Tuesday, Aug. 2, 2011 • Village Showcase addresses void in community for young local artists

Publisher’s note: This story originally appeared in the Tuesday, Aug. 2, 2011, edition of the Lassen County Times.

A conversation on a cold spring day has blossomed into the Village Showcase, a series of summer events that has galvanized the artistic talents of Lassen County’s youth.

That conversation, between musician Dennis Hinze and Village Showcase founder Jordan Drury, began by addressing a void in the community.

“We talked about how there isn’t much for the youth to engage in here,” Drury said. “Lassen County has the symphony, Best of Broadway, Words and Music, but that doesn’t always reach younger people.”

So, Drury and a handful of likeminded community activists created the non-profit organization CaliGrown Productions, whose goal is to create opportunities for local artists to perform in a showcase. So far there have been three Village Showcases featuring songwriters, bands such as Luther Red, and other performers. Poets and visual artists are invited to display their talent as well.

The next Showcase from 12 to 6 p.m. Sunday, Aug. 14, at Memorial Park.

“Village Showcase gives artists a chance to collaborate, and gives the youth a chance to be positively active in giving back to our own community,” Drury said.

Their efforts have been enthusiastically embraced by both Lassen Community College and the members of the Lassen County Arts Council, who have officially endorsed the new group.

“They’re a small group of leaders who have some real vision,” said Carey Templeton, LCAC board member and dean of student services at LCC. “When they came to us and said this is our dream, we immediately said that’s what we’ve been wanting to do too — reach out to the younger community. So we said ‘Yes we’ll work with you.’”

He added, “This is a motivated group of young artists and promoters with good volunteer spirit and an excellent entrepreneurial attitude.”

Another leader at CaliGrown Productions is Angel Kay McGregor, who has found her calling as a community activist.

“We started talking about how everyone in Susanville in our age group has such idle minds,” McGregor said. “There’s nothing they’re interested in, and we thought if we created something for the community they’d have something to do instead of hanging out or getting into trouble.”

Musician and LCAC board member Doug Sheehy acts in an advisory role to the event organizers.

“I became involved at the outset. I loved the energy that they had. And it’s always been a concern of the arts council that we seemed more focused on the older generation. Most of our events have been attended by a 40+ audience. We kept asking, ‘How do we reach our young people?’”

Josh, a volunteer who prefers not to use his last name because of his work with at-risk youth, said he’s involved because their efforts give back to the community.

“I believe the community’s in need of new life,” he said. “We’re also having fun doing it and learning valuable skills. We hope to go big, even national in the future.”

Another goal of the showcase events is to facilitate artists meeting artists.

“Nobody knows about these talented artists,” Drury said. “This is a way for them to promote themselves. “

The group also wants to partner with other groups in the community besides the college and arts communities, such as BACA (Bikers Against Child Abuse).

”We’re very new at this,” Drury said. “We’re still trying to reach out to the community for sponsors.”

Several businesses, including Iron Horse Gym and Customer Talk, have helped out. Any proceeds go back into the arts and education programs of the community.

“We don’t have to be doing this,” Drury said. “We just saw something Susanville needs.”