ON THE COVER AND THIS PAGE

The oil paint was still drying and the canvas was still on the easel in April 2026 when artist Rose Wright took a photograph of her “Castroville Artichoke” for our cover. The artichoke was fresh, too, as she had just picked it up while in the Monterey Bay Area on a stop in Castroville, America’s artichoke capital. “I’m completely taken by the structure of this delicious and remarkable plant,” she says. “I knew I was going to paint it as soon as I got home.” She also bought a pear at around the same time to create the oil painting above in honor of the Golden Pear, a soon-to-open new restaurant in her community of Rossmoor.

Click here for Rose Wright’s set of oil paintings called “The Path of the Strawberry” and our accompanying story on strawberry grower Rodriguez Bros Ranch.