Many Hands Make Lightscape Work at San Diego Botanic Garden

By Lonnie Burstein Hewitt.  Photos by Maurice Hewitt. 

 

Walking along Lightscape 2025.

This is SDBG’s fourth annual Lightscape, seven weeks of illuminated installations accompanied by music that turn the Garden into a magical place for a night-time stroll that welcomes the holiday season.

The displays, created by artists from around the world, are all new, except for two old favorites: the Winter Cathedral and the golden poppies of Floraison.   

To prepare for the November 14^th opening, work on Lightscape 2025 began well before Halloween. And this year, for the first time, Maurice and I got to meet some of the people whose weeks of hard work make the magic possible.

Production Manager Ian Xavier is used to producing large-scale environments at music festivals and other major events, but he especially loves doing Lightscape.

“This garden is the most beautiful place in the world to work,” he said, and he and his team do a fair bit of heavy lifting each year to turn the beautiful garden into an eye-and-ear-popping evening extravaganza.

 

Ian Xavier (back right) and his crew at work, including Danni G (far right), who does all the sound for Lightscape--148 speakers!

One Sunday, we met Jasmyn “Jazzy” Birdsong, who is Head Electrician for Lightscape San Diego and supervises a team of 11. She’s been here, as have most of the Lightscape workforce, for all four years, and we followed her to the parking lot she calls The Boneyard.    

Jasmyn Birdsong in The Boneyard.

“This is our working compound, where we have all our tools and machinery,’’ she said. “All the lighting starts here, and we get deliveries from all over the world.”

We saw some of her team attaching pixel tape to metal rods which would become giant lit-up snowflakes in the Snowflake display. We also watched Glenna Corrall stringing flowers for Floraison.

 

Glenna Corrall, stringing the flowers she calls “Bud Lights.”

“Installment of anything that plugs in--that’s my team’s job,” Jasmyn said. “It’s cool getting a chance to install art that’s impactful to people. A lot of folks who know me don’t know that I do Lightscape, so it’s fun when they tell me they just saw this terrific thing at the Botanic Garden and I say ‘I did that!’ ” 

Another afternoon, we met Hannah Kendall, who was giving electric cables some protective covering. Originally from England, she has lived in many countries, and now lives in Baja, staying with friends on this side of the border while she’s working at Lightscape. “It’s hard work and long days, but it’s like working with family!” she said.

 

Hannah Kendall, covering cable.

Here are a few of our favorite things at this year’s Lightscape, to give you a look before you go see for yourself.

 

Waterfall 

 Waterfall 

One Small Thing

Fireflies  

Lightscape is on view evenings from 5-9 p.m. through January 4. Tickets must be purchased in advance and are not refundable--rain or shine. For all info:  lightscapeus.com/san-diego. 

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