Everything has some meaning in it for sensitive people.

—   Haku Shah, Indian artist and cultural anthropologist

Why create another website in a world that has millions of them? Why add my voice to the plethora of blogs and pages on the Internet? As you will see, Arts Are Up! is not a blog. I consider it a webzine. It does not exist to present solely my voice on the arts, but the voices and works of those I have met and continue to meet around the world that are creating art for our enjoyment.

Haku Shah was serendipitously featured in my first issue (May 1991) as editor of Arts Up!, the news vehicle of the Yolo County Arts Council, centered in Woodland, California. Shah's view of the arts fit well with mine and provided an excellent springboard for my editorship, which lasted till the Fall of 1993. Arts Up! unfortunately ceased publication some short while after my departure. It was a mid-nineties victim of California state budget cuts combined with insufficient advertising.

Yolo is a Sacramento Valley county, dominated by agriculture and the University of California in Davis. I came to Arts Up! from a UC Davis tradition, the campus newspaper known as The California Aggie. Both papers were singular in the county. Arts Up! was the only newspaper distributed in every community in Yolo. The California Aggie, despite being a college paper, had the largest distribution of any county periodical. That probably says more about Yolo than it does about either newspaper.

This website, www.artsareup.com, is devoted to three purposes. The first is bringing back to the surface some of the fine interviews and articles that I had the opportunity to write for Arts Up! and The California Aggie, which now likely exist only in moldering basement stacks in Yolo County libraries. I do this not so much for myself, and certainly not for my own aggrandizement, but because fine artists and people have always come through and stayed in Yolo County, mostly due to its influential university, but also for its small community of artists. Their comments and participation in the enrichment of life in Yolo County, Northern California and the world, should not be lost or left in places seldom reached or searched.

Second, I again want to participate in bringing to light the marvelous artistic contributions taking place in the area of the Sacramento Valley and beyond—possibly far, far beyond. With that in mind, the gallery for Arts Are Up! features artists Erin & Jill Lynch of Dolls for Friends, a new homemade plush doll production company. I think you will enjoy the quirky, anime/manga inspired qualities of their toys—little works of art. Our article on a current event covers the Sacramento visit of comic artist Stan Sakai, celebrating the 25th anniversary of Usagi Yojimbo.

Third, as I mentioned in my initial column, I am “after the hidden essence in every work, the subtle shades of meaning that the sensitive people perceive.” I was able to cast a wide net as an arts editor in the early nineties. My base of knowledge has only grown since then and I hope to share some things that you will find interesting.

I do not expect to do this on my own. I am willing to take letters and consider them for post and publication as they broaden upon topics covered. Where possible, I will give artists a forum to present their works and motivations. Fame is not a prerequisite for Arts Are Up!            Sensitivity is.

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