Jun 28, 2024
At first glance, the 5½ foot tall painting of a frog poking its head out of the water looks like a photograph. You can almost hear the gentle “bloop” of the delicate ripples, shimmering reflections and tiny bubbles created by the frog’s movement.
But look closer and realize it’s not a photo. It’s something more. It’s an oil painting done with such fine layers, richness of color and skilled brushwork you can’t help but say, “Wow.”
That reaction is courtesy of Thomas Nardinelli, prolific painter and retired arts educator who specializes in capturing the natural world—flora, fauna and faces—in vibrant color.
The Sacramento native started “doodling” in grammar school, an interest he passed on to his son Daniel, a graphic designer and Inside Sacramento’s chief operating officer. The elder Nardinelli’s parents were both artistic. Dad owned a hardware store in Fair Oaks and did metal crafts. Mom won an art contest as a kid.
Jun 28, 2024
If you need something cleaned, ask Nana Mary. Need something cut or copied, ask Nana Mary. Something fixed, laminated or drilled, ask Nana Mary.
Pretty much anything at all, ask Nana Mary.
Mary Bennick—everyone calls her Nana Mary—has volunteered at Theodore Judah Elementary School in East Sacramento for nearly 10 years. She arrived when granddaughter Lillian began transitional kindergarten.
Jun 28, 2024
Find out what is happening in Sacramento during the month of July!
May 28, 2024
It’s fitting that the name for Angela Borge’s all-natural bath- and body-care company came from her parents’ garden.
“I had been wanting to start an herbal business, but the names I’d come up with just weren’t connecting,” the Sacramento native says. “Then I was outside at my parents’ house in East Sac and suddenly heard ‘Humble Bee Herbal’ in my head. It was perfect.”
Borge is a devotee of natural skincare, mostly out of necessity. An almond intolerance led her to study herbalism and make her own skincare for years. But it wasn’t until she joined forces with her mom Jeanine, a retired third-grade teacher, when Humble Bee Herbal took off.
May 28, 2024
Le’la Aaron hesitated when her older sister Adina encouraged her to join Breakthrough Sacramento. Who wants to go to school during the summer? But the decision to join the tuition-free college preparatory program changed her life.
“Breakthrough was the most helpful in that I got extra attention and I had more time to understand each topic before it was brought up in the classroom the next year, so I was already somewhat ahead,” says Aaron, a UC Davis freshman.
For 30 years, Breakthrough Sacramento has provided intensive, six-week academic programs during the summer for under-resourced students in seventh through 12th grades on the campus of Sacramento Country Day School.
