Oct 16 Networking Mixer at Faye Belardi Gallery with SLV Museum

Join us for a fun and lively networking mixer and exhibition tour at the Faye G. Belardi Gallery in historic downtown Felton Thursday, Oct 16 from 5 to 7:30pm.

View the new exhibit Telling Stories of Mexican California: Real life & Myth Making.

We'll have tasty food, beverages, raffle prizes and the perfect opportunity to network with friends, neighbors, local SLV business owners and community leaders.

We'll learn more about the great work of the SLV Museum and ways to support this community treasure.

Bring your business cards, this is a wonderful networking opportunity!

Event is FREE and open to the public. We'll see you there!

Read more about the museum's latest exhibition:

Contributed by the SLV Museum:

The San Lorenzo Valley Museum has opened an exhibition titled “Telling Stories of Mexican California: Real Life & Myth Making,” at the Faye G. Belardi Memorial Gallery in Felton

This revealing new exhibition highlights the true stories of California’s Mexican period, which lasted from 1822-1846, and holds them up alongside the fantasy depictions used by early stakeholders, who viewed California's history through the lenses of their own experiences and chose to present narratives that suited their purposes. One of the most pervasive narratives was a picture of an idyllic bygone era of ranchos where dons and doñas enjoyed lives of abundance, a memory that fails to include native peoples, Franciscan friars, and hard scrabble facts of early settlements.

“Telling Stories of Mexican California: Real Life & Myth Making” broadly outlines California’s history leading up to statehood as a backdrop to the factual and fictional stories that emerged after the US takeover. It considers nineteenth-century Mexican American individuals and families who told their stories and looks at some of the early narratives that helped create an enduring California mythos, as well as the stories that were ignored in favor of this new, often exaggerated or fictionalized lore. When California became a state, these tales were used by boosters to draw new visitors and settlers, successfully reconfiguring a fearful foreignness into a charming regional identity, one that persists even today.

Though it lasted less than three decades, California’s Mexican period helped shape the distribution of land, wealth, and power after California officially entered the union in 1850. “Telling Stories of Mexican California” reflects on this past, and how romanticized retellings made lasting impacts on the state’s culture and popular understandings of its history.

Related programming will include a talk by UCSC Assistant Professor Dr. Martin Rizzo

Martinez, whose work focuses on Indigenous histories, politics, and stories from 19th

Century California, in October. In addition, from October 27 through November 16,

visitors will be able to share memories of and honor loved ones who have passed on

our Día de Los Muertos (Day of the Dead) ofrenda (altar).

The exhibition will be on view through November 16, 2025.

Pictured on the exhibition flyer are the Grazia-Denison family seated on the porch of

the Boulder Creek House. Maria Solia Grazia Denison was a third-generation native of

California born in 1852. To learn more about the family visit the portrait exhibition

“FaceTime” currently on exhibition at the Grace Episcopal Gallery in Boulder Creek.

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Exhibition Support

“Telling Stories of Mexican California: Real Life & Myth Making” was organized by the

California Historical Society, features the CHS Collection at Stanford, and tours through

Exhibit Envoy.