Fall 2025
FALL 2025
OCTOBER 1 - DECEMBER 31
Things might look a little different this season. As VORTEX rounds out its fifth year, we’re leaning into the odds and ends that make Ojai what it is — unpredictable, layered, and often more interesting when you look twice. Fall has a way of sharpening contrasts, and this issue gathers the stories that stand out in that light.
The Luminous Dark: Tom Pazderka Brings Edge to Ojai’s Art Scene
Our first piece for this issue is a look at artist Tom Pazderka, whose show at the Carolyn Glasoe Bailey Foundation has pushed Ojai’s art scene into unfamiliar territory. His work is heavy with fire, ash, and memory, and it asks more questions than it answers. He is not painting the Ojai we usually see on postcards, and that is precisely why his rise feels important. The story is written by Lila Glasoe Francese, and VORTEX is tickled to have her as our newest contributor!
TOM PAZDERKA AT CAROLYN GLASOE BAILEY FOUNDATION THROUGH OCTOBER 19
LEFT: AARON ZWEIG, RIGHT: ERIC HODGE
WE❤MO is Ready for You
There’s something wonderfully anachronistic happening in Meiners Oaks. While Silicon Valley fine-tunes the next wave of driverless convenience, a small green 1984 Isuzu Pup named WE❤MO is revving up the old-fashioned way with a clutch, a clipboard, and a neighborhood’s worth of goodwill. The truck, lovingly rehabbed by locals Aaron Zweig and Eric Hodge with help from Jody Lewis and a rotating cast of mechanics, artists, and optimists, isn’t an app or a startup. It’s a shared pickup, parked on El Roblar and South Padre Juan, free for anyone in the Valley who needs to haul mulch, furniture, or whatever they scored at the HELP of Ojai sale. It’s a community learning to share again, one stubborn old truck at a time.
AT THE MUSEUM
We take you inside the Ojai Valley Museum’s new exhibition, Ojai Collects the Holidays, a show that turns out to be far more heartfelt and revealing than its playful premise suggests. Twenty-four holiday collections, ranging from the quietly sentimental to the delightfully unhinged, open a window into the Valley’s spirit in a way only personal objects can. What begins with grilled cheese necklaces and wooden pinhole cameras builds toward a full emotional sweep, complete with badgers, pilgrims, and a chicken congregation you simply have to see to believe. It is Ojai at its most human, an exhibition about holidays that is really about us.
BUY GIFTS FROM REAL PEOPLE
Over the course of three weekly installments, our Holiday Gift Guide is a deliberate push toward buying with intention, spotlighting locally rooted makers, artists, and experience-builders whose work reflects the creative ecosystem of the Valley. Each week offers a curated dozen, ranging from tangible objects to participatory experiences, unified by a shared emphasis on independence, craft, and human connection. The bulk of the experience-based offerings are directly from the current show at The Mega Gallery. Week Three focuses exclusively on finds from Deck the Halls at Ojai Rancho Inn, the makers’ market that (for us, anyway) always marks the true beginning of the holidays.
FEAST WITHOUT THE FUSS: THANKSGIVING TAKEAWAY
FROM BLUEBELL BAKERY’S IG
Thanksgiving doesn’t have to mean panic, pie crusts, or twelve trips to the market. We’ve rounded up the Ojai spots making the sides, breads, and desserts that are actually worth picking up.
OCTOBER EVENTS
Ojai Rotary’s Taste of Ojai turns 25 this month. Libbey Park fills up with chefs, winemakers, and basically the entire town. Come taste everything the Valley’s been cooking up. Old favorites return, but the newcomers are stealing attention.
Get out your fishnets, Ojai. It’s Halloween. We’ll tell you everything, from who’s doing Rocky to the family-friendly parties, haunted ceramics, haunted houses, horror dinners, tattoo pop-ups, and midnight dance floors — but only if you’re on the list.
THE MASHBURNS, CIRCA 1959
Some writers recall childhood through soft focus. Drew Mashburn remembers his like it still smells of cut grass and hot asphalt.
In The East Aliso Years, Drew takes us back to the Ojai house where his world was small, loud, and full of character. There’s the favorite family dog, the endless baseballs that flew in from Sarzotti Park, the scuffed knees, and the kids named “Rat.” His storytelling is part history, part comedy, and completely Ojai.
If you’re asking… NOW 100% ANONYMOUS
Katie McQuillen: She is absolutely not your therapist, your best friend, or your moral compass, but she is extremely good at telling it like it is.
OLO Members-Only:
EVENTS CALENDAR
A curated list of regular and special events from Ojai, Ventura County, and Santa Barbara.
OLO TEA PARTY
Around Town, Real Estate, Food Scene, City Council Recaps, Quick Takes 🤦🏻♥️🤡😻and more!
