MIDDLETOWN, Calif. – Middletown Art Center’s Restore Project features a writers’ workshop with Clive Matson this Saturday, March 23, from 1 to 5 p.m.

The workshop will be followed by the Restore: Spoken Word Gathering from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m.

The reading is free and open to the public.

Adults and children ages 11 and up of all levels of experience are invited to come to one or monthly writers’ workshops offered until May.

The cost is $5. Preregistration is required at www.middletownartcenter.org/restore.

Participants of this writers’ workshop, and those who have participated in any of the Restore writing workshops, are invited to read at the spoken word gathering. To sign up as a reader, email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

Clive Matson is a long-time Bay Area author, poet and facilitator. He uses a methodology based on his book “Let the Crazy Child Write!” to allow writers to delve into their unconscious and express that itch or urge that the creative unconscious wants to release.

Matson’s workshops focus on writing and sharing with positive feedback, providing a safe and encouraging environment for writers of all levels of experience.

As Matson expresses it, “We recognize three voices in the writer’s psyche: ‘Editor,’ ‘Writer’ and ‘Crazy Child’ – or creative unconscious. The Editor is the ‘should ‘ voice, as in: you should write everything perfectly the first time, you should make money with your writing, and, you should make no spelling errors. The Writer organizes your writing life, finds blank paper and pens that work, makes time to sit at the computer or go to a coffeehouse with a notebook. The Crazy Child is the urge to write, that itch in your psyche or body that wants to get out into the world. We’ll tell the Editor and Writer to take a walk and let your Crazy Child write whatever it wants.”

To learn more about Clive Matson, check out his Web site at http://matsonpoet.com/.

Restore Writers’ Workshop participants will have opportunity to contribute to MAC’s second chapbook of writings and images, and to participate in quarterly readings or exhibition. In addition to welcoming submissions for the chapbook, participants are invited to join the curatorial team. The first chapbook, “Resilience – a community reframes disaster through art,” is available for purchase at MAC or on the MAC Web site. The next Restore reading will be June 1, at the opening of the 2019 EcoArts Sculpture Walk.

The Restore Project provides Lake County residents with low-cost art classes and the opportunity to learn or refine skills in a variety of materials and techniques. Classes in sculpture, mixed media, printmaking or creative writing are offered most weekends on Saturday or Sunday through May 2019 from 1 to 5 p.m.

Upcoming classes include “Vertical Pathways” for Rabbit Hill, led by Emily Schiebel on Sunday March 31, and again on April 14. This collaborative project involves vertical sculptures in natural wood and concrete. Adults and children age 11 and up are encouraged to participate one or several times.

Saturday, April 6, features wood and linocut printmaking with John Jennings, and on Sunday, April 7, Laura Kennedy will lead a 3D mixed media workshop. Please visit www.middletownartcenter.org/restore, to learn more, stay up to date on class schedules, and preregister.

The Restore project was made possible with support from the California Arts Council, a state agency, with additional support from local organizations, businesses, and individuals. Visit www.ca.arts.gov to learn more about the California Arts Council’s important work in communities and schools throughout California.

The MAC Gallery is now showing “Living Color,” a vibrant collection of artwork. The gallery is open Thursdays, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Fridays, 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.; Saturdays, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.; Sundays, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.; or by appointment. Be sure to stop in and see the exhibit.

Middletown Art Center is located at 21456 State Highway 175 at the junction of Highway 29. Be a part of the growing arts scene in South Lake County by becoming a MAC member, by joining the folks at MAC this weekend or by attending one of the many arts and cultural events or classes offered at MAC. Visit www.middletownartcenter.org or “Like” Middletown Art Center on Facebook to stay up-to-date with what’s happening at MAC.

LAKEPORT, Calif. – Join in on the piano fun at Lakeport’s Soper Reese Theatre on Saturday, March 23, at 7 p.m. and enjoy a hella great concert featuring top soulful piano masters who will cover everything from boogie woogie to blues, swing, and New Orleans soul.

Featured pianists are Lady Bianca, Wendy DeWitt, Sue Palmer and Paul Kemp.

Tickets are $25, 20 and $15. All seats reserved. The show is a concert format; the dance floor will not be open. Reserve your seat now for a stomping good time.

Tickets are available at www.soperreesetheatre.com; or at The Travel Center, 1265 S. Main St., Lakeport, Monday through Friday, from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.; or at the theatre Box Office up to two hours before show time.

Artists will be at four pianos across the stage, trading off leading each other, with a rhythm section provided by the legendary drummer Kirk Harwood (Norton Buffalo, Roy Rogers). The show brings together a stage full of award winning artists who know how to touch your heart and stir your soul.

A noted songwriter and world class performer, Lady Bianca has toured with Sly and Family Stone, Frank Zappa and Van Morrison, including an appearance at Royal Albert Hall in London. She recorded with Taj Mahal, Van Morrison and Merle Haggard, and is in The Blues Hall of Fame.

Wendy DeWitt played with Hank Ballard and Otis Rush, and performs at concerts throughout the U.S. and Europe. For 15 years she produced The Queens of Boogie Woogie show, and is now producing the Seventh Annual San Francisco International Boogie Woogie Festival. Wendy is recently back from the Legendary Rhythm & Blues Cruise, and Mustique Blues Festival.

Known for her beehive-wearing stint with blues diva Candye Kane in the '90's, Sue Palmer has performed with Marcia Ball, Lou Ann Barton, Kim Wilson, Hadda Brooks and Sonny Leyland. San Diego's Queen of Boogie Woogie has been honored with a win from the International Blues Challenge for Best Self Produced CD and Best Blues Album, San Diego Music Hall of Fame, and the "Jim Croce Award for Excellence and Dedication to Music”.

Paul Kemp’s performance background includes Broadway musicals, churches, theaters, night clubs, symphony orchestras, and street corners. With musical partner, Machiko Shimada, Paul performs Supper Jazz every Sunday evening at the Blue Wing Saloon in Upper Lake where he is Music Director. The duo produces a monthly radio show, Live from the Blue Wing, in its fifth year, with a roster of world-class guest artists.

KELSEYVILLE, Calif. – The award-winning Southern gospel group “Southern Raised” is making a return visit to Kelseyville, where it will perform a free concert for the community this week.

The group will perform in the Kelseyville Presbyterian Church Fellowship Hall, 5340 Third St.

Doors open at 6:30 p.m., with the concert beginning at 7 p.m.

Admission is free, with a love offering to be taken.

Southern Raised is a family band from Branson, Missouri. It includes three sisters and a brother – Lindsay, Sarah, Emily and Matt Reith.

The band won the 2018 Diamond Award for best bluegrass gospel group of the year.

Learn more about them at their Web site, http://southernraisedbluegrass.com/.

LAKEPORT, Calif. – Clear Lake High School will present the musical “Beauty and the Beast” from Friday, March 22, through Sunday, March 24.

The show will take place at the MAC theater at the high school, 350 Lange St.

Show times are 7 p.m. Friday and Saturday, and 1 p.m. Saturday and Sunday.

Tickets cost $15 for reserve seating, $10 for general admission and $5 for students.

Presale tickets are available in the Clear Lake High School office.

For more information call 707-262-3010.

Pauletta Hansel lives in Cincinnati, and today's poem is from her book “Palindrome,” from Dos Madres Press in Loveland, Ohio.

It's a collection of poems about her mother's dementia, and although there have been many individual poems about that subject, by many poets, I know of no other book by just one poet that so completely and artfully sums up the emotions associated with that painful deterioration.

The View from There

Where in the world
does my mother go, eyes
shut so tight her lower lashes
curl in toward a view
that's hers alone?
Yesterday she told
me—after the rains, the winds
came, and this morning
that's what they do.

American Life in Poetry does not accept unsolicited manuscripts. It is made possible by The Poetry Foundation, publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln. Poem copyright ©2017 by Pauletta Hansel, "The View from There," from Palindrome, (Dos Madres Press, 2017). Poem reprinted by permission of Pauletta Hansel and the publisher. Introduction copyright ©2019 by The Poetry Foundation. The introduction’s author, Ted Kooser, served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006.

KELSEYVILLE, Calif. – Singer/songwriters Misner & Smith will bring their electrifying music to the Coffeehouse Concert on Saturday, March 30, at Fore Family Winery on Main Street in Kelseyville.

The concert begins at 7 p.m.

Misner & Smith’s music is a combination of soaring vocal harmonies, extremely tight instrumental arrangements, and story-filled, poetic songwriting.

The duo’s sound harkens back to the bedrock of American rock & folk, but the diversity of styles and genres are one of the things that set them apart.

They can shake the walls like a freight train and then quiet the room to a whisper in a single song.

Hailing from Northern California, Misner & Smith’s concert will offer “some of the most electrifying music on the scene today,” according to concert organizer Michael Richeson.

Tickets are $15 and are available in advance at Watershed Books in Lakeport, at www.uuclc.org and a few at the door. There is limited seating.

The concert is sponsored by the Unitarian Universalist Community of Lake County and hosted by Fore Family Wines.