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New Chicano Park Muralists Are Honored to Paint in the Park

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44th annual Chicano Park Day Celebration this Saturday

By Brent E. Beltrán

The Chicano Park Steering Committee and thousands of their friends will be celebrating the 44th anniversary of the takeover of Chicano Park this Saturday in San Diego’s Barrio Logan. The theme of the celebration is “La Tierra Es De Quien La Trabaja: The Land Belongs To Those Who Work It.” 

Last year I wrote:

“On April 22, 1970 a rag tag group of artists, activists, and community members joined forces and took over the land underneath the San Diego-Coronado Bridge in Barrio Logan. At the time, construction was about to begin on the building of a California Highway Patrol substation. For many years, residents of Barrio Logan had been promised a park. Seeing the pending creation of a CHP substation was the straw that broke this barrio’s back.”

Every year the community of Barrio Logan, as well as Chicanas and Chicanos from all over, and our friends and allies, all come together to celebrate the takeover of the area underneath the San Diego-Coronado Bridge.   [Read more…]

Barrio Logan: Arts and Culture

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Film by Media Arts Center’s Teen Producers Project
Intro by Brent E. Beltrán

With the ballot battle looming over the future of Barrio Logan, due to Maritime Industry’s refusal to accept the Barrio Logan Community Plan update, I feel it is necessary to give voters of the city of San Diego a little history of Barrio Logan and highlight the issues residents face. In June, eligible San Diego voters will go to the polls to vote on whether to approve the community plan or reject it.

Over the next few weeks I will post a video on Sundays that highlights the community of Barrio Logan and the beauty within San Diego’s most historic barrio.

This week’s video, Barrio Logan: Arts and Culture, is about how arts and culture are an integral part of Barrio Logan’s identity.   [Read more…]

Ernie McCray: Speaking Straight from the Heart

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Recipient of the Phi Delta Kappa Unsung Hero Award

By Staff

On April 3, Ernie McCray was honored by the San Diego Chapter of Phi Delta Kappa, an international association for professional educators. The Kappan awards bestowed earlier in the evening were for individuals and organizations that have made a substantive difference for those wishing to become educators and for children within the school system.

Ernie’s award came later in the evening, after the recognition of Partner in Education, Educator of the Year, and Leadership. Those of us who know Ernie would be hard pressed to sum up his presence and contributions in just one category– he is known by thousands of students, parents and colleagues as an extraordinary educator; he has been a tireless advocate for peace and justice in the streets and in our schools; you can find him from time to time on a stage, acting and reading his poetry; and he has a following on the San Diego Free Press and OBRag where he contributes essays and poetry. Unsung Hero is a pretty good fit and that was his award designation.   [Read more…]

Prune Nourry: French Artist’s Terracotta Daughters Are on the Move

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By Mic Porte

I love Paris, the city where people will stand attentively in line for hours to view an art exposition. Galleries, book stores and theaters are always packed. In France, food is art, clothing is art, life is art, and art is in their hearts from the beginning of recorded time– think of the beautiful Lascaux prehistoric cave paintings.

French children are taught art appreciation from day one and it reflects in the architecture and design and lifestyle all around the country. Visual art. The French invented photography and cinema to further the reach of art for the modern world. They are not afraid to expand the boundaries of acceptability, always challenging our perspective of the world, from Impressionism to Dadaism.

The 2014 Spring Equinox heralds the arrival of one of their own, Prune Nourry, young woman sculptress and multimedia artist, and her astonishing and powerful army of Terracotta Daughters, come to Paris to change the world. There is one word to describe this art show: Awesome.   [Read more…]

Belen Pereyra and the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater in Costa Mesa

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How things not working out… worked out better in the end

By Alejandra Enciso Guzmán

It has been and intense week full of choreography and dance at the Segerstrom Center for the Arts (SCFTA) in Costa Mesa. The Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater has filled the cultural campus with never before performed works on the West Coast. A lot of us don’t get to go to New York. When these types of events come to the area, just a brief drive away, they are certainly a must see.

Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater is recognized by U.S. Congressional resolution as a vital American “Cultural Ambassador to the World.” It has performed for an estimated 23 million people in 71 countries on six continents, promoting the uniqueness of the African‐American cultural experience and the preservation and enrichment of the American modern dance tradition.   [Read more…]

Chicano Park Documentary by Redbird Films

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Video by Redbird Films
Intro by Brent E. Beltrán

With the ballot battle looming over the future of Barrio Logan, due to Maritime Industry’s refusal to accept the Barrio Logan Community Plan update, I feel it is necessary to give voters of the city of San Diego a little history of Barrio Logan and highlight the issues residents face. In June, eligible San Diego voters will go to the polls to vote on wether to approve the community plan or reject it.

Over the next few weeks I will post a video on Sundays that highlights the community of Barrio Logan and the beauty within San Diego’s most historic barrio.

This week’s video is the classic Chicano Park documentary produced in 1989 by Redbird Films. The film, narrated by veteran actor Tony Plana, depicts the founding and history of this world famous historical site.   [Read more…]

Sanctuary: 7th Annual Dia de la Mujer Juried Art Exhibition to Open

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An all woman’s art exhibition, a film screening and a very womanly celebration

By Leticia Gomez Franco 

Casa Familiar’s THE FRONT will once again present their annual ode to women, this year called Sanctuary: 7th Annual Dia de la Mujer Art Exhibition. The group art exhibition features the work of 48 female artists from both sides of the border and will be on view from March 7  to April 24.

With over 50 art pieces on view, the exhibition is a wonderful collection of work, inspired by this years theme: Sanctuary. Artists were invited to explore the idea of sanctuary in its many manifestations as it relates to them as women and builders and creators of their own spaces. With this theme the exhibition curator honors the mission of Día de la Mujer. The art exhibition allows women artists to create real representations of themselves, to counter the powerful stream of visual stimulation spat out by the media, oversaturating our world, with foreign, unrealistic versions of women. Día de la Mujer fosters a safe space for women to be real women and to celebrate that realness, in all of its diverse beauty.   [Read more…]

With Our Words We Celebrate the Voz Alta Project Gallery

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Art space that helped start the Barrio Logan Arts District closes

By Brent E. Beltrán

This past Thursday night the Voz Alta Project Gallery in Barrio Logan closed its doors as a physical space. Though curator Carlos Beltrán (no relation to the author) will keep Voz Alta going through collaborations with other spaces the physical space that was Voz Alta is no more.

Due to a variety of reasons Carlos chose to close the space that helped start the revitalization of the arts in Barrio Logan. If Chicano Park is the grandfather of Chicano art and culture in San Diego then Voz Alta is the child that became the big daddy to most of the recent spaces that have opened up over the last four years. Places like The Roots Factory, The Spot, Stronghold, Chicano Art Gallery, La Bodega and The Nest all owe their existence to Voz Alta and those that made Voz Alta possible.   [Read more…]

Astronomers Discover New Planets on the Day Ernest Silva Died

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A Personal Reflection

By Karen Kenyon

Yesterday I heard the news about the planets, and later in the day the news that artist Ernest Silva died. Both startling and hard to believe – a great discovery, a great loss.

Ernie (as those who knew him called him) had been a Professor in the Visual Arts Department at UCSD since 1979 — and was an internationally known visual artist.

I only knew him because I was fortunate enough to interview him on two occasions, and then because I live near UCSD, I experienced the synchronicity of running into him several times — at Trader Joe’s, at Whole Foods, at the campus credit union, at Peet’s…..

But I had not run into him for about two months, and wondered why.   [Read more…]

Higher Education: When is Enough Going to Be Enough?

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When is enough going to be enough? When are we as a nation going to get our priorities straight about higher education? When did it become the rule that the cost of higher education was lifelong indebtedness?

Via Occupy*Posters, a group that says it speaks with and not for Occupy Wall Street we present a handy-dandy cartoon (inside) that pretty much says it all about how our system of higher education is failing.

Here’s the About section of their website. There’s lots more great stuff where this came from:

Born of solidarity with the Occupy Movement’s grievances during its earliest September 2011 days, the straightforward, high-contrast designs and impact-filled visual messages of Occupy* Posters have helped change national conversations. Occupy* Posters has contributed hundreds of well-received visual messages to activists, numerous of which have become iconic images speaking to recent times. 

Dozens of Occupy* Posters have gone insanely viral on the Internet, some with millions of shares. Some have also been featured on the BBC, Current TV, the Huffington Post, Upworthy, MoveOn.org, DailyKos, and more. Some even appear in brick-and-mortar museums, and one is in a major college textbook.    [Read more…]

Community Radio Coming Soon to the Greater Logan Heights Area

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Radio Pulso del Barrio will focus on arts and education

By Brent E. Beltrán

For the past few months there have been meetings at various locations throughout the Greater Logan Heights area to implement a public art project called Open Spaces. Open Spaces is a two-year public art initiative that is funded by the James Irvine Foundation through the San Diego Museum of Art to create a community based art project.

This is the second Open Spaces project in San Diego. The first is ongoing in Lincoln Park.

“Open Spaces goes out into communities and allows community members and residents to be the decision makers on what public art should look like in their area. And that would be content, medium and location,” says project coordinator Irma Patricia Aguayo Esquivias.  “Coming into these communities we never know what it is going to be. We have no idea until we are actually participating in the community meetings then people start to voice what they’d like to see.”   [Read more…]

La Bodega Grand Opening Celebration a Big Hit

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Barrio Logan’s newest art space launches to large, art hungry crowd

By Brent E. Beltrán

La Bodega Gallery and Creative Studios held their grand opening celebration on Saturday night to a massive, art-loving audience. Hundreds of people from throughout San Diego made their way to Barrio Logan for the inaugural event.

“It’s great to see all the people come out and support,” says La Bodega’s Milo Lorenzana. “Everyone is excited.”

La Bodega, the creation of Milo, Chris Zertuche, Max Bojorquez and Bucky Montero, is located on the corner of Logan Ave. and Sampson St. In addition to housing a gallery it also hosts artistic studios from area artists and designers including The Spot, DJ V-Rock, Dos Caras Swimwear, San Diego Taco Company, Border X Brewing, Waist Knot Want Not, Spencer Little, Valor Fight Club and others. About eighteen artists studios will eventually be housed inside La Bodega.

Milo says that “we still have a lot of work to do.” The renovations to the building are about 60% done but enough work has taken place that the Bodega crew felt comfortable holding a grand opening.   [Read more…]

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