Arts & Life

LAKE COUNTY, Calif. — In celebration of her new book release, the Lakeport Library is welcoming award-winning Mendocino County poet Michelle Peñaloza for a reading of her work on Saturday, Sept. 27, at 2 p.m.

An audience Q&A will follow.

This event is sponsored by the Friends of the Lake County Library and the Lake County Literacy Coalition.

Michelle Peñaloza is the author of “All The Words I Can Remember Are Poems,” winner of the 2024 Lexi Rudnitsky Editor’s Choice Award and the James Laughlin Award, awarded by The Academy of American Poets (Persea Books, 2025).

Peñaloza is also the author of “Former Possessions of the Spanish Empire,” winner of the 2018 Hillary Gravendyk National Poetry Prize (Inlandia Books, 2019), and two chapbooks, “landscape/heartbreak” (Two Sylvias, 2015) and “Last Night I Dreamt of Volcanoes” (Organic Weapon Arts, 2015).

Some of her honors include the Frederick Bock Prize from the Poetry Foundation as well as grants from the Barbara Deming Memorial Fund, the Community Foundation of Mendocino County, Upstate Creative Corps, 4Culture, Artist Trust, Literary Arts, and PAWA (Philippine American Writers and Artists).

You can find her work at The Seventh Wave, Poetry, Honey Literary, Bellingham Review, New England Review, Lantern Review, and featured in American Life in Poetry.

The proud daughter of Filipino immigrants, Peñaloza was born in the suburbs of Detroit, Michigan, and raised in Nashville, Tennessee.

She now lives in Covelo, California.

The Lakeport Library is located at 1425 N. High St. in Lakeport.

For more upcoming events, visit the library’s website at http://library.lakecountyca.gov/.

Details: Written by: Elizabeth Larson; Published: 13 September 2025

UKIAH, Calif. — The Mendocino College Art Gallery is honored to present “Urban Introversions: Master Works by Yu Ji,” an exhibition of large-scale drawings, paintings, and prints by internationally recognized academic realist Yu Ji.

The exhibition runs through Oct. 26, with an opening reception on Thursday, Sept. 4, from 4:30 to 6:30 p.m. The public is warmly invited to attend.

Yu Ji’s meticulous multi-figure compositions emerge from decades of drawing from life. Working in charcoal and oil, his works translate spontaneous urban sketchbook studies into introspective, layered studio paintings.

Each piece presents an inner world of solitary figures, often set in shared public spaces yet emotionally distant — meditations on individuality, cultural identity, and urban experience.

Born in China, Yu Ji earned his BFA from the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing before immigrating to the United States during the Open Door Policy era. He went on to complete dual MFA degrees in Painting (1986) and Printmaking (1989) at SUNY New Paltz.

His early practice in New York was shaped by constant observational drawing in public spaces such as Washington Square Park, where he captured the human landscape of American life through fresh eyes.

In 1999, he relocated to Los Angeles, where the color and character of Southern California’s urban life reshaped his palette and compositional language.

“Many of Yu Ji’s paintings have a pensive interiority, with languid figures who, though placed together, often appear absorbed in their own thoughts … These invented compositions utilize complex spatial overlapping, including exquisitely subtle scale shifts,” said Jonathan Puls, professor of art and chair, Department of Art, Biola University.

The exhibition is curated by Jazzminh Moore, gallery director at Mendocino College, who first met Yu Ji as a student in 2001 during a workshop at the Academy of Realist Art (now Gage Academy) in Seattle. Her personal journey — from student to mentee to colleague — adds a deeply resonant context to the show.

“Yu Ji is a true master. That week working with him in Seattle changed my life. I uprooted and moved to Long Beach just to study with him. His teaching clarified everything for me—from the structure of shadow edges to the precision of color mixing. I’m beyond honored to now be presenting his work to our students and community,” said Moore.

Also featured in the exhibition is “Lost in Transection,” a collaborative video installation by Joe Ren, assistant professor of Digital Media at California State University, Bakersfield.

Ren’s work merges Yu Ji’s figurative imagery with contemporary symbols of American urban culture, creating a hybrid visual dialogue between drawing, print, and video.

Urban Introversions offers a rare opportunity to experience the work of a modern master whose commitment to observation, formal discipline and quiet intensity sets him apart in the contemporary art landscape.

The Mendocino College Art Gallery is located at 1000 Hensley Creek Road, Ukiah. Gallery hours are 12:30 to 3:30 p.m. Tuesdays, 10:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. Wednesdays, and by appointment.

Admission is free and open to the public.