Art + Nature: A Winning Combination at Alta Vista Botanical Gardens

 By Lonnie Burstein Hewitt. Photos by Maurice Hewitt.  

 

A giant dragon by Ricardo Breceda, whose large-scale metal animals you may have seen in the Anza Borrego Desert. It’s the first piece you’ll notice after entering the Garden, and only part of the 5-piece Dragon, whose other parts you will find as you stroll along.

If you’ve never heard of Alta Vista Botanical Gardens, let us introduce you to a place you’ll be thrilled to discover. Its 14 acres of international plants, trees and flowers are intermingled with distinctive sculptures and other artworks by over 20 contemporary artists. The Garden’s motto: Bringing together people, nature and art. And with only two exceptions--a full-time gardener and a part-time garden manager--the entire place is run by devoted volunteers.

The Garden Manager is Rusti Dixon, whose family has lived in the area and loved the garden for 15 years. After three decades assisting high-level executives, she says she is now pursuing her passion: “nurturing connections and ensuring a greener future for generations to come.”

Garden Manager Rusti Dixon enjoying a shady moment in the Grape Arbor.

Besides overseeing day-to-day operations, maintenance, and construction in the Garden, she writes all the content on the attractive website  which her husband manages. Last month, she had a new meditation space installed, and this month she organized a gala for the Garden’s 25^th anniversary. Her favorite part of the job? “Creating an amazing experience for our visitors so they will visit us again.” 

The Garden is available for weddings, classes, and other special events. There was an art class in progress when we were there. It’s open every day, and entry is affordable: $5 for adults. San Diego Magazine recently called it “The Best Use of Five Bucks” and it’s less for children, and free to very little ones.

Mouth of Truth by Bryan Morse, on the Ceremonial Lawn. This piece was inspired by the ancient Roman original whose mouth should only attract the fingers of truth-tellers since it’s said to lop off the hands of liars.

In the Ceremonial Pond: Golden Torsion, by local artist Lia Strell.

One of five culinary-themed sculptures by Philip Glashoff in the Culinary Garden.

A super-sized Scorpion by Ricardo Breceda in the Cactus Garden.

Cotton Horse. Originally an ivy topiary, when the ivy died it became an “organic living horse topiary” filled with cotton balls from bushes in the Children’s Garden.

Inspirational Garden, where visitors can create their own inspiring rock art.

The newest addition: A Healing Garden, where visitors can re-stack the stones as a personal prayer or meditation. Carefully stacking stones in a Zen garden is a meditative and artistic process meant to create a delicate balance and a feeling of serenity.

Every October, there’s an annual Fall Fun Festival at Alta Vista, including a contest which all interested creatives are invited to enter:  Make your own life-size scarecrow out of found materials, see it hung on the fence in the Children’s Garden, and maybe win a prize. Even if you’re not a winner, all the scarecrows remain on view for visitors to admire until the next year’s contest.  Interested?  For details on the 2024 contest, contact Nancy Jones (aka Farmer Jones)

The 2023 Scarecrows

A two-scarecrow close-up.

Alta Vista BotanicalGardens
1270 Vale Terrace Dr, Vista, CA 92084
760-945-3954
Pacific Daylight Time Hours: Monday-Friday, 8 a.m.-5:30 p.m. Saturday/Sunday, 10 a.m.-5:30 p.m.
Admission: $5 adults, $3 for children 3-12, free to 2 and under.

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

Artful Shorts

 By Lonnie Burstein Hewitt. Image and photos by Maurice Hewitt.

 There’s art all around if you know where to look.

Here are a few spots you may want to check out this month…and they’re all free admission.

A real eye-catcher by Betty Busby in the irresistible gift shop at Visions Museum of Textile Art in Liberty Station. You’ll see more about Visions in next month’s SDVAN.

Visions Museum of Textile Art
2825 Dewey Rd., Ste. 100. SD, 92106
Hours: Wednesday/Thursday 10 a.m.-2 p.m. Friday/Saturday, 10-4. 

More to see in the Arts District at Liberty Station.

San Diego Watercolor Society (SDWS) now offers “a water-based art experience,” meaning all water media…anything but oil. Their current exhibition, Scintillation, on view through September 14, surprised us with a broad range of styles.

The Sun Will Rise, by Andrea Ausland.

 This large-scale acrylic piece was the first thing that caught our eyes as we entered the gallery.

Great is His Faithfulness, by Susan Keith. A very distinctive watercolor that was one of the award winners in this show.

Scintillation  at San Diego Watercolor Society
On view until Sept 14
2825 Dewey Road, Bldg 202
Suite #105, SD 92106
Wednesday-Sunday, 11 a.m.--3 p.m.

 
Mandell Weiss Gallery. You may not know that there’s an art gallery inside the Dance Building at Liberty Station, and the current exhibition, Women Work Together, on view through September 6, is well worth seeing. It features duets of women artists sharing their ideas and styles, proving the joys of collaborative creation for artists and viewers alike.

Bird Brains, by Irene Abraham and Stacy Birky-Green. What you can’t see in this photo is that this is a 3-D piece and these birds are actually moving.

Rights and Unity and Speaking My Rights, by Kathy Nida and Moya Devine. These artists, who live in different cities, sent each other a word, then created a piece based on that word, did another exchange, and created a piece inspired by the first one received. So this artist duet ended up with a quartet of artworks.

Women Work Together at Mandell Weiss Gallery.    
On view until Sept 6
2650 Truxton Rd.  SD 92106
Hours: Wednesday-Sunday, 11 a.m.-3 p.m.   

 

Community Quilt Show at Pacific Beach Library

San Diego Community Quilt: The show’s magnum opus, made up of 95 blocks created by local residents, was professionally quilted by Seaside Quilters Guild member Michaelanne Gephart.

Over a year ago, three members of the Seaside Quilters Guild, a PB-based group of about 50 members, decided it would be great to introduce the wider community to the joys of quilting. They organized a series of three workshops at the library which produced 95 individual creations that were then stitched into letters by Seaside members, some of whom also contributed quilts of their own to display. There are 37 quilts on view here, and the show is a complete delight.

One corner of the quilt show, including a smaller community quilt made of blocks that for various reasons couldn’t fit into the main quilt.

Another corner of the show.

I was happy to speak with Chris Bernet, who along with Carol Simpson and Deborah Lancaster originally came up with the idea of doing this project.

“It was a lot of work, but it was such a rewarding experience,” she said. “Our entire Guild came together. Any time we asked for help, they were there. And the opening of the exhibit was more than I could have hoped for, watching everyone excitedly find their own blocks and then admire all the other blocks around them. And every time I go in to look at the show, I see something new… even though I’ve spent so many hours with each one of those blocks.”

Fortunately, you have time to see for yourself, since the show will remain in the library’s Community Room through October 27. And the quilters would love for some organization to adopt the San Diego Community Quilt and give it a permanent location where more of the public could see it for years to come.

Community Quilt Show at Pacific Beach Library
On view until Oct 27
4275 Cass Street.  SD, 92109
Hours: Monday/Tuesday 11:30 a.m.-8 p.m., Wednesday-Saturday 9:30am-6pm, Sunday 1-5pm.  Phone: 858-581-9934.

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

Hugo Crosthwaite: The Rupture of the White Cube at Mesa College Art Gallery

 By Patricia Frischer

The idea of a white walled gallery space for modern art started only in the 20^th century. Smadar Samson, curator, had the great idea to build a white cube in the middle of a gallery and find an artist to do a performance inside the cube. But she was brilliantly inspired when she chose Hugo Crosthwaite to be that artist. 

We were told that building the cube was no small feat, especially with the giant opening through which you could see Crosthwaite ( A SD Art Prize recipient) creating for the first week of the exhibition. Look high and you will notice the strut attached to the ceiling so that a corner column could be avoided. This solution, rather improvised in nature, is part and parcel of the whole gestalt of the work.  Crosthwaite researched many famous and beautifully planned cities. Tijuana is not one of those. It never seems designed and is very much like Crosthwaite’s drawings of houses, that flow naturally, taking up space in an organic way. Crosthwaite has captured that not only in his stop motion animation video of his drawn works, but in the surfaces of the white cube. These images were caught only after one day,  but both inside and outside of the cube will be his canvas not to be completed until Sept 28^th. And yes, that surface has been ruptured. 

The entire space at Mesa College Gallery looks different with this cube set in the middle, but the artist realized that it was too empty. He told me that he always thought of Tijuana as a wave crashing against the border of the US. That is where the idea of a line of 16 images was born, and unusually for Crosthwaite, in color. Not just any color, but those from tourist brochures from the 30s, 40s, and 50s with their sharp pinks and turquoises, mid blues and deep greens. The flat acrylic images are made 3-D with the addition of colored pencil shading. I found them amazingly effective, joyful even, with lots of details and a mass of humor. Each of the works could stand on their own, but they make one glorious linear whole. 

Some of the best bits for me include the girl with the coke and the cock., the Mal – UMP reference, FIN at the end of the line, of course. 

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 We loved the following picture taken by Hugo Crothwaite looking out from the inside of the white cube:

Hugo Crosthwaite: The Rupture of the White Cube
Mesa College Gallery 
Curated and designed by Smadar Samson 
Exhibit on view August 19 – September 12, 2024
Painting sessions: Monday through Thursday, 12 to 5 pm until Aug 28.
Reception: Thursday, August 29, 4 – 7 PM, Art Gallery FA 103
Artist and curator talk: Monday, September 9, 5 – 7 PM

ICA Melissa Walter and Manuel Alejandro Rodríguez-Delgado at Institute of Contemporary Arts San Diego-North.

 by Patricia Frischer

Melissa Walter, still from video

 

Did you know that a piece of gum picked up in a gutter, can be so thoroughly probed and analyzed and with a certain amount of expense, an actual picture of the gum chewer can be produced?

 

Melissa Walter finds forensic technology fascinating. Not the portrait aspect, which by the way, is not included  in this conceptual exhibition, but the fact that DNA information can increasingly be used to convict the  accused. That includes, the rightly accused and help to clear the falsely accused.

Melissa Walter  in artist's talk

 This exhibition Plexus is a way for Walter to immerse herself in the process and she does using many mediums. She has handwritten sequences of information used as a decision tree for eye color. She uses ceramics and synthetic hair to create double helix shapes which reference time sequences. Smudgy little watercolor marks are arranged in lines and columns.  Her quest is to demonstrate the messiness of the process, while at the same time humanizing it.

Melissa Walter 

Melissa Walter 

Melissa Walter 

Melissa Walter 

A video and related sculpture feature the C, A, T, G of nucleotides. the  organic molecule that is the fundamental building block of DNA and RNA. The video is 13 minutes long. The average time it takes a person to use DNA to prove innocence is 13 years. Yes, life is messy.

Melissa Water is a 2020 San Diego Art Prize recipient, and this series continues her work from her exhibition at Bread and Salt.  

Manuel Alejandro Rodríguez-Delgado

 

Manuel Alejandro Rodríguez-Delgado uses found material to create self-contained survival systems which are sculptures in this exhibition titled Futuros Itinerantes.. They are partly inspired by Star Trek, partly by the U.S. Space Program and also by Puerto Rico's late-1980s bid to host the 2004 Olympics, and the slogan "We can do it."

Manuel Alejandro Rodríguez-Delgado

Both exhibitions are on view through Dec. 29, 2024

Institute of Contemporary Arts San Diego-North
1550 S. El Camino Real, Encinitas. Free.

World Design Capital Exchange Pavilion opens in Balboa Park

 by Patricia Frischer

Wow, what a sight! The unmissable yellow/orange plastic corrugated structure glows in the summer light . The white steel infrastructure gives the abstracted “X” of the two wings meeting in the center, a solidity that speaks of its purpose. This is not only a gathering place for cross-border meetings, but a symbol of a community joined together in a common purpose. This pavilion for the World Design Capital, SD/TJ 2024 will host a whole series of events and performances to celebrate this designation. This is as far away from a wall  as you can get and still span a large space….yes, it almost reads like a bridge.  

Included on the outside edge of the pavilion is an electronic LED tape displaying poetry. There are ingenious cube seats that look made from recycled materials and held in place by clear plastic panels. Bring your stadium seat pillows if you plan to sit for long. A cement floor is outlined with soft faux grass.

After a  design and selection process Heleo, a San Diego-based full-service architecture and design practice. in collaboration with Daniel Ruanova, were chosen for their radical structure which is a lightweight, movable structure.  It will be up at least until the middle of November and then possibly moved to a cross-border location.

Structural Engineering: MDEP Structures
Lighting Design: Elluminet
Lighting Fixture & Controls Rep: SDLA
Electrical Engineering: ELEN Consulting
Steel Fabrication & Installation: EMP Steel Solutions, Inc
Digital LED Displays: Fuse Technical Group
Modular Recycled Seating: ByBlock

High fives all around!

Join the World DesignExperience powered by San Diego Design Week and celebrate a week-long regional design showcase at the World Design Capital EXCHANGE Pavilion, in Plaza de Panama,. they are hosting free design-related events from August to November.  On September 19th from 6 to 9pm, connect and celebrate with industry leaders, enjoy live music, experience AIGA SDTJ — Projecting Futures, and eat and drink at Panama 66. 

Best Laid Plans: A Play About Blind Artistry

 By Lonnie Burstein Hewitt

 

A photo of the architect’s hands on embossed paper.  (Credit: Don Hogg)

Best Laid Plans, a new play premiering August 29^th at the Tenth Avenue Arts Center in downtown San Diego, is the unusual story of a successful architect who suddenly loses his vision but manages to find different ways to visualize, create, and go on with his career.

This is theater, so his initial state of despair is cured by a visit from Beethoven, who was able to go on composing even when he could no longer hear any music or his audience’s applause. But it’s based on the true story of architect Chris Downey, who has gone on creating new buildings with the help of wax strips, embossed paper, and braille. And the onstage architect in the play is blind actor Blake Stadnik. 

“Part of learning to navigate the world without sight is learning to listen to the architecture and the space around you,” Downey has said. So there will be a “sound lab” in the show, with a variety of sounds and plenty of music, and seeing the show should be a memorable event. 

 

Best Laid Plans 
August 29-September 22.
Tenth Avenue Arts Center,  930 10th Avenue, San Diego.
Tickets: VantageTheatre

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

Pacific View Art Center Opening – Lost and Found

 By Patricia Frischer

Current and past City Council members and Art Commissioners Carla Roemer, Bruce Ehlers, Joy Lyndes, Teresa Barth, Mayor Tony Kranz, Lisa Shaffer,  Kellie Shay Hinz and Arts Administer Collette Murphy.

I never saw Pacific View when it was a school which closed in 2003. For me it had always been a sad unused shell of a building, but a structure with good bones and a strong foundation and a serious mid-century vibe. As Darius Degher named in his reading… Pacific View...has been... Lost and Found. In my imagination, it is now  what the building must have looked like in its prime. Wonderful clean windows make all the rooms airy, beautiful colors and nice graphics to guide the learners to their chosen classes, shade providers, benches and landscaping that will grow and mature.

Poet Darius Degher

After many long years, countless volunteer hours, pushes by the community, non-profit arts organization, city art commissioners,  the city council, and multiple mayors (Shaffer, Barth, Blakespear, and finally Kranz), it is a relief and a joy to see the building back in all its glory. The ribbon cutting celebration was a chance for the public to view the results of all the hard work made by a team of city planners, architects (Coar Design Group), builders (Kleinfelder Construction Services and Conan Costruction) and landscape artists, not to mention the valiant efforts of the city art department staff under the direction of the city manager Pamela Weaver Antil.

Arts and Culture Commissioners (left to right)
Katy Fox, (chair) Carla Roemer, Vicki Campbell, Niyati Kadakia, 
Jennifer Marakovits (vice chair)  posed in front of Peter Mittien's sculpture. 

Peter Mitten's Momentum

Mayor Tony Kranz

City Manager Pam Antil

Congratulations goes to Collette Murphy who now has 3 more full time staff and 4 part time staff as well as 2 part time teaching artists. Jess Roberts will now be permanently on hand at the new building, making sure everything runs smoothly. This is a soft opening with limited classes and closed on Monday and Friday. The online registration portal with class titles and detailed info is here, and information about becoming a teaching artist is here. The city offers a free arts newsletter that will include Pacific View updates; you can sign up here. Classes officially started on August 13^th.

Jess Roberts, Pacific View Art Center staff

Jim Gilliam, current chair of the SD County Commission for Arts and Culture  and past art manager of Encinitas with new staffer. 

Danielle Susalla Derry, new part time staffer

Encinitas Arts Administrator Collette Murphy

But I suggest you join the mailing list of the Encinitas Friends of the Arts. This organization is responsible for publishing the Encinitas arts and culture events calendar once a week and they will start posting the classes as well.  Plus the EFA has arranged a very large grant to help scholarship students attend classes that might not be able to do so otherwise. They are working with the Boys and Girls Clubs who who will supply transportation to the venue.

A very large crowd including Naimeh Woodward, Chair, Encinitas Friends of the Arts

Marineke Vandervort, CEO Boys and Girls Club of Northwest San Diego

The mayor of Encinitas and City council accept $10,000 from the Encinitas Friends of the Art for a scholarship fund for Pacific View Art Center. 

Right now there are classes in performing arts, dance, singing, songwriting, drawing, painting, watercolor, printmaking, sculpture, writing, and sewing. We will be interested to see over the next year how the classes expand and meet demands. We hope they will develop and become unique to the community, offering diversity, cultural enrichment, and healthy opportunities. The buzz word these days is Art Prescriptions…no need for pharmaceuticals with nasty side-affects as art works to lower blood pressure, cure loneliness, rid you of depression and anxiety.   

We have some videos to show you what the 8 new rooms and office look like with some more pictures of those attending since it was a time to greet old and new friends. The media rooms are particular impressive and certainly would not have been around in 2003!

Rooms 1 and 2 are for the visual arts:

Say hello to Rosemary KimBal at the end of the video 

Ellen Speert and Irene de Watteville appear at the beginning and Lili Noden at the end of this video

Room 3 and 4 are performing arts rooms with wall to wall mirrors. 

Rooms 5 and 6 are multimedia rooms

Room 7 and 8 are both  mixed use rooms

Still intact, of old hopscotch has been preserved from the school!

The office is begging for art to be put on the walls!

My favorite part of the new color scheme is the contrasting complimentary color soffits under the overhang, each one coordinated green with red wall, purple with yellow wall and blue with orange wall.   I helped design that!  

Pacific View Art Center
380 West F Street, Encinitas CA 92024 (Between 3rd and 4th)

pvac@EncinitasCA.gov 760-943-2160 
Starting Hours: Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Saturday, Sunday: 10am-3pm