This month, Artwalking Radio brings you two guests, Ricardo, and Mike, as we explore their paths traveled and share life experiences - an artist's perspectives. All these guests have incredible histories and fascinating backgrounds, leading them to be passionate artivists artists called to action through their work. Artwalking is grateful to the Laguna Beach Beautification Council as its sponsor, which promotes and advances projects to enhance Laguna's natural and cultural beauty. Artwalking encourages listener support, including organizations and businesses advancing appreciation of natural resources that sustain the beauty of our surrounding environment. Each year, The LBBC recognizes and awards public and private beautification projects. It also acknowledges the Laguna Beach County Water District's generosity in hosting its meetings and awards ceremonies.

RICARDO DUFFY: Ricardo is one of those people we call bi-racial; that is to say, he is a bridge person. Bridge people begin with their legs planted in one place and end up with their arms outstretched to someplace else entirely. For Ricardo, the bridges have spanned the distance between Costa Rica, where he has one residence, and California, where he makes his home in Laguna Beach. The distance underneath, the subterranean land bridge that connects the two Americas, is what Ricardo and his work have come to exemplify: the complex social, political, and infinitely spiritual relationship between the Americas. As all artists choose an approach to expression, Ricarrdo's approach is truly that of the social commentator. He is not tempted by commonplace dialogue with society that gently seduces opinions. His art is more direct in approach and more confrontational. Ricardo often uses gentrified consumerist symbols to illustrate the farce of shat our modern-day monoculture has become. Ricardo toys with the true meanings of words such as alien, migration, class, acculturation, border, and spirit. Ricardo is a self-identified Chicano and freedom fighter at war with growing corporate colonialism and the growing genocide of our earth. Greed is the
cancer his art rebuffs.

MIKE BEANAN: MIke grew up in Northern California in a large working-class family. They camped every summer for two weeks in State Parks and remote national forests so Mike developed a close relationship with Nature. As teens, he and his brothers surfed the cold, wild waves north of Santa Cruz. Leaving high school, he was faced with being immediately drafted for the Vietnam War so he joined the Navy to avoid the Army. Somehow, however, he wound up being assigned to SEAL Team One as a point man and platoon sergeant. The experience made him a lifelong anti-war activist. Leaving the military after turning 21, he pursued an education and eventually became the Assistant Dean at UC Irvine advancing programs to help veterans and other non-traditional students to succeed in their education. While at UCI, as a SCUBA Instructor, Mike developed the first SCUBA Project for paralyzed veterans. Having a strong art background and always loveing the ocean, he moved to Laguna to become an artist and added political cartoons to the Sawdust Festival in 1984. He also remain determined to protect the Greenbelt. His activism included arrest actions to draw media attention to challenging the Toll Road and became part of BC Space's artivism projects.