Do art. Be kind. Not an art school, not a hangout, the Youth Arts Collective is a vibrant working studio.

| FEATURES

By Dennis Taylor

In 2001, at the original Hartnell Street location of the Youth Arts Collective in Old Town Monterey, Marcia Perry glanced through the front window and noticed a “square peg.”

The teenager staring defensively into his sketchpad, shying away from anything resembling eye contact, had been out there for a while, too nervous to come inside.

Perry, who had co-founded the nonprofit after-school art center the previous January, crept outside, moved closer and slowly extended her hand.

“Cookie?” she cooed. “We have cookies.”

Jesse Juarez cautiously followed the cookie — and the woman — and suddenly found himself in a strange wonderland filled with outsiders, oddballs, eccentrics, individualists, nonconformists — “square pegs,” in their element. Their space. Their safe space.

“I grew up in Salinas, and went to Palma High School, Class of 2000, where I never really felt like I fit in,” Juarez reflected. “If you weren’t a star athlete, or super-academic, there wasn’t really a place for you there … that’s how I felt.

“Factor in all of the personal and emotional stuff I was going through at the time — things a lot of young people experience —  and I definitely thought of myself as a ‘square peg.’”

Arts collective marks 25 years

In 2025, as the Youth Arts Collective (YAC) celebrates its 25th anniversary, Juarez is in his second year as its executive director. He was handpicked for that job by YAC’s co-founders, Perry — the original executive director, 73 — and her 74-year-old spouse, Meg Biddle, program director for the first 24 years.

“Jesse became our first intern — something we didn’t know we needed, until we did,” Perry said. “All the younger kids gravitated toward him for advice. He’s always had integrity, he’s always showed kindness, and he’s always been devoted to our philosophy. He also became the first of our alumni to donate to YAC.”

‘Do art. Be kind’

From its first day, YAC was infused with the energy of its founders. Perry and Biddle — artists themselves — envisioned a sanctuary for high school-age kids that was filled with compassion, free of judgment, and open to artistic expression of any kind.

The only mandate in the building — then and now — has been this motto: “Do Art. Be Kind.”

Perry and Biddle also made it clear from the beginning that YAC is a working studio — not an art school, not a hangout. Although working artists mingle as mentors with the young artists, they do not offer unsolicited instruction or criticism of any kind. The artists are encouraged to discover their own “voice,” and a creative vision is not to be nudged in another direction.

“Meg and I talked about this idea for eight years, until our daughter, Celia, went off to Stanford,” Perry said. “Suddenly, we had an empty nest … and we filled it with YAC.”

The first angel

Throughout the journey, they’ve frequently found angels on their shoulders.

The first was Monterey resident Al Shugart, the late engineer, entrepreneur and disk-storage pioneer who founded Seagate Technology.

“We initially tried to go through the city and the school district to create YAC, but figured out pretty quickly that we were going to be buried in bureaucratic BS. We had no patience for that,” Perry said. 

Their option, they realized, was to find private funding, so they went to visit Biddle’s friend Shugart at his office.

“Al was this maverick millionaire kind of guy, with a surfboard in front of his desk,” Perry said. “He said, ‘You know what, girls? This isn’t a stupid idea.’”

A safe space for all

Within a week, he wrote a check for $164,000, enough to fund their project through its first 15 months. His philanthropy enabled YAC to open its doors at 550 Hartnell St. on Jan. 17, 2000 — Martin Luther King Day.

“Our decision to open on that date was deliberate, because our dream coincided with Dr. King’s dream: We’d welcome kids of every background, race, religion, orientation,” Perry said. “YAC was created to be a safe space for everyone.”

About two dozen kids wandered through the door that day, into a 2,300-square-foot space with multiple rooms, and a lease that limited occupancy to 30. 

“There was a drawing room, a painting room, an airbrush room, a darkroom. When our landlord showed up, kids would stand on the toilets to maintain that limited-occupancy number,” Biddle remembered.

‘Uh, the toaster’s on fire’

“Occasionally, somebody would yell, ‘Uh, Meg, the toaster’s on fire!’ and I’d have to weave through all the rooms to put it out.”

The darkroom, ominous and unsupervised, was Ground Zero for all kinds of naughty and mischievous rumors.

“I was scared to go in there. I didn’t want to expose anybody’s film,” Perry said.

“I’m claustrophobic,” Biddle added.

“That old space was pretty segmented, which made it easy to fall into cliques,” remembered Juarez, the longtime mentor whose real job was working at Rosita’s Armory Café, his family’s Salinas restaurant.

From its earliest days, YAC was the oasis it was imagined to be — a place where introverted, disaffected, rebellious, eccentric, confused, wayward, shy or lonely adolescents found their “tribe.”

In 2003, Perry and Biddle saw educational value in allowing high school YACsters to mingle with former members who had aged out. They boosted the age limit to 22, allowing college-age artists to return. 

Close to flaming out

In December 2010, at the end of a devastating two-year economic recession, the YAC candle was barely flickering.

“I was a YACster from 2001-2005, and YAC saved my life as a teenager,” reflected Nora Cook. “Meg and Marcia showed us how life could be — how a creative life could be — and I think I’m an artist today because of them.”

If opening their doors was challenging, Biddle and Perry hadn’t seen anything yet. Keeping YAC afloat was a relentless challenge.

“During those first 10 years, on a good day, we’d have maybe three months of funding as a cushion,” Perry said. “That Christmas, we had, at best, two months, and Meg and I were thinking, ‘OK, this dream may go down.’”

Perry, Biddle and their daughter were at Del Monte Theater watching “Avatar” when Meg’s phone rang.

“I’ve got to take this” she apologized before scurrying into the lobby.

The caller was a woman who’d been expecting an inheritance from an aunt whose instructions were to give a portion to the nonprofit of her choice.

“She had told me that YAC was her choice, but Marcia and I had no idea how much to expect,” Biddle said. “At most, we were thinking $5,000, $10,000 at the very max.”

When the woman revealed that she’d be donating $56,000, Biddle’s reaction turned heads all over the lobby.

“What? What?” she thundered.

“Then I just started crying,” she said. “I had to collect myself for a few minutes before I could go back in and watch the rest of the movie.”

The benefaction enabled the YAC matriarchs to recruit well-known Monterey Peninsula artist Andrew Jackson as a twice-a-week mentor at the collective.

“Andrew was a guy who had gone through a lot of personal growth, and he had the temperament and the talent to be a great asset for us,” Perry said. “He took about three minutes to accept our offer, and became an incredible part of our team.”

A year later, they welcomed Germain Hatcher as another two-day-a-week mentor.

“I tell the kids, ‘If you wanna know anything about any medium, talk to Germain,’” Perry said. 

Not long after, they hired retired Monterey Peninsula College ceramics instructor Peggy Alonas, whose daughter, Julia, is an ex-YACster. 

‘Just kill me now’

When a new space became available at 472 Calle Principal, Perry’s reflex reaction was a wince.

“I had pretty much asked God to just kill me immediately if we ever had to move,” she said. But then Greg Janusz, owner of Monterey Custom Framing at 468 Calle Principal, said, “Marcia, the place next door is empty — you’ve got to look at it.”

That venue was 1,000 square feet larger, with high ceilings and wide open spaces — much better for interaction between artists.

“It also was much easier to manage because you can see everybody and everything,” Biddle said.

And the landlords, Nick Kraft and Luis Zabala Jr., were YAC’s next angels.

“Nick and Luis were some of the best landlords in town — they actually held the place for us for about three months, which was amazing,” Perry said. 

When COVID-19 forced businesses to shut their doors and crashed the economy for the third time since YAC was created, Kraft charged no rent for six months, and only half of the rent for the following eight months.

During that time, YACsters created art together online, or convened outdoors at a safe distance.

Squirt guns and blankets

Through the years, Perry, Biddle and their ever-evolving team launched innovative fundraisers.

YAC alum Logan Parsons Mermin (2001-02) — now director of alumni relations and the grant writer for the collective — is credited with creating “Art-a-Thon,” an event at which YACsters found sponsors, then created art for 24 consecutive hours.

The annual event not only padded the coffers, but also proved to be a bonding experience for the young artists.

“If you spend 24 hours with other artists, you come to a realization that, yeah, we’re all shy, so let’s just hang out and get past that,” said former YACster Oliver Fredericksen. “At an all-nighter, there’s always going to be an emotional moment: Somebody’s going to cry … but it’s a good cry.”

“It’s like a big sleepover,” said Biddle, who gained infamy by prowling the studio, armed with a squirt gun in search of snoozers, while Perry lovingly distributed pillows and blankets.

Some YACsters revived themselves with post-midnight walks to Fisherman’s Wharf to play the old rainbow-colored public street piano. Others ascended to the roof for airbrush-compressor fights.

“A lot of craziness happens at the Art-a-Thon, but then, in the early hours of the morning, it gets quiet,” said muralist Natalia Corozza, a YAC alum-turned-administrative assistant at the collective. 

‘I really am a painter!’

“My first Art-a-Thon, at 3 a.m., was the first time I ever challenged myself to paint something larger than 18-by-24,” she said. “Making a large-scale piece is a very scary leap for a young artist, and when I finished, I stood back and thought, ‘Wow … I really am a painter!’”

YAC’s “LiveArt” fundraiser attracted a who’s who of local artists – Will Bullas, Pam Carroll, Simon Bull, Steven Whyte, Jennifer Anderson, Paul Richmond and numerous others — to mix with YAC’s up-and-comers, enjoy live music and imbibe on refreshments. Hatcher playfully emceed an auction, donning different wigs and outfits.

The ”SketchCircle,” a Biddle brainstorm and key part of LiveArt, sent YACsters to community events like the West End Festival, where they’d sit in a circle with their sketchpads.

A patron is invited to donate $25 to sit with the artists, each of whom would create a portrait of the subject from their own unique angle. The donor receives all of the finished portraits.

Honoring elders

YAC’s “Elders Project” paired older locals with young artists for a fascinating social experiment.

“I came up with 21 questions, and gave the same list to the elder and the artist — not as an interview, but as a conversation,” Biddle said. “Kids and older people typically don’t know each other very well, and both can feel marginalized by society in their own way.”

The YACster then was given a month to create a portrait of the elder, along with a self-portrait, then present both as a “thank you” for their friendship.

“I’d sit in the back, weeping, because it was working,” Biddle said. “Then we had a show at the Sunset Center — a whole wall of portraits — and everybody brought their families. We passed out a lot of Kleenex that night.”

YACsters, past and present, frequently speak of their time at the collective as life-changing.

“I felt very happy when you said I could join YAC, because I had nowhere else to go,” Luke Metcalfe told the co-founders. “You gave me a place to go. You brought me up when I was down. I love you for that.”

Additional information about the Youth Arts Collective can be found online at yacstudios.org.

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