vote for Gwendolyn Alley

Once again I’m honored to be nominated for a Wine Travel Award as a Wine and Food Influencer in “The Brightest Journey” category— and I’m asking for your vote! Five finalists advance to judging — and how I get there is by your votes! It’s easy!  All you have to do is click this link and vote for me.

Why vote for me? I started Art Predator as a print journalist, moved it to WordPress and now —

• 2022 Winner: JancisRobinson.com Wine Writing Contest; read my winning essay here.
• 2025 Wine Judge: Radici del Sud in Puglia, Italy; read Puglia’s Primitivo is Pretty in Pink: Radici del Sud Outstanding Rosati
• 2025 Wine Judge: Ventura County Fair in 2025; read about the winners here.
• 2025 Italy Wine Press Trips: Montefalco, Chianti, Maremma, Puglia, Emilia-Romagna.
• 2024 Italy Wine Press Trips: Sicily, Campania, Maremma.
• 2023 Italy Wine Press Trips: Abruzzo, Veneto, Maremma.
• 2023 Portugal Press Trip: Alentejo.
• 2022 Italy Wine Press Trips: Piemonte, Garda, Valtellina, Trento.

Montefalco, Umbria

Because in addition to writing Art Predator, I’m also the Wine Predator where I’ve published over 1450 blog posts about wine, wine travel, and wine/food pairings, often with recipes. Here are links to a selection of articles I’m published on Wine Predator in 2025:

• Feb.14, 2025: A Love Letter to an Italian Grape plus Vineyard Visits with Maremma Winemaker Antonella Manuli
• July 26, 2025: An Invite to Umbria, A Visit to Montefalco’s Cocco Ilaria, and a Pairing: Orange Spoletino “Ponderata” Paired with Peach Salad + Carbonara
• May 22, 2025: Visiting Tuscan Vineyards and Enjoying La Maliosa’s Procanico to Celebrate World Biodiversity Day

Vote Gwendolyn Alley

As a freelance journalist, I published several articles in 2025 including:

• From March 20, 2025 VC Reporter— Grape to glass gals: Women winemakers leading the way in Ventura County’s natural wine industry
• From April 2025 VC Reporter —Al Fresco with Flowers: Local spots for a wildflower picnic
  plus this companion article on Wine Predator with extended tasting and pairing notes  and photos
• From April 2025 Ventana — Immersive Experience –Tuscany Travel pages 20-22
• From May 2025 Ventana— Adventure Uncorked pages 8-10

I’ve also done a few video and audio interviews including this 30 minute podcast with Nadine Piche of Ventura Vibe! about wine tasting which you can listen to here.

Gwendolyn Alley

Your vote for me will advance me to the final round where the judges will evaluate finalists and decide on a winner; just click this link— NOW!  Voting continues until March 31, 2026, but it would mean the world to me if you’d just click the link and vote NOW. Then I would be forwarded to the judges who will make a final decision. Winners will be announced June 17 in France.

The Wine Travel Awards provide “a unified advertising and information campaign in different countries to draw attention to the nominees: people, regions, wines and local products” with the goal to form “a friendly community of wine & wine tourism professionals created to share opinions, knowledge, and information.” And YOU can vote for ME! After the March public voting period ends, “five nominees with the highest amount of public votes in each category will be forwarded to the WTA Jury Panel, who will have an honourable mission to choose the best of the best.”

Your vote matters! Thank you!

Vote for Gwendolyn for a Wine Travel Award

Love at dawn at Burning Man in 2014 phot by Gwendolyn Alley

In advance of Valentine’s Day, we did some fun writing activities in my college composition classes at Ventura College, and I shared some of my writing and my writing process as well. Since the students this week were writing about the writing process and writing practice, it was particularly appropriate. Below is one of the poems I shared from a class publication of many years ago which I hope will inspire them for the class publication we will do at the end of the semester. Here’s a link to my poem “kisses” also; I had students close their eyes and I put a chocolate kiss in their hands! They then used their sense to explore this “kiss” and later I shared my poem which you can also find below.

Art Predator and Daily in Love at 2014 Burning Man

Practice

When you don’t know I’m watching
and I see you like this the cigarette
between your thumb and forefinger like so
drawing in so deeply your eyes squint
your whole body even folding
squeezing every last bit of intimate
pleasure out of the nicotine:

I want to do it too
I want to inhale leaning into the cigarette
breathing in expanding opening savoring

I want to take something deeply passionately
to consume and be consumed
and wonder whether I could have
a sunset or a sunrise in that way:

to take it between my thumb and forefinger
and squeeze it to my lips
take its orange luminescence and taste it
suck it down into my lungs my belly
become full of it full with it swoon with it

Or a rose bush? Could I approach
a rose bush pinch a rose between my fingers
and draw it in draw it deep into my lungs
inhaling it with as much desire as you do your cigarette

If I did this a few times at first
you know after sex after meals with drinks
maybe with my morning coffee or while I’m stuck in traffic
would I become addicted resorting to hunting out rosebushes
to find my brand to get my fix?

If I didn’t get that daily sunrise or sunset
would I get cranky? short tempered?
addicted? would it become a habit? a reflex?

Would I forget to draw in intensely like you do
embracing it breathing it into my entire body
sucking the pleasure out of it
or would it just suck the pleasure out of me?

This more than any other reason is why I will never do it—
I will just watch you when you don’t know I am watching
taking in this intimate pleasure through you
savoring it with you being reminded by you
the practice of being in this moment.

Kisses by Gwendolyn Alley as published in Art/Life Limited Editions

Becoming Michelle Obama

It’s the 100th anniversary of Black History Month this year!

While there’s hundreds of ways to celebrate, watching Becoming, the documentary about Michelle Obama’s life based on her autobiography, is a great way to celebrate the 100th Anniversary of Black History Month. In 1926, 100 years ago, Black History Month began as “Negro History Week” and 50 years later, became Black History Month in 1976.  February was chosen in part because of Douglass Day, held on Feb. 14 to honor the chosen birthday of Frederick Douglass. Read more here.

“If we can open up a little bit more to each other, and share our stories, that’s what breaks down barriers,” Ms Obama says in the documentary; watch the trailer here.

Black History Month

“Black History Month grew from the bottom up, from grassroots organizing and centuries of intellectual and political struggle,” according to Jarvis R. Givens professor of education and African and African American studies at Harvard University and author of I’ll Make Me a World: The 100-Year Journey of Black History Month. Read the complete interview here.

While Black History Month also serves to recognize the everyday contributions of Black men and women, it also honors better known figures including Michelle Obama, the first Black First Lady, and author of the bestselling memoir Becoming.

Considered by reviewers as intimate, powerful, and inspiring, the 2018 memoir by the former First Lady of the United States chronicles the experiences that shaped her from growing up on the South Side of Chicago to her education to dating Barack Obama to raising their daughters in the White House— and more. Her stories of her triumphs and disappointments landed her memoir on the New York Times and other bestseller lists where it moved to the number one spot, and became an Oprah’s Book Club Pick, an NAACP Image Award winner, and one of Essence’s 50 most impactful Black books of the past 50 years.

A 2020 documentary follows Michelle Obama on her cross-country book tour and her reflections about her life; Netflix describes it as “part biography, part meditation on what it means to be first lady of the United States” and notes “this documentary, directed by Nadia Hallgren (Victoria Beckham), was nominated for four Emmy Awards and a Grammy.”

Michelle Obama promo still from Netflix

Black Girl Magic sparkling + truffles

Black Girl Magic zin

More ideas for consideration this month to celebrate Black History:

• Buy ingredients from a BIPOC owned business or a BIPOC maker.
• Order takeout from a BIPOC owned restaurant.
• Buy a cookbook from a BIPOC author and make a recipe.
• Learn about the amazing contributions of Black Americans to our food culture and cook a traditional dish.
• Cook a recipe from a BIPOC blogger, for example, from Best Meatloaf Recipe – From The Queen of Soul Food Cooking or Dude That Cooks..
•  Support one of these 23 Black Owned Wine Businesses in the US
• The Urban Grape, a Black owned wine shop in Boston, has a collection of wines from BIPOC Producers.
• 11 BIPOC Owned Wine Brands from Well + Good

How will you be celebrating Black History Month?

Nova pneumonia

Happy Thanksgiving! I have lots to be grateful for, including Nova’s pneumonia recovery! It’s slow, but steady, and she’s strong girl with a sweet soul. It was great to get her back home again and out of the hospital! She has a long journey ahead for a full recovery, and I’ll admit, it was very stressful and scary for those of us who have fallen in love with Nova. Once she came back to my house, I watched her closely, wiped her nose, gave her medicines by hand wrapped in wet food which I would warm with hot water. Plus I would stay up late checking on her and bring her to go outside for potty breaks, I’d wake in the night to check on her, and I’d get up early in the morning to make sure she got her meds on schedule. Fortunately, her appetite is back, and she is sleeping well.

a monarch flutters in the sun

Fighting pneumonia wore her out, so she’s resting a lot, and her walks are brief like a little walk to watch the Monarch Butterflies in Prince Barranca and to walk on the cool soft grass in Ocean Ave Park. As we strolled up the gentle path from the park toward Thompson , she enjoyed smelling the plants which is a great sign that her nostrils are clearing!! She’s still on quarantine (for awhile!) and she is starting to wag her tail more and showing joy in her step as we walk. If you’ve ever been really sick like pneumonia you know that it will take awhile… and more doctors visits and meds and X-rays  to confirm when the pneumonia is completely gone. Two strong antiibiotics, Clavamox and Baytril, help, and she will have continued medical expenses for on-going vet care and x-rays for the next few weeks. Thank you for helping us to give Nova the urgent medical care she needs. If you can, please DONATE and SHARE NOVA’S fundraiser: https:gofund.me/a7f4db918

Montefalco, Umbria

I’m grateful also for the amazing wine travel experiences I had during a series of press trips in Italy and Austria to meet winemakers and taste their wines in Tuscany, Umbria, Puglia, Emilia-Romagna, and Vienna during seven weeks from mid-May until early July. My vineyard visits included this one in Montefalco, Umbria where I found a bee seeking sustenance from a flower in the final moments of the day in Umbria, Italy at Cantina Antonelli during our final evening with members of Consorzio Tutela Vini Montefalco. I was delighted to learn on this trip that so many wineries like this one in the region are already organic or in conversion to organic production for wine, olive oil, and other artisan products. This was a very rewarding and eye opening few days here in Montefalco with gorgeous views and beautiful wines, people, and cuisine! 

I’m grateful to my friends and family and to readers like you too! Thank you all for your support!

sunset in Montefalco, Umbria at Cantina Antonelli

Nova

Nova –my recent rescue — was to be killed in San Bernardino, basically because she had mange, a non-contagious treatable stress related illness. All For Love Animal Rescue saved her, but as she had been exposed to pneumonia from a dog that died, I was asked to foster Nova (read more here). Once AFLAR volunteer Nick gave her a bath to remove the crusty mange, and treated her with hemp oil, she smelled sweet, and she was so much more comfortable. She is such a snuggler! Such a loving sweet soul and a great girl!

Nova

We went out for brief walks between rainstorms, and when the weather cleared up on Friday, we hiked at the Ventura Botanical Gardens. Saturday she had a big adventure, and she was full of life. 

Sadly, Sunday we woke to find a very sick dog.

Nova

I spent yesterday at the vet’s in Thousand Oaks, the closest that was open that could take her in. We had to wait outside for an hour because of fears she was contagious, and then we waited another hour together inside before they led her away to a quarantined kennel (and omg it was COLD in there!). I waited another two hours to hear how she was — hoping to take her home with me that night. They finally sent me away as they knew she’d need to stay overnight — and today, Monday.

Why? Nova has pneumonia– which killed Prince just a few days before. The rescue is doing everything possible to save her life, sparing no expense. (Can you help?) She spent the night in an oxygen chamber, with an IV, meds, everything she needed, everything the doctor could think of to save her young life. 

Nova’s treatment has already cost over $4000 and there’s a fundraiser to raise $8k for her care. She’s doing better, but she’s not out of the woods yet.  If there’s any money left, there’s lots of other vet bills for other rescue dogs coming due.

To donate or for updates about Nova, please go to the fundraising website  https://gofund.me/b2cbaa1ff While Nova has barely been part of my life, she already had a large impact. Please help if you can.

At Ventura College, I teach students to name a problem, reflect on solutions, and take action. I walk the talk. It’s not always easy. 

There are so many problems in the world and only so much time to tackle them.  We each only have 24 hours in the day. How should we spend our precious moments? We all do what we can– when and how we can. We do our best to recycle, conserve water, to pick up litter, to leave no trace. These are important but small.

If you can help save an animal’s life, or improve it, do it. 

Here’s to Nova’s  finding her forever furever family!
And here’s to all you SUPER NOVAs everywhere seeking to save our world!

Please donate to help with Nova’s hospital bills:
https://gofund.me/360157150

Thank you!

Nova

Nova

Nova is a rescue. She was listed to be killed a few days ago in San Bernardino, along with another dog Prince, but a Ventura County organization called All For Love Animal Rescue picked them up and brought them back to a shelter in Santa Paula where they were checked and treated by a vet. Nova has mange which is treatable and not contagious but makes her very itchy. Prince had an eye injury caused by another dog in San Bernardino.

Nova in her cozy crate

However, soon after the vet check, Prince came down with pneumonia and succumbed to it yesterday. Nova went to the vet to make sure was not also sick, was given meds just in case, but was not allowed back to the shelter in case she was contagious.

Nova recently had pups, and her ribs are showing too

That’s where I came in. I’ve rescued and helped with several emergencies with their dogs, so they called me and of course I said yes. So that is how Nova came into my life.

Nova exploring her new neighborhood

I was notified in the afternoons, and so had some time to prepare the house for our new guest: crate, pillows, food, toys. Nova arrived at dinner time, and we soon learned that while very smelly, she’s a sweet soul, gentle on the leash, no interest in chasing the cat, hungry for food and affection, only 50#. Her stress related skin condition will heal with care and attention. Amazing that she was going to be killed at the San Bernadino shelter just a few days ago which is so heartbreaking because she is such a dear dog, so young but recently had puppies. No idea what her backstory is but she’s said to be good with other dogs.

Here’s to Nova finding her forever family!  

Art Predator aka Gwendolyn Alley at the Buenaventura Art Gallery

Happy Anniversary with WordPress.com!
You registered on WordPress.com 18 years ago.
Thanks for flying with us. Keep up the good blogging.

WordPress 18!

 

And I’m another year older today! Finally legal to vote too! On this Election Day!

Stay tuned and subscribe for more adventures with Art Predator!

And check out Wine Predator too!

CA map of indigenous peoples

“The land knows you, even when you are lost,” writes Robin Wall Kimmerer in Braiding Sweetgrass (36). “The land is the real teacher. All we need as students is mindfulness. Paying attention is a form of reciprocity with the living world,” advises Kimmerer (222).  These are two of my favorite quotes from Braiding Sweetgrass written by Kimmerer, an enrolled member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, and a university professor.

Do you know the land where you live? Do you know who lived where you do before you did? I do: I know many of the plants and animals that live here, and I know I live on Chumash land, a community called Shishilop. Thousands of Chumash lived on this sliver of earth between the hills and the Pacific Ocean, between the Ventura and the Santa Clara Rivers where so much water flowed it created mudflats, and the Chumash who lived here were known as “mud people.” Another 10,000 or so people lived near what’s now known as Port Hueneme, near Malibu.

Late September each year, around the time of the fall equinox, the Chumash held a harvest festival to honor Hutash, Earth Mother. On the hill above Shishilop, they gathered for five days in ceremony paying homage to ancestors, where they left shell money, pine nuts, and they would start the new year in the sycamores. Read more here.

Weshoyot Alvitre

Why do I share this? Now? Because today is Indigenous People’s Day and I want to recognize it by drawing attention to local Ventura County native American artist and writer Weshoyot Alvitre.

Brave by Weshoyot Alvitre

Last spring, Weshoyot Alvitre and I went for a walk in the Ventura hills to talk about her life and her new book “Brave” released April 15! Weshoyot is a prolific, accomplished, and wide ranging artist — from comic books to museum shows to award winning children’s books to fiber artist and so much more. “Brave” is  her debut children’s book where she’s both author and illustrator, but for years she been an award winning artist.

Weshoyot Alvitre

I’ve known Weshoyot for over 6 years — we were even neighbors for a time (and before that I was neighbors with her sister Winona!) So I was really happy the VC Reporter was interested in a story about Weshoyot and her new, beautiful book. Check it out!

Here’s the link to the article I wrote about Weshoyot and her new book. 

Weshoyot’s been involved with a number of children’s books including the award winning “At The Mountain’s Base” which was recognized today by Reading Rainbow:

award winning children’s book illustrated by Weshoyot Alvitre

This semester I am once again doing Book Clubs with my Ventura College students, and one of the choices is Kimmerer’s Braiding Sweetgrass. Students often choose the book after reading an excerpt “Council of Pecans.”

I look forward to their discoveries!

Kimmerer

wishes waiting for the wind at Arroyo Verde Park, Ventura— photo credit Gwendolyn Alley

Wishes waiting for the wind… What are you wishing for? These local and native narrow leaf milkweed plants and seeds represent food and renewal for migrating monarch caterpillars. Migrating birds eat milkweed seeds too, and in spring use the fluffy fibers for nests and insulation. American goldfinches, American tree spenjoys, juncos, and chickadees enoy this energy-rich food source for their migrations and cold months. Do you have native milkweed growing in your garden? Maybe it’s time to plant some!

Here’s a little of what I’m wishing for…

Borderlands: Sending Loving Kindness To The Crossroads

Save Earth For Tomorrow Using Divergent Thinking and Saving Diversity

“Celebrating Indigenous Resilience at Ventura College” Monday, Oct 13, from 10-11:30am at Guthrie Hall.

One last thought — “I’d rather get a Zero than a C”… is this you? Are you a perfectionist? When it comes to taking action, a C is definitely better than a Zero whether it comes to writing or saving the planet or planting a smaller garden or… it’s almost always better to do something than nothing!

So what is the something you wish for that you will do today?

RIP Jane Goodall: “The greatest danger to our future is apathy.”

Jane Goodall by Guerin Black for New York Times

Today October 1, 2025, we lost someone who was truly wild for nature: Jane Goodall.

Today, Dr. Jane Goodall planned to join students and staff at EF Academy Pasadena Campus in Southern California “to share her passion for protecting and restoring nature with local students, who are kicking off an initiative to plant 5,000 trees to replant what was lost during the Eaton Fire.” They carried on without her, and we can too.

The New Yorker Magazine writes on Facebook: “Jane Goodall, who died today, at 91, spent much of her later years travelling around the world to speak about the climate crisis. Everywhere she went, she met young people who were “angry, depressed, or just apathetic, because, they’ve told me, we have compromised their future and they feel there is nothing they can do about it,” she writes in “The Book of Hope: A Survival Guide for Trying Times.”

Jane Goodall hope

Amid flooding and wildfires, impassivity and eco-grief, the question she was asked most often was “Do you honestly believe there is hope for our world?” She did. Hope, she argued, is not merely “passive wishful thinking” but a “crucial survival trait.” She noted, “If you don’t have hope that your action is going to make a difference, why bother to do anything? You just become a zombie.” Read more:  https://newyorkermag.visitlink.me/puCKxb

Hope by Dianne Bennett: see her show at La Luz in LA opening 10/3 and at the Highway 62 open studios show in Joshua Tree this weekend and next

Well, Emily Dickinson wrote that “Hope is the thing with feathers.”

And I invite you to stay hopeful — and celebrate World Migratory Bird Day — where ever you are!

world migratory bird day

migrating birds September 30, 2025

Jane Goodall

• Educate & advocate: raise awareness and support bird-friendly policies.

So if not birds, what animals would you like to help?  how might you help take care of our planet? how can you take action about the climate crisis?

young Jane Goodall

There are plenty of opportunities — and plenty of non-profit groups looking for volunteers to help.

The first step, of course, is to care— to want to do something. Has technology ruptured our connection with our planet to the extent that we know longer care what happens?

What about an ad campaign to get people into NATURE?