CSPF Says Goodbye to Huell Howser

It is with great sadness that we must say goodbye to Huell Howser. Huell was a great friend to California state parks and CSPF.  He brought enormous enthusiasm and skill to the telling of state parks’ stories.  Huell showed California’s state parks to millions of viewers, and we are grateful for his many years of support for our parks.

In addition to “California’s Gold,” Huell ran a series from 2002 to 2010 called “California’s Golden Parks,” which showcased different state parks each month. You can read more about the “California’s Golden Parks” episodes here: calgold.com/goldenparks or watch them here: parks.ca.gov/video_parks.

Here’s an excerpt from a classic visit to Mono Lake Tufa State Natural Reserve:

 

We will all remember him with great fondness.

Holiday Fun with California State Parks

It’s the most wonderful time of the year to visit state parks!

California Department of Parks and Rec came out with a great blog post about which state parks are holding holiday-themed events.

Check out the list of events here: Holiday Fun with California State Parks.

More money, more problems

As we reported a few weeks ago, it was discovered and publicly disclosed that the Department of Parks and Recreation (DPR) had been hiding approximately $54 million in surplus funds for the past 12 years.  The parks community was shocked, surprised and angry to discover this news.  Why have we fought so hard against park closures and budget cuts when there was more money available to DPR?

Sonoma Coast State Beach. Photo by Mike Ryan.

Now that the dust has settled a little and audits are underway, it is clear to us the money that was “discovered” may or may not be used for its intended purpose: for the maintenance of our state parks.  It is up to the Legislature where that money should go, a decision they must make in the next 9 days before the legislative session ends for the year.

We are lobbying the Legislature to allocate the recently-identified $20.3 million in funding from the State Parks and Recreation Fund (SPRF) for use in state parks.  SPRF money comes from state park fees for day-use admission or parking, overnight camping or boating, and more.  We are concerned that the SPRF money is becoming a tempting target for budget raiding. After more than 14 months of tremendous work in communities around the state to keep our parks open, it would only add insult to injury for the Legislature to put those funds elsewhere or, even worse, claim to put them into state parks but simply reduce the park system’s General Fund allocation at the same time.

That said, we are asking for help in urging legislators to maintain access and support for California’s state parks by directing the recently-identified and unspent state park funds back into the state park system. Please join more than 3,000 park advocates who have already take action and use our online system to send a message to your legislators and the governor urging them to allocate these funds back into our state park system.

Your action is extremely important, as policymakers are expected to make a decision in the next week about how to allocate this funding.

Murmurs of Generosity

We at CalPark Voices love sharing the stories of those artists who use their creative talents to help state parks in unique ways. Today we have a new artist to add to the Awesome Artist Hall of Fame.

Katherine Kean is a painter who was inspired to donate the proceeds of her newest art exhibit to CSPF.

“As an environmentalist, I believe in promoting the protection of birds and other wildlife through education, art, and restoration, as well as promoting a sustainable future for California while re-connecting people to the intrinsic beauty of the environment,” said Katherine.  “My contributions to the California State Parks Foundation will continue as work from this series continues to sell.”

Her exhibit, Murmuration, is a series of paintings exploring the kinetic character of birds and nature. First exhibited at TAG Gallery at Bergamot Station in Santa Monica, CA this spring, a portion of the exhibition has moved on to be a part of a group exhibition at The Modest Fly Art Studio Gallery in Tujunga, CA.

SIDENOTE: If you don’t know what a Murmuration is, watch this and this!

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To depict the beauty and sensation of the flock’s aerial choreography, Katherine paints the birds, glazes them over, then repaints. She repeats the process several times to allow the edges to blur and, when appropriate, disappear into the background. As a result, what first appears as a smudge in the evening sky gradually takes shape, forming and reforming, occasionally allowing a wing, beak, or tail to stand out from the fluctuating chaos.

Extending the idea and organization of flocking birds, many of the paintings in this exhibition also form parts of a whole. Among the paintings are two triptychs, a two-piece modular painting, and a series of small squares that can be re-arranged to form various patterns of bird flight.

“At a particular time at the end of the day birds gather in large numbers and swoop back and forth across the sky, emerging from the dusk like a dark cloud and creating elegant patterns against the fading light,” said Katherine. “How and why they do this is a mystery, but whatever the reason this behavior is compelling to observe as individual birds disappear into the whole and become part of something larger.”

Thank you to Katherine for choosing CSPF as a beneficiary of your beautiful artwork!

Read more about Katherine’s work on her website.

Watch the ‘California Forever’ Trailer

“There are very few things in life that are able to span centuries.” This documentary, “California Forever,” shows us why California state parks do.

California Forever is a two-part documentary series about California state parks coming soon to PBS in Fall 2012, presented by KQED, San Francisco. For more information visit cal4ever.com/.

California Forever is produced by Backcountry Pictures – where the story begins at the end of the road.

California State Parks Foundation is proud to support this project.

Parks Are For Fun!

Despite our ongoing messaging of park closures these days, we also like to maintain an element of fun, because that’s what parks are for! One of our favorite fun moments every year is our ParkFilm Fest, and it is coming up this Saturday.

Come to watch a three-part Pirates of the Caribbean movie marathon on the big screen at Paramount Studios’ Bronson Theater in L.A., AND meet the real pirated of Capt. Jack Sparrow’s crew between films! (Seriously, the actors are coming. Yes, you can get autographs.)

Other fun highlights will include: walking the red carpet, free popcorn, pirate booty, green screen photos, food truck, cash bar, autographs and Q&A with six Pirates cast members, and Paramount tram tours for those who buy package tickets.

The best part of all? Proceeds from the event go to CSPF to help offset severe state budget cuts that threaten all California state parks.  Get tickets online before Friday night, or get them at the door on Saturday.

 

Fun Bonus: Tomorrow is casual Friday, which means you might find out membership department in (inadvertently) matching footwear, per usual.

The CSPF Membership Department in matching Chuck Taylors. No, it wasn’t planned!

Volunteer for Earth Day with David Chokachi

Chokachi for Earth Day

CSPF and our friend David Chokachi invite you to help state parks this Earth Day by volunteering with us in a park near you.

This year is our 15th Annual Earth Day Restoration & Cleanup on Saturday April 14, 2012. We have volunteer projects planned at state parks all across the state. In a time of budget cuts and staff shortfalls, Earth Day provides an opportunity to get involved in your local community, while helping state parks with long overdue maintenance and improvement projects.

You can register online at calparks.org/earthday or by phone at 1-888-98-PARKS. Come join in the tradition and help preserve California’s state parks.

But don’t take our word for it. David will tell you!

Show us Why You’re Defending State Parks

As you saw last week, we launched our new Defend What’s Yours PSAs and awareness campaign. We’ve had great response from all of you, so thank you for getting involved and sharing these videos with everyone you know!

See the other PSAs here.

Because you have all had some really great things to say about parks and defending what’s yours, we thought it would be fun if YOU make the next video. So here’s what we have in mind:

• Make a video about why you love state parks, or about why you want to defend state parks from closure.
• It doesn’t have to be shot in a state park. Use your web cam if you want! It doesn’t matter, we just want to hear what you have to say because you are passionate about state parks and your voice matters.
• Make the video as short at 10 seconds or as long as you want.
• Don’t worry about being artsy fartsy. It can be raw and sincere and still be totally awesome. Use the Defend What’s Yours image below in your video if you want to brand it to the campaign.
• Upload your video to YouTube and tag us in your description or post it on our Facebook page so we know you made it. (Or if you don’t want to upload it just contact us and we can upload it for you.)  We will share it with our friends and members so we can hear your individual voices.

We hope the Defend What’s Yours campaign has inspired you and that you will “show” us why you are defending state parks!

Defend What’s Yours—Your State Parks

Today we are announcing the launch of a new public awareness campaign called Defend What’s Yours. This is the message we are bringing to the public (in more or less words):

‘California state parks belong to you, but not for long. Six months from now 25 percent of your parks will be closed unless you step up to defend them.’

It’s a strong message, but we believe public awareness is necessary in this moment to empower citizen action and mobilize grassroots support to save the nation’s biggest and best state park system.

As part of the big launch today, we unveiled a new series of television public service announcements (PSAs) that will air statewide starting this week. Take a look at one here:

See the other PSAs on our YouTube channel.

It’s time to say enough is enough. Enjoy the videos, and please join us in this fight to defend state parks. Do you want to be a defender?

California’s Cathedrals: Redwood State Parks

90 percent of California’s original redwood forests are gone, but what remains are protected by a fragile web of California state and national parks. From Big Sur to the Oregon border, these magnificent redwood forest state parks inspire us, and now they need our help. Due to budget cuts, many of California redwood state parks are on the closure list, therefore potentially threatening these ancient and magnificent species. Here are some of the voices of people who know redwoods best, and what their concerns are.

This video is part of The Magnificent 70 project. See more at http://mag70.calparks.org.

Produced by Doug McConnell and Convergence Media.