’s, From the Heart, Moments With You, Holiday Wishes and Lullaby Collection. Her CD’s From the Heart and Moments With You are deeply personal recordings. For Gina, her role as a composer is more profound and fulfilling than that of a musician. Gina’s greatest joys are her daughters Jaclyn and Gina and her husband, local businessman Dennis Perkins, owner of The Brownie Baker.
7. Ole Scovill
   Ole, a native of the country of Laos, graduated with a BA degree in Visual Art from a prominent University in Thailand in 2000 and came to the US in 2004. Her thesis was a study of women in the sex trade in Thailand and Laos, and was displayed at the Northern Illinois University in 2005. Ole's current sources of inspiration are music, dance and people. Her artwork is frequently displayed locally at the Chris Sorenson’s Studio, the Love Song Gallery, and the Strands hair salon and gallery; and she participated in the Foot Fetish Show in downtown Fresno. Her work has also been shown in the Mission Cultural Center for Latino Arts in San Francisco and the 2008 “My Butterfly” show in Long Beach. Most recently, Ole showed five pieces in two different shows at the Climate/Gallery in Long Island, New York and another at the Book About Death show at the Emily Harvey Foundation Gallery in New York City. The Book About Death exhibition is being shown at many museums and galleries across the country, including the Museum of Modern Art and the Queens Museum of Art in New York.
8. Lance Canales
   Lance was born and raised in the southern foothills of California’s Central Valley where he literally lived the life so many folk and blues artists have written songs about since the birth of roots music, hard labor, one room shacks and taunting ghosts whispering of a better life, owning nothing but the music in your head. It would take years for Canales to connect his history to his own sound-branded “Native Americana” by fans-tuning down his smooth yet gravelly vocals, compared to the likes of music legends Tom Waits and Greg Brown. In 2003 Canales began changing his musical course when he teamed up with blues guitarist Ben Cline to form the acoustic duo Inyana. The debut CD, “The Path,” was released in 2004 from Canales’ independent label,” Black Oak Records.” Canales recorded his first solo CD in 2008, “These Hands” was released in 2008. Northern Ireland also welcomed him in August of 2009 at the Belfast Blues Festival. In Fresno he was played with the “The Lance Canales Trio.” A rich new sound developed, complimenting Canales’ already poetic and personal songwriting skills. Lance Canales and The Flood, his present group, is working on a new album for a tour in Fall 2010.
9. Kristen Garneau
   Kristen Garneau is a Bay Area artist who has been making and showing her work for over 40 years. To date, her art has been exhibited mostly in California and Montana. After studying at the California College of Arts and Crafts in Oakland in the 1960s where Kristen was hugely influenced by abstract expressionism, she continued to experiment with paint. Currently, Kristen is exploring the possibilities of the intimacies of early Rembrandt and Caravaggio as well as the late nineteenth century French paintings. This marks the birth of her appreciation for the physical satisfaction of old-master paintings, their sensuous surfaces and subtle glazes. Kristen’s paintings speak with subtle colors, the changing hues of the in-between seasons and of long rural days.
10. Paul Mullins
    From early childhood the artist in Paul was encouraged by his mother Betty who was an art teacher. He attended Art Center College of design in a special program for high school students for two years and worked as graphic artist while attending Santa Ana J.C. and Fullerton College. Paul started a graphic design firm in Newport Beach in 1975 and worked in Southern California until 1980. In 1990 Mullins Studio added photography as a service and it has evolved into 90% of the studio’s work. Paul works with the ultra-high resolution medium format Hasselblad H3DII digital camera to capture the subtle detail and beauty of the natural world. His creative approach to the principles of design, color and composition give his images a powerful sense of wonder and glory. You can see his work on display throughout the year at Paul’s downtown Gallery in the Cultural Arts Building located at 1416 Broadway Street (& Tuolumne). His photos have appeared in Sierra Press Book, Yosemite Sierra Visitors Guide, Sunset Magazine, Valley Views Magazine, Fresno Magazine, How Magazine, The Ultimate in Graphic Designer’s and Illustrator’s Self-Promotion book. As well as receiving numerous awards his landscape images have been selected for use in over 16 various calendars.
11. Ramiro Martinez
    Born in Fresno into a family of 12 children, Ramiro worked as a farm laborer when he was young. On breaks he would carve into rocks various forms and shapes to bury in the ground and imagine future societies to eventually unearth his youthful attempts at forming a worthy tribute to life. He earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the San Francisco Art Institute where he studied painting and sculpture. Ramiro’s artwork has been exhibited in cities throughout California. Locally his artwork has been shown in the Berkeley Building on the Fulton Mall, Broadway Studios, Taylor Teeter Architect Firm, Hemisphere Furniture, Lasgoity Winery in Madera, Lerhman and Association Law Firm in Los Angeles, and Karl Lopez Gallery in Santa Cruz.
12. Donald Monroe
    Donald covers arts and culture for The Fresno Bee, where he has worked since 1991. Before that he was entertainment editor at the Anchorage Times. Donald has a Bachelor's degree in journalism from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo and a Master's degree from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. In 2002-2003, he was a mid-career fellow with the National Arts Journalism Program at Columbia. Donald was a participant in National Endowment of the Arts institutes in music and musical theater at the University of Southern California, and in classical music and opera at Columbia. He lives with his partner, Shane Moreman, in Fresno.
13. Joel Pickford
    Joel is an award-winning photographer, filmmaker and author based in California’s San Joaquin Valley. His photographs have graced the pages of Black & White magazine and are found in many public and private collections, including the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Portland Art Museum, Ogden Museum of Southern Art, Fresno Art Museum, the University of Oregon Museum of Art, and the Weston Gallery. Joel’s documentary film, Master of Light (2000), aired on PBS stations throughout the country. He is co-author of California Light (The Press at California State University Fresno, 1998), the first art book ever to combine digital photographic reproduction with six-color hexachrome printing. Following ten years of extensive reading, travel, film work, and photography in Southern Louisiana, Joel produced an exhibition entitled Le Monde Créole, which premiered in the summer of 2007 at the Fresno Art Museum and traveled to the Centro Fotografico Manual Alvarez Bravo in Oaxaca, Mexico in January 2008. For the past five years he has been photographing, researching and writing about the Hmong culture of central California and northern Laos with funding from the James Irvine Foundation and California Council for the Humanities. A photographic exhibition based on this work will premiere in 2012 at the Fresno Metropolitan Museum. In May, 2009, Joel completed an interdisciplinary masters degree in Documentary Media and Southeast Asian Studies at California State University Fresno, where he has also taught as a full-time lecturer in photography. The Hmong project served as his thesis.