William Leavitt – Raul Guerrero at Oolong Gallery in Rancho Santa Fe

 by Patricia Frischer 

Raul Guerrero

Raul Guerrero and William Leavitt are friends. Leavitt is a few years older than Guerrero, and was born in Washington DC, but moved to Los Angeles in the 1960’s where Hollywood and the film industry informed his life. Guerrero was born in National City as a Mexican American with indigenous roots and his cultural identity has always been vital to his work including European traditions. He studied in LA at the Chouinard Art Institute. Both were present for the birth of the conceptual art scene.

As Guerrero gravitated in the 80’s to painting, Leavitt spread his wings into photographs, installations, performances,  and theater design. They both blur boundaries from the mainstream and from each other. But although not evident in this exhibition, their humor is probably what keeps them connected. Conceptual meets surreal has got to lead to some laughs.

Guerrero delivers desert scapes which differs from his famous bar scenes, but include lots of the iconography of his visual language. The outstanding Duchamp in the Desert: the Surrealist Synthesis of Raul Guerrero is a true portrait of the combination of all of his influences. The tortoise outrunning the hare is certainly a comment on his own art career.  Guerrero was one of the very first San Diego Art Prize recipients in 2006/7. 

Leavitt’s Circuit Figures are a series of self-portraits as analog synthesizers. They are cyborgs composed of electronic circuits and wiring. You can’t hear any music but you can see that a story is being told here. Since we are more familiar here with the works of Guerrero, you might want to look at this 5 minute video of the installation at the MOCA Grand Ave LA of Leavitt art.

On display at the compact Oolong Gallery are both oil paintings and prints so different price points are available. At over 80, both artists are now influential figures for a younger generation deserving of the museum attention they are now getting. 

Raul Guerrero

Raul Guerrero

Raul Guerrero

Raul Guerrero

Raul Guerrero - detail

William Leavitt

William Leavitt

William Leavitt

William Leavitt

William Leavitt

William Leavitt – Raul Guerrero at Oolong Gallery in Rancho Santa Fe
Paintings – Drawings – Graphics
February 21 – March 21
Oolong Gallery
6030 La Flecha Rancho Santa Fe CA 92067
Tuesday–Saturday 11–5pm by appointment

The Recipe: True Love and Persistence Spiced with Humor at La Jolla Playhouse

 By Lonnie Burstein Hewitt. Photo by Rich Soublet Photography.

 

In the Limelight: Christina Kirk as Julia with Norbert Leo Butz as Paul Child and choreographed set-changers in the background.

Appropriately for a night-after-Valentine’s Day opening, The Recipe is a world premiere featuring an over six-foot tall and rather annoyingly-voiced young woman from Pasadena who manages to discover the recipe for love and success by never giving up her quest for a useful and interesting life or losing her sense of humor. The woman, if you haven’t already heard, is Julia Child, in her pre-TV-chef phase. 

Written by Claudia Shear, whose solo show “Blown Sideways Through Life” about the weird jobs she’d had before finding her way as a writer/performer I’d seen decades ago and never forgotten, it’s another play bound to wriggle its way into viewers’ memories.

In the beginning, Julia Carolyn McWilliams only knows what she doesn’t want: a conventional Pasadena lifestyle and husband. She was not happy at Smith College, where what interested everyone most about her was that she could easily reach things on the highest shelves. 

Nothing else comes easily to Julia, who takes up secretarial skills, hoping to score a position at the New Yorker. When World War II breaks out, she manages to get a job in Sri Lanka as a secretary for the OSS, a forerunner of the CIA.

There her luck really changes: she meets Paul Child, a Foreign Service Officer who was said to know everything. A serious person, 10 years older than Julia and five inches shorter, he fell in love with her, and she found herself loving him. He led her to Paris, where she then fell in love with the art of cooking, and he continued providing support and encouragement whenever problems arose. 

The play was beautifully staged and lit, with moveable sets that were danced in and out by the actors.  And the opening night audience was tremendously receptive, sometimes calling out responses to one of Julia’s lines.

Christina Kirk plays Julia, Norbert Leo Butz plays Paul, and Lisa Peterson has directed this delightful production, with choreographer David Neumann adding the right moves, Rachel Hauck doing scenic design, and Ben Stanton lighting design.  

The show runs through March 28, and tickets aren’t easy to come by, since this Recipe has great word-of-mouth and it’s pretty much sold out. But take a cue from Julia: keep on trying.

 

Go to https://securesite.lajollaplayhouse.org/events where you’ll find the Performance Calendar, and the following suggestions:

The Recipe: Many dates are currently sold out, but tickets may be released closer to performance dates. Go to the website,  join our email list to be notified and follow us on Instagram where we post ticket releases.

Latest news: The Recipe has now been extended through March 29!

Lonnie Burstein Hewitt is an award-winning author/lyricist/playwright who has been writing about arts and lifestyles in San Diego County for over a dozen years. You can reach her at hew2@sbcglobal.net

OMA Artist Alliance 2025-26 Biennial

 by Patricia Frischer

Marie Stone - these subtle colors and a strong composition show
again what we all know...Figurative work is always here to stay. 

It is very gratifying to see this biennial show  improve every other year by every other year. There are always artists to discover and old friends to see. Chantal Paul, and independent curator,  Patric Stillman from Studio Door and Katie Dolgov, OMA Director of Exhibitions and Collections juried the exhibition and made a fine choice. Each work has a QR code so you can hear the artist speaking about their work and the display is respectful which one always hopes for in a juried exhibition. The work that won the first place was extremely deserved  as Trinh Mai continues to gives us emotionally charged and elegantly presented  glimpses into her culturally rich life. 

Brady Willmott - If you like this work also check
out Robert Williams in our A+ Art Blog. Both men are fearless 

Tina Christiansen - a baby bird, not just hungry,
but crying out for all of us who feel like shouting. 

Barbara Hendricks - Orange sun setting on orange groves.
Please note the little 3-D harvester setting on the frame. 

David Fobes - a shout out to Gabriel Boils our SD Art Prize recipient last year who also works with puzzle piece. This work by Fobes shows that this is a rich field to explore. 

Deena Altman - very clever use of both ultra real and drawn elements to make a point about the artist herself. 

John Linthurst

Steven Lombardi

Trinh Mai - First place, yes, these are egg shells
with portraits inside. Watch the video below. 

Kate Joiner

Artist Alliance 2025-26 Biennial
Oceanside Museum of Art
On view until March 8th. 
704 Pier View Way, Oceanside, CA 92054
(760) 435-3720
Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday 11:00am–5:00pm
Extended Hours on First Fridays 11:00am–8:00pm

Politics of Portrayal: Three Generations of Chicana Portraiture in Los Angeles In Conversation with San Diego artists at Mesa College.

By Patricia Frischer

Marianela de la Hoz

Being seen, as has been revealed lately on a mass scale, is a political act. In 1970, the beginning of the Chicano Art movement, being seen as a woman was not assumed. Chicana, the women artists, had the tools and the desire to change that.

Marianela de la Hoz (SD Art Prize recipient), Katie Ruiz,  Ale Ruiz Tostado are the three local San Diego artists joining Los Angeles painters  Barbara Carrasco, Yreina D. Cervantez, Emilia Cruz, Karla Diaz, and Maritza Torres at Mesa College Art Gallery until March 5, 2026. The  local artists were curated by Alessandra Moctezuma joining her selection to that of  Sybil Venegas for Avenue 50 Studio in Los Angeles.

The Baby Boomers in this group are del Hoz, Carrasco and Cervantez. The Gen x group is Ruiz and Diaz. The millennials are Tostado, Cruz and Torres.Graphic design and painting of the civil rights movement in the early 70'a, was replace at the turn of the century by a wider exploration of mediums and the popular culture of clubs and fashion trends. As the millennials come of age, issues of gender and identity and inclusion and the effects of a pandemic with ensuing isolation brings portraiture back as a means of healing and self empowerment. 

Some of these artists are showing some self-portraits but more often portraying members of their own community.  There are many Mexican Americans, but Chicana is a Mexican American woman that is an activist.  Chicana Art is Activist Art, then and now.  

Marianela de la Hoz

Marianela de la Hoz

Marianela de la Hoz

Marianela de la Hoz, “I offer an insight into the hidden character of my subject through visual codes and exaggerated features, using black humor and fantasy to depict the darker side of humanity.”
The small scale of de la Hoz’s  egg tempera work demands that you come up close…says the spider to the fly!

Katie Ruiz

Katie Ruiz

Katie Ruiz

Katie Ruiz detail

Katie Ruiz detail

Katie Ruiz, “My work explores the third culture….that examines the socio-political systems that created Chicana culture which is both and neither Mexican or US American.”
Watch for the references to the clothing in her portraits that are then repeated in the flamboyant elements to her sewn and constructed frames.

Ale Ruiz Tostado

Ale Ruiz Tostado detail

Ale Ruiz Tostado

Ale Ruiz Tostado, “My work offers warmth and a sense of belonging despite melancholic or painful expressions.”
Tostado, like Ruiz, incorporates a whole host of objects attached to her paintings.

Barbara Carrasco

Barbara Carrasco

Yreina D. Cervantez

Yreina D. Cervantez

Baby Boomers: Barbara Carrasco deals with feminist issues issues involving body rights.  Yreina D. Cervantez is part of the famous Self Help Graphic Atelier of East Los Angeles

Karla Diaz

Karla Diaz

Gen X: Karla Diaz, co-founder of  Slanguage a community based alternative, street-influenced and installation heavy collective.

Maritza Torres

Maritza Torres

Maritza Torres

Emilia Cruz

Emilia Cruz

Emilia Cruz

Millennials: Maritza Torres is an Xicana who uses the ancient idea of coldex as inspiration  to create her own family iconography and uses zines to broadcast the work. 
Emilia Cruz is passionate about the rich colors of her culture and depiction of real familiar faces. 

Installation Views

Politics of Portrayal: Three Generations of Chicana Portraiture in Los Angeles In Conversation with San Diego artists
Mesa College Art Gallery
Feb 9 to March 5, 2026
Artist Panel and Reception: Saturday, February 28, 4 – 7 pm
San Diego Mesa College Art Gallery
FA103, 7250 Mesa College Drive, SD 92111
Gallery Hours: Monday through Thursday, 12 – 5 pm, or by appointment. Closed Fridays and weekends
More info: 619.388.2829 amoctezu@sdccd.edu

The Apiary: A Bee-Centered Production at New Village Arts in Carlsbad

By Lonnie Burstein Hewitt.

The original cast announcement of the show.

Two views of the Bee Screen onstage. (Jason Sullivan/Dupla Photography).

To bee or not to bee?

That is the question in The Apiary, a dystopic, occasionally comic play by Kate Douglas that originally premiered off-Broadway in 2024, and was directed here by Kristianne Kurner, NVA’s Founder and Executive Artistic Director.

Set 20 years in the future, it’s a play about a small team of women working in an Apiary that’s meant to sustain honeybee populations trying to keep their colonies from suddenly dying out. With plenty of dedication but no funding, they happen to discover that bees can survive by eating the flesh of dead humans…so they begin recruiting terminally ill people to donate themselves to science and keep the bees alive. 

This regional premiere kicked off the theater’s 25^th anniversary year and was the 40^th show presented by Kristianne Kurner, whose note in the play’s program thanked “the many bee experts and bee lovers who shared their knowledge and passion with us about these most fascinating creatures.” 

She also added: “This show encompasses so many of the things I am passionate about: support for female artists, the importance of the scientific community, and the belief that telling each other stories is what brings out the best in us as humans.”

It’s a little too late to see The Apiary, whose actors I actually found more engaging than the play itself, but there’s plenty of time to get tickets for Hairspray, the Tony-Award-winning musical based on John Waters' 1988 film, coming June 5-July 19. 

The Apiary -  Jan 23 until Feb 22, 2026
New Village Arts
2787 State Street
Carlsbad, CA 92008
760-433-3245

Lonnie Burstein Hewitt is an award-winning author/lyricist/playwright who has been writing about arts and lifestyles in San Diego County for over a dozen years. You can reach her at hew2@sbcglobal.net