Arts + Culture

Connecting People Through Art and Emotion

A local artist finds inspiration and themes in communication, shared experience, and womanhood Article by Krista Minard | Photography by Tom Honeycutt As a self-taught visual artist living in El Dorado Hills, Volha Naruta-Johnson creates textured pieces exploring the human experience—layered and imperfect. Her figurative oil series, “Being a Woman,” visits the often-pervasive tension between motherhood, career, and female identity. Born in Belarus, Naruta-Johnson studied Cultural Heritage...

Travel

Granite Splendor

Always alluring, Yosemite National Park is the place for hiking, waterfall viewing, and basking in nature’s glory. Article by Krista Minard | Photography by Various The forests, glacier-carved rock formations, rivers, creeks, waterfalls, flora, and fauna within Yosemite National Park create an unforgettable experience for some 4.4 million sightseers who come each year to enjoy the park’s spectacular vistas and commune with nature. In the valley and the high country, no matter the season, the...

Entertainment

Adventure by Chance

A local production company films an adventure travel documentary built on a roll of the dice Article by Kristy Murdoch | Photography by Charlene Taylor When most people set out to create a documentary, they begin with a destination, a subject, or a carefully structured storyline. But for the production team behind Pure Chance , the journey began in an unexpected way—through a Craigslist ad and an unconventional idea. What followed was a new take on the traditional travel documentary...

Food + Beverage

The Old-Fashioned

Some background on the classic rich-amber cocktail Article by Krista Minard | Photography by Chris Gora It seems it all began in the early 1800s, when cocktails were very simple: spirits plus sugar plus water plus bitters. Such a concoction was first documented in a New York publication in 1806 and identified as a “cocktail.” Nowadays, pretty much any mixture including hard liquor is called a cocktail, and that original mixture of whiskey, sugar, and bitters has undergone plenty of creative...