Marie-Elena Schembri is an award-winning journalist reporting on education, art, culture and community-facing issues. She lives in the Sierra foothills and is associate editor for the weekly Calaveras Enterprise newspaper. Schembri graduated from the University of Nebraska at Omaha with a Bachelor of Arts in studio art-visual media and has an associate’s degree in commercial photography, but her passion is working with sustainable and experimental analog photographic processes in her home darkroom. Her writing has appeared in Comstock’s magazine, Sacramento News and Review, The Sacramento Observer and the Calaveras Enterprise.
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Art Exposed: Julie Bernadeth Crumb
Weaving cultural memory and communal care into artistic practice
Whether creating elaborate jewelry inspired by pre-colonial harvest rituals, collaging woodcut prints into an altar homage to her Filipino homeland or sculpting clay into aquatic life forms for an underwater installation, award-winning multidisciplinary artist Julie Bernadeth Crumb uses her hands to forge materials into meditations on culture, identity and Indigeneity.
The Value of Art
4 years out of the pandemic, Sacramento’s arts scene brings in tourism and tax dollars
A 2022 study conducted by Americans for the Arts in partnership with Sacramento Alliance for Regional Arts found that nonprofit arts- and culture-related activities in Sacramento County injected over $241 million into the local economy.
Art Exposed: Katharine T. Jacobs
This rural artist uses her own body to process trauma and chronic illness
Processing emotional trauma and her disease through her work, Katharine T. Jacobs creates analog photographs, sculptures and intermedia works that address her identity as a mother, survivor of domestic abuse and a woman with a chronic illness.
Art Exposed: Taner Pasamehmetoglu
For this second-generation American, art is a tool to address finite resources and break down walls
“A lot of my work stems from this idea of what I call being stuck in between,” says multidisciplinary Elk Grove artist Taner Pasamehmetoglu.
New Arts Council on Horizon for San Joaquin County
Organizers aim to unite the creative sector, provide equitable access countywide
San Joaquin County — with its rich cultural and historical heritage in both rural communities and city centers — may soon have a unified creative and cultural front. For the first time since 2001, the county will again have an arts council.
Art Exposed: Jazel Muñoz
For this queer, sober, vegan Chicanx printmaker and community organizer, art is both political and spiritual
The work of this Sacramento-based artist is steeped in the beauty and wonder of nature.
Young Professionals: Emiliano Rosas
Meet the emerging leaders who envision a bright future for the Capital Region
Emiliano Rosas is a “proud product” of east Yolo County, where he now serves as chair of the West Sacramento Parks, Recreation and Intergenerational Commission.
A Stand Down in Jackson
Resource fair connects Amador County’s homeless residents to services, community
It’s based on a military term, which refers to a reprieve where troops return to base camp to regroup and receive food, services and clothing before returning to combat.
Art Exposed: Doug Winter
Elk Grove photographer creates images exploring perception and memory through the lens of visual impairment
After suffering a stroke in his right eye in 2012, Elk Grove resident Doug Winter, a trained commercial photographer, began to think differently about sight and perception.
Art Exposed: Maren Conrad
Meet the Sacramento muralist and designer who creates joyful spaces for women
Maren Conrad reflects on her iconic Sacramento murals and her latest project, the Jacquelyn.
Art Exposed: Muzi Li Rowe
This mixed media artist and photographer explores culture through defunct technology
Whether it’s layers of tiny microchips or rows of dead batteries, each work in Muzi Li Rowe’s Magical Thinking series is like peering into a tiny museum where the most microscopic parts of now-defunct personal technology devices, from old Nokia flip phones to disposable cameras, become individual hallmarks of consumer culture.