Meg Clovis -- Growing Eden

The Agricultural Legacy of the Salinas Valley Meg Clovis, Cultural Affairs Manager for Monterey County, will recount the growth of Monterey County’s agricultural development, from mission times through World War II. The Salinas River meanders through the center of a long, lovely valley, sometimes ducking underground in summer. Memorialized by novelist John Steinbeck, and often called the Salad Bowl of the Nation, the Salinas Valley was the site of Spanish Mission Soledad, founded in 1791. During the rancho era, vast herds of cattle waded through grasslands and later, settlers founded towns like Salinas at well-traveled crossroads. Flourishing grain crops attracted the Southern Pacific Railroad, and as track was laid, towns like Chualar, Gonzales, Soledad, King City, San Lucas, San Ardo and Bradley followed in its wake. People of many nationalities came to live and work in settlements such as Fort Romie and Greenfield, where irrigation soaks the dark, fertile loam that now supports a mighty $4.38 billion agricultural industry. Meg Clovis has served as Cultural Affairs Manager for the Monterey County Parks Department since 1981. She is active in Monterey County’s museum and historic preservation communities, serving as staff to the County’s Historic Resources Review Board, the County’s Historical Advisory Commission, as County liaison to the Monterey County Agricultural & Rural Life Museum and serves on the Historic Resources Board for the City of Salinas. She received her B.A. in Art History from Mills College followed by an M.A. in Preservation Studies from Boston University, with an emphasis on American Architectural History. She has written two books on Monterey County history, The Salinas Valley and Monterey County’s North Coast.

Upcoming Lectures

September 17, 2014: Melissa Pickford -- Let the Water Do It, The Life of Watercolor Painter Rollin Pickford Rollin Pickford at work Melissa Pickford, Director of the MPC Art Gallery, will give a talk about her late father, Rollin Pickford> (1912 - 2010), a California plein air artist who painted with watercolor nearly every day for 80 years. Mr. Pickford was a nationally recognized painter whose work is widely collected. His varied expressions in watercolor came out of his great love for the California landscape, and his lifelong desire to preserve our state’s natural beauty as he saw rural areas become increasingly developed. His career included many years of painting outdoors on the Monterey Peninsula. His vastly experimental approach to watercolor includes well-rendered representational scenes as well as highly abstracted works. Most, not all, are based in nature. Some subtle, some dramatic, many saturated with intense color, all are evidence of his indefatigable passion for wet paper, pigment, and brush. Above all, his paintings are about atmosphere and light. Ms. Pickford will share her father’s paintings, writing, and stories, as well as the book, California Light: The Watercolors of Rollin Pickford. She will also screen segments from the PBS film, Master of Light: The Life and Watercolors of Rollin Pickford. Through original paintings, video, and music, we will enjoy a daughter’s intimate portrait of her father’s extraordinary life and legacy. Mellisa Pickford Melissa Pickford has a B.A. in Art History from Boston University, and California teaching credentials from UC Santa Cruz. She spent 15 years teaching Art and Art History to children and adults, worked for many years at the Monterey Museum of Art, and has been curating exhibits at the MPC Art Gallery for the last 10 years.