Arts DEVOté

Joining the horsey set Checked out Friends of the Arts’ Chico Palio on Saturday, and what I saw—a couple dozen arts organizations, an energetic Chico Children’s Choir, A Full Force Dance Co. break dancer spinning on his head, a giant metal spinning cube, real live horses and one bitchin’ Pokey horse with a Gumby brand on its hind-quarter—was impressive. If you’ve got a heart, then this Artoberfest/Chico Palio thing just might be a part of you.

Smashing! Local mosaic queen Robin Indar is breaking tile on a new public art project, and this one is literally out of this world. The Chico Community Observatory in Upper Park has added the “world’s first” outdoor planetarium next to its current indoor facility, and Indar is going to add “hand-made comet and asteroid tiles to go the entire length of over 100 square feet, and some pretty spiffy black and silvery grey glazed tiles to break up and serve as a night-sky backdrop.” The project needs your support. To help, send donations to the North Valley Community Foundation (in the memo field, write “Observatory Mosaic Project”) c/o Kris Koenig, Observatory Director, 35 Heritage Lane, Suite 8, Chico, CA 95926. For more info, go online: www.chicoobservatory.com/open_sky_planetarium.htm.

Live at Shasta College You know you got a good thing going when you start a poster-making business in 1879 and some 125 years later Destiny’s Child is one of your clients. Starting with a handbill for a lecture by Henry Ward Beecher (Harriet Beecher Stowe’s bro), the Nashville-based Hatch Show Prints has cranked out distinctive letterpress posters for everything from early vaudeville and silent films to Johnny Cash and Coldplay. Through Nov. 9, Shasta College up in Redding will feature Show Prints and Monoprints from the Hatch shop. Shasta College Art Gallery, 11555 Old Oregon Trail, Redding. (530) 225-4761.

Save your Voice Youth on the Ridge is holding a subscription drive to keep its bi-monthly youth-focused arts and literature magazine Voice in circulation. Do your part to help the mission to “inspire, encourage and enable creative youth” (and get a little tax deduction) by sending in $36 for a one-year subscription. Youth on the Ridge, 5533-B Skyway, Paradise, CA, 95969. (530) 872-2427. www.youthontheridge.com.

Jason Cassidy is a former CN&R arts editor and current calendar editor, and is on the board of the 1078 Gallery.