Festival Gods Shine on Healdsburg Arts, Short Films

Still crazy about each other after all these 41 years, Carole and Mitch Firestone-Gillis found the perfect venue this weekend to celebrate the anniversary of the time they met: The co-partnered Healdsburg Arts Festival and inaugural Healdsburg International Short Film Festival.

"We met the beginning of October 1971," said Carole Firestone-Gillis, recalling  the party in Southern California where their eyes met "across a crowded room," she said.

Carole Firestone-Gillis, a therapist, and Mitch Firestone-Gillis, a former winemaker, were two of scores of art-lovers, young and old, to tour Healdsburg Plaza Saturday for the arts festival.

The couple, who have lived in Healdsburg since 1986, also planned to attend the film festival Saturday night at a screening and reception at the trendy Spoonbar lounge at h2hotel.

"There's a lot of really whimsical art here -- it's incredible the amount of art that's here," Carole Firestone-Gillis said. "If we could buy one of each, we would."

Clive Bridges, the partner of Woodacre painted tile artist Justine Tot Tatarsky, said it was the first time they exhibited at the Healdsburg Arts Festival -- and they were not disappointed.

"It's a nice, sweet, full show," said Bridges, whose booth for their Art on Tile studio was on Healdsburg Plaza just off the corner of Center and Plaza streets. "We're very pleased with the environment.

"The weather's pretty perfect," he said. "It's a nice spot."

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