The Board of Directors of the Arts Council of Mendocino County is pleased to announce the 2024/2025 Mendocino County Arts Champion Honorees.
Arts Champions, nominated each year by community members and selected by the Arts Council board, are recognized in the following categories: Artist: Lonnie Lopez; Business: Braggadoon; Education: Krenov School of Fine Woodworking/Laura Mays; Individual: Lolli Jacobsen; Arts Organization: Art Explorers. The honorees this year were nominated in October 2024, in honor of National Arts and Humanities Month and the announcement is occurring to coincide with California Arts Culture and Creativity Month and a proclamation was issued by the City of Ukiah on April 16, 2025.
Lonnie Lopez was born in Los Angeles in 1972, but has lived in Ukiah since 1976. His artistic journey started at the Co-op Nursery school by Todd Grove Park when he was given tempera paints, and he still marvels at their beauty. His preferred medium today is oil paints, and occasionally watercolors.
He uses acrylics when he’s painting murals, and also loves to draw with charcoal or pastel. Lopez is self-taught, with portraits being his favorite subject, and landscapes a close second. He has won ribbons in the Mendocino Open Plein Air Paint competition, including an Artist’s Award. Lopez hopes to spend more time painting the dynamic landscapes of Mendocino County in the near future.
He has been doing professional work since the mid 1990s, from illustration jobs to creating wine labels, to private commissions, to large scale mural jobs. For the better part of the last seven years he has been teaching art for Ukiah Unified School District, and recently the Mendocino County Office of Education. Lopez tries to inspire his students to embrace their own creative powers and enjoy the process of making beautiful things by hand. He believes the arts are essential to children’s well-being, and feels very privileged to be in the position to guide them as their teacher.
In his free time, Lopez has been working on medium to larger scale oil paintings and drawings of Native American culture, and generally Western-themed work. He plans on having a show when he has enough pieces completed. Many of his favorite artists are in the Western Genre, and he was fortunate enough to visit Santa Fe and Taos, New Mexico this year. Maynard Dixon and Nicolai Fechin are a couple of his favorites that worked there. He also generally loves Tonalism, American Impressionism, Art Nouveau and the Art Deco movements. Find more of his work at lonnielopezart.com
Braggadoon, honoree in the Business Category, is celebrating 20 years of creative collaboration with local artists, organizations, and small businesses on the Mendocino Coast and beyond. What started as a small signs and graphics studio founded by Alan Ferguson in 2005, has grown into a full-service creative agency, employing many local artists who are dedicated to fine craftsmanship.
Current owner, Kiersten Hanna, relocated to the coast from Redwood Valley in 2013 to take on the business when Alan died suddenly. Braggadoon had been hired to produce some elements for the “Woven Worlds” permanent Native American exhibit at the County Museum, which Kiersten designed. Hanna recalls: “It was a huge leap of faith, but the community was extremely supportive, and the need for the services which Braggadoon provided was so great, it was worth the long days and nights teaching myself all of the things Alan couldn’t.”
As Creative Director of Braggadoon, Kiersten acts as liaison between her clients and creative staff. A great lover of people with a highly refined eye for design, Kiersten shines light on the small businesses and independent artists who make Mendocino County such a magical place to live. With a background in fine art photography, museum curatorship and graphic design, she has the creative means to help her clients bring their vision to fruition. Art direction, logo design, and archival quality art printmaking are just some of the tricks she has up her sleeve. A Michigan girl originally, Hanna’s Midwestern work ethic, generosity of spirit, and enthusiasm for helping others are downright infections.
As Owner and Creative Director of Fort Bragg creative services agency, Braggadoon, Kiersten Hanna is a central figure in the Fort Bragg and Mendocino County art and culture scene. Her agency’s wide array of creative offerings includes art direction, logo design, archival quality print production and creative signage. “Being a graphics shop in a town on the edge of nowhere, Braggadoon has to be a little bit of everything for everyone in the community,” says Kiersten. From business signage to props for local theater productions, Kiersten and Braggadoon truly can be said to influence the entire look of the town. https://www.braggadoon.com
Krenov School of Fine Woodworking is the honoree in the Education Category. In the late 1970s James Krenov had become quite known in the woodworking world, mainly for his books, but also for his teaching. Originally trained in Sweden at the Malmsten School. He traveled to various parts of the US, including Mendocino County to share his knowledge and skills to a growing audience. In the late 1970s a local group of woodworkers convinced the College of the Redwoods to start a fine woodworking program in Fort Bragg under Krenov’s guidance. The woodshop was soon designed and built according to his specifications and the curriculum was developed based on his teaching. The first year began in the fall of 1981 under the title College of the Redwoods Fine Woodworking Program, and has had a strong presence in the woodworking world ever since. Krenov continued to build furniture while teaching until he retired in 2002. His work and his students have been featured in numerous galleries and exhibitions throughout the country as this school has gained a reputation of being one of the top woodworking schools in the U.S.
Over the years the school has changed very little in its methods, although the staff and students have. Every year a new crop of woodworkers begin their journey of learning the art of fine furniture. All of our staff were students of Jim and while their work varies in style, the fingerprints of the school can be found in much of their work. The school strives to carry on the tradition of excellence in both design and craftsmanship. The evidence of their success can be found every year in work on display during their annual exhibitions. https://thekrenovschool.org
In 2016 the school transferred administrations and became part of Mendocino College, renamed the Krenov School. A recent article in the Mendocino Voice features the school: https://mendovoice.com/2025/04/for-the-love-of-wood-krenov-school-forges-passionate-furniture-makers/
Check out the class of 2025 Graduation Show at Highlight Gallery in Mendocino May 17th through May 26 with a reception on May 17th from 4 to 7pm.
Krenov School Program Director, Laura Mays is also honored. Mays assumed the role of director and lead instructor beginning in August, 2011. She was a member of the classes of 2002 and 2003, the last class that Jim Krenov taught and the first without him. Her well-developed views on the importance of craft assures a continuation of qualities that distinguish the work of The Krenov School’s Fine Woodworking students.
Laura’s Website: http://yaffemays.com/
Lolli Jacobsen, honoree in the Individual Category, learned to weave and print fabrics in Copenhagen, Denmark in the late 1960s. She moved to Mendocino in 1973 to teach weekend textile classes at the Mendocino Art Center and was asked to coordinate the textile programs at the Mendocino Art Center, which she did off and on over 30 years.
In 1976 she and Elaine Lackey began the Mendocino Art Center Textile Apprenticeship Program—a combination school and apprenticeship in weaving, fabric printing and dyeing. Lolli simultaneously taught weaving, fabric printing and dyeing, textile history, textile science, and art and craft marketing classes at MAC, College of the Redwoods, Mendocino College, and to various Guilds and groups. Her small business, Mendocino Textiles, produced custom handprinted textiles for shops, galleries, exhibits, as well as other businesses and individuals until the studio burned down in 2017.
She has been a member and held board positions in the Mendocino Coast Handweaver’s Guild (president, programs); the Surface Design Association (Regional Representative, California Representative); Weave A Real Peace (development work in Nicaragua); and Pacific Textile Arts (president, vice president, classes, programs, and gallery coordinator). Her website is http://lolli.mcn.org/
Arts Organization Honoree, Art Explorers, Inc., is a creative arts program and progressive studio in Fort Bragg, California serving neurodivergent and physically disabled adult artists in Mendocino County for the past 25 years. Art Explorers believes that creative thought and expression is a universal right – without rules, restrictions, or cultural boundaries. Their studio is an inclusive space that upholds this belief and their philosophy is rooted in a total respect for individuals and their communities, and in the foundation that all people have a unique artistic voice that deserves to be heard.
Art Explorers facilitates the connections between the studio artists and the greater Mendocino County arts community through a guest artist program, field trips, and the exhibition and sale of artwork in the studio gallery, online, and at local galleries and businesses. With the current Medicaid cuts, Art Explorers is relying on community support now more than ever to keep our doors open. One-time donations, monthly sponsorship, and in-kind donations are ways in which you can support the studio and the community of artists they serve. Find more information on their website: https://www.artexplorers.org/sponsorship
