Film Premiere September 29

"The Monday Club and the Women Who Built It"

A film by Robin Smith

Premiere's Sunday, Sept. 29, 2024, 2:00pm, during Doors Open California at The Monday Club, 1815 Monterey Street, San Luis Obispo.

Following the film, Victoria Kastner, will take questions. Ms. Kastner was the official Hearst Castle historian for many years and recently wrote a highly acclaimed book on the life of Julia Morgan.

The film explores the women's movement at the turn of the century and how women were inspired to see their futures differently than ever before.

In San Luis Obispo County, women would organize and become leaders in the community. Many bumps were in the road, but that did not stop women from creating a network that would become The Monday Club.

More than one hundred years later, The Monday Club celebrates its history and the work of the trailblazing architect, Julia Morgan. The Monday Club building is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and it is the last building Julia Morgan designed specifically for women.

Julia Morgan achieved many "firsts." She was one of the first female engineering students at the University of California, Berkeley, the first woman to pass the entrance exam in architecture for the École des Beaux-Arts, Paris (and the school’s first female graduate in architecture), and the first licensed female architect in California.

Over the course of her 46-year career, Morgan designed about seven hundred buildings, primarily in California, and is best known for her work on Hearst Castle, publisher William Randolph Hearst’s spectacular estate in San Simeon, California, now a National Historic Landmark.

Documentary to Screen at 2024 Cambria Scarecrow Festival!

Something to Crow About

Every October, local artists stage hundreds of handmade scarecrows throughout Cambria, California. It takes about eight months for volunteers to present the Cambria Scarecrow Festival, which a recent USA Today readers poll named one of the top 10 US fall festivals for tourists to visit.

Robin Smith, a local filmmaker, followed the crow makers over the summer as they whipped Mod Podge, pool noodles, CelluClay, and card board into unique works of art.

"Art brings people together."

At the heart of the story are the community artists (many who don't even know they are artists) who meet every day, collaborating on their creations, at a converted storage unit called Dr. Crow. Follow the crow makers as they overcome challenges and find innovative ways to present the Cambria Scarecrow Festival.

"Having a lean footprint enabled me to become a part of the studio environment and the artists got to a point where they didn't take much notice of me. I think that's one of the strengths of the story.

I captured the work of the crow makers for many months. I was genuinely surprised to experience their joy at creating and collaborating with each other. "Art brings people together."

Something to Crow About premiered at the Cambria Film festival in February 2023 to a packed house! And it screened at the San Luis Obispo Film Festival in 2023.