Festival of Light

Micah Schwaberow

Micah Schwaberow's latest color woodcut, "Festival of Light" was done at the Fiscalini Ranch Preserve in Cambria, California.

The preserve is located off Highway on the California coast and is considered one of the most beautiful hiking trails on the West Coast. The website states: A mild climate and the abundant marine and terrestrial resources of the Cambria area have provided an almost ideal environment for ongoing human habitation for more than 9000 years.

Both the present-day Salinan and Northern Chumash Tribes have ancestors that thrived in this area. During the Spanish Mission era, European agricultural and mining activities were introduced, resulting in large population re-location and cultural disruption. The land later became part of Rancho Santa Rosa, a Mexican land grant.

The Rancho was eventually subdivided into several properties, one of which became the Fiscalini Town Ranch. The Fiscalini family owned the property for nearly a century, raising first dairy stock and then beef cattle. It was sold in 1979 and went through a series of development plans. In 2000, the Ranch was preserved in perpetuity through a unique coalition of public and private funding for its purchase.