Just a little Good Natured post
A blog entry about an art show at the best public gallery in San Diego.
To anyone living in San Diego who is interested in Art with a capital “A” but maybe isn’t exactly sure where to find it in this city whose culture seems to be spread impossibly thin, this blog is for you! In my nearly 4 decades on this planet I’ve spent more than 9/10 of my time living in and around San Diego. After college I bounced around from Rancho Bernardo, to North Park, to the Midway district, to Vista/Oceanside, to Poway, and now I’m happily in Ocean Beach which I am beyond grateful for. I say this not to brag (1) but I say it to share that I’ve lived in many parts of the county and the one thing that is consistent to all this living is that EVERYTHING in San Diego is spread the fuck out and the “Art Scene” if there even is one, is no exception. For years I’ve known that the museums at Balboa Park were a hub. After starting to spend more and more time there I’d begin to prefer the Spanish Artist Village as it had more to offer and IMHO often provided more compelling or at least digestible work than most of the stuffy shows that had been on view at the museums for what felt like forever. (2)
As I started taking my photography more seriously and started becoming an “artist” myself, it became important for me to start finding the places where "good" art is shown in town. And in this city it has been a real struggle. Over the years I’d be reminded of the Museum of Contemporary Art in La Jolla, I’d also found the commercial galleries in La Jolla while working in that part of town for a number of years, and I’ve found few more gallery spaces in various parts of town but most of what I found were some version of a commercial gallery. I learned in the last few years about the artist studios and galleries in Liberty Station, through some of my friends I made while beginning to show/sell my work at the annual ArtWalk shows (3) in the same location. However, in my understanding, if you are not actively or passively paying rent on the space (4) I've only found a couple legit public galleries that show great work. The Crème de la crème being the San Diego Public Library Gallery at the San Diego Central Library in downtown which is what this whole meandering blog is all about.
The space itself is nothing short of incredible. It sits on the top floor of the now 10 year old library that I still refer to as “the new library.” (5) The space is everything you’d imagine an art gallery look like. If I had to guess I’d say it was 20’ x 60’ but I’m not a contractor and it’s not easily googleable so “you get what you get and you don’t throw a fit.” At any rate it’s a good size room, great lighting, typical sterile environment, it feels exactly like a room/hall in a museum. The only difference is that this is a free gallery space and it’s open to the public. The first time I walked in I couldn’t believe it was free. Granted it’s a much smaller experience than going to a whole museum, but the quality of the work and the level of excellence of the gallery I just couldn’t believe it was for the people.
As an emerging artist it’s been important for me to start understanding this world that I am attempting to occupy so I’ve been getting out to art events and exhibitions around town as much as I can and every time I’ve come to the library gallery I’ve been absolutely blown away by what was on view and unlike the boring ass San Diego museums (6) there’s a new show what seems like every quarter and this latest show… my god. It’s sensational.
It’s title Good Natured and every piece is in one way or another about the environment. How incredible is that?! Now I’m sure some of you may be thinking, “ok so the show is about the environment, so what?” To be fair, if that’s your takeaway, fine —but also THE ENVIRONMENT IS ONLY THE BIGGEST CHALLENGE WE FACE AS A SPECIES SO ITS KIND OF LIKE ALL WE SHOULD BE TALKING ABOUT ALWAYS!!! But other than that, I could see your point.(7) I guess I’m just tired of seeing meaningless bullshit work and shows and there is SOOOOOO MUCH OF THAT going on these days... So to see a show with incredible work AND purpose that shines lights on different aspects of the environmental crisis and highlights the delicate nature of the environment through a collection of vastly different pieces and perspectives was something that I not only can get behind, but it’s probably the best and most important show in the city that I’ve seen.
As you may have realized this isn’t a formal art critique like one by one of my heroes, Mr. Jerry Saltz, but rather a blog post from an artist who appreciates good work and would like to see more of it in his hometown. I don’t have the vocabulary to adequately describe each piece, or to articulate just how impactful this particular show was to me, but I think there’s enough here where you can get the gist. Also, being a smaller show, I think a better use of my time and skillset is to try and pique the interest of people who might actually make the pilgrimage downtown and dedicate 30 mins to an hour or so to go give the gallery a visit. (9)
Good Natured curated by Bonnie Domingos and featuring work by Trevor Amery, Mariah Armstrong, Stephanie Bedwell, Taylor Chapin, Aaron Glasson, Sofia V. Gonzales, Judit Hersko, Bianca Juarez, Timothy Murdoch, Margaret Noble, Terri Hughes-Oelrich, Catherine Ruane, Tatiana Ortiz-Rubio, and Ruth Wallen will continue its run through the end of the month (7/30/23) and I recommend it to anyone and everyone. Every piece in the show is amazing, which speaks to Bonnie's credit as a curator. And if I had to pick just one piece as my favorite it would be the postcard rack, by Margaret Noble located right near the entrance. It features different postcards with a local board of tourism inspired “sometimes…” written in script font on the front over the top of images indicative of environmental decay/catastrophe and inscribed with a cultural norm that devastates the environment on the back. Written in the style of a personal confession “Sometimes I do ________,” which showcases how much power we as individuals, and collectively as a society have to make a positive impact on the environment by simply engaging in small changes in personal behavior. Just an absolute gem. Any who, enough gushing/butchering other’s work. Go check it all out for yourself while you still can through the end of the month, and then go check out some books from the library below.
(1) Because let’s be honest there’s only a couple of neighborhoods/cities that I listed that I’m proud to have lived in. IJS.
(2) To be fair to the museums, most of what’s shown/available at the artist studios is very commercial, and probably wouldn’t be a great fit for a museum show but there’s also some real shit in there too.
(3) It's an art fair.
(4) Passively through a steep commission via a commercial gallery.
(5) Let's be honest, in terms of the skyline and coming from a local boy it still feels quite new.
(6) Shots fired.
(7) I know i'm just speaking for me but one of my biggest pet peeves is artists who are afraid to tackle issues in their work (regardless of the medium they work in) to avoid being viewed as “political” or because the work might not sell, or whatever the fuck justification they have for making the shitty, boring, soulless, or all of the above work that they happen to make. To me art is about communication, and if the only thing your art communicates is "pretty" or "fun!" that ain't going to matter in 30 years when we're all living in Kevin Reynolds'(8) Waterworld, and it ain't going to help wake anyone up from our collective consumerist coma either.
(8) Arguably Kevin Costner's Waterworld.
(9) Free 2 hour parking in the underground parking. Just validate on the first floor on the left, by the counter after you walk through the metal detectors.
There’s something in the water at The Template on Mondays (and it sounds a lot like GREAT FUCKING LIVE MUSIC)
Richard shares his experience shooting a professional musicians’ jam at The Template in Ocean Beach, CA.
Hello friends,
You might recall that back in March I wrote about a time where I briefly stumbled across an epic jam/drum battle while out on a walk with Erin. As I was writing that blog I made initial contact with @john_mdrums a.k.a. John Martinez drummer extraordinaire on insta who was the reason the jam was put together (1). As things go, I kept up with John because I knew how impactful the 10 minutes I shared with his crew was to me personally and he was my connection to that scene. So I kept my ears to the street for an opportunity to spend more time together and the opportunity soon came.
About a month ago I saw John post about a jam that he was putting together at The Template, this insane art café (2) in OB that I absolutely love. I mentioned that I’d love to come by and shoot photos sometime which John seemed receptive to but this wouldn’t be able to materialize until a month later (3) so I don’t think he put much stock into my threat. As luck would have it, the jams kept on and last Monday (4) I reached out to John to confirm as much.
“Yo man you guys jamming tonight?”
“Yes”
“Template?”
“Yes”
“Rad. I’ll see you there man.”
Now in hindsight I realize that I am a crazy person for thinking John would remember me saying I wanted to come take pictures of his jam a month ago but I showed up with my camera ready to shoot anyway. My month old intel had a 6pm start time and I strolled up at 6:15pm thinking I was late but as it turned out the jam was scheduled to start at 6:30pm and in reality it didn’t really get started until closer to 7pm. This was fine because it gave me time to meet some of the musicians that were hanging out waiting for things to get going.
I awkwardly wedge myself into some conversations and chatted up anyone who would have me which led to some great conversations and some …well pretty uncomfortable “Welp. See you later” moments. Luckily for me I’m able to see the humor in these situations and not take it as a slight against me. And for the record, there were only a couple of these hilariously awkward moments and most everyone I chatted with was super nice and welcoming even though I did show up as a complete outsider —with a camera no less.
After 30 minutes of schmoozing and occasionally flailing socially I sense things are getting close to starting so I start shooting a little. The musicians waste no time. After a collaborative effort to throw a massive rug over a support beam to help with the acoustics from the drum kit, they’re ready too. Their sound checks are not your typical snare hit, snare hit, snare hit, …symbol crash, symbol crash… No these guys just start playing —and fucking well. Really fucking well. I recognize some of them from the jam at the skatepark and I am immediately in that feeling again. The talent oozes from these players. It’s intoxicating. Surreal.
I don’t waste my time either (5). I jump in and start getting a feel for the various players and the space. After 10 minutes or so of this it is fully on!
Throughout the night there were a handful of drummers, a couple percussionists and bass players, a few key players, a flautist, a few horn players (two sax, one trumpet), one beatboxer, one singer who popped up near the end, and naturally a metric shit ton of guitarists. It is a “professional musician’s jam” and as such everyone absolutely rips it.
The house band leads the jam with John popping out from behind his kit to MC between songs. They play for two and a half hours straight taking only short breaks (6) between songs to occasionally shout out the players, and after a few songs to start cycling in other musicians who have been patiently waiting in the audience for their turn to shred. As much as I love music I’ve never been classically trained and therefore I’m not able to speak very intelligently about the genre of music being played, if any (7) but I’d say the music this night lived somewhere in the contemporary upbeat Jazz (8), funk, adult alternative, and rock world with plenty of room for anything and everything. To put it more simply you could classify it as great live music, with real life and soul.
To think that this is a FREE SHOW is almost unfathomable as it was truly one of the best live music experiences of my life, and not to suck my own dick here but I’ve been to a ton of incredible concerts, festivals, and shows but something about this jam... I mean the sheer talent, the improvised nature of it all, and the experimental vibe of The Template itself, it really just makes for something truly special. If you’re in San Diego or close by and you want to see some of the most talented musicians in the city put the plane together midflight as they rocket off the proverbial cliff, come through to The Template on Mondays 6:30pm – 9:30pm, get your face melted, and throw a $20 in the tip jar (9). If you are a LIVE music or jam band fan, this is for you.
(1) It was a birthday shed! (sung in the style of the Monster Mash “it was a graveyard smash” refrain)
(2) Picture Burning Man if it was a coffee shop.
(3) As a parent it’s not always easy for me to get out on a weeknight and last month I was already pretty tapped out attending many events of a multi-week photo festival, and prepping and participating in my favorite art fair of the year —Look I was busy OK?!
(4) March 8, 2023
(5) I came to shoot music, maaaaaan.
(6) We’re talking maybe 30 seconds to a minute max.
(7) DON’T LIKE TRY TO PUT ME IN A BOX, MAAAAN!
(8) I’m just typing words. I have no idea what I’m talking about, but it feels right if that means anything.
(9) Or more!
