Mission Federal Credit Union has sponsored the annual ArtWalk in Little Italy for 32 years. The 2016 staging of the event occurred over the weekend of April 30-May 1, taking over 15 street blocks for a free, festive and fun showing of artworks from over 350 local, national and international artists. Several artists from East County were there, showing impressive displays of a variety of art pieces.
Mission Federal Credit Union has sponsored the annual ArtWalk in Little Italy for 32 years. The 2016 staging of the event occurred over the weekend of April 30-May 1, taking over 15 street blocks for a free, festive and fun showing of artworks from over 350 local, national and international artists. Several artists from East County were there, showing impressive displays of a variety of art pieces.
Among the artists from East County was Jesse Miller, who has lived in Fletcher Hills for 18 years, returning to the area after he grew up there. He has served as a lifeguard for the city of San Diego for 17 summers, and he has been an artist for 25 years. That certainly explains the abundance of water themes and seashore creatures in his lovely, airy paintings. He majored in art during college studies in Hawaii. Miller mostly takes watercolors and oils as his preferred media, often painting seascapes.
“I brought a lot of pictures of waves for some reason this year,” he said a bit sheepishly, while looking around his booth. He has appeared at the ArtWalk show for 10 years. He brings his art to coastal shows mostly. “This one is fun.”
Miller priced his pictures for sale at ArtWalk at $150 to $2,000 each, and also had affordable prints available.
“Anyone from around San Diego will see familiar scenes in my pictures,” he said. “I hope people who see them like them.”
Not far away from Miller’s display, and taking up neighboring booth spaces, were artworks from the married La Mesa artists Monique Straub and John Straub. Both are professional artists with compelling work, favoring very different styles and themes. Monique explained her process.
“I travel around East County and on my circuit I take photographs. I paint my pictures from those,” she said. A lifelong San Diego native, she has been a professional artist for two decades. She worked mostly in soft pastels at first, moving to oils about five years ago for larger pieces and to address framing and shipping issues. Her art is vivid and impressionistic. She features East County botanical subjects and landscapes.
“I have been painting a lot of cactus and agave scenes,” she went on. “Succulents have been getting everybody’s attention, with the water problem.”
John Straub also works from scenes around East County, especially from around Jamul, which he considers his hometown. He seeks out rustic and rural themes, including rusted-out vehicles and farm equipment as photographic art subjects. His wife, Monique, described one source of his inspiration, “He found his vintage 1967 Porsche—we call it his 67-911—in a barn. He’s been fascinated with scenes like that,” she said.
The opportunities for East County artists appearing at ArtWalk are excellent, according to the event’s managing director, Sandi Cottrell. “This event has grown over its 32 years,” she began explaining. “It has been the same size for several years, but the quality has gone up tremendously in these last few years. We have a laborious project in selecting the art.”
With a background in corporate event planning, Cottrell has been in charge of the team organizing ArtWalk for 12 years.
“We deliver a positive experience for artists,” she said. “And they tell us this is one of the best organized shows they’ve ever attended.” With musical stages scattered amid the blocked-off route of tented art booths, plus lots of street food vendors, the ArtWalk festival is as much cultural experience as an art show.
“Our real mission is to get people to consider owning original art,” Cottrell continued. “Going to a gallery can be intimidating, but this is a fun event. We draw huge crowds, and this helps artists get in front of people they might never otherwise meet.”
One related benefit derives from artists getting to know each other and exchanging knowledge about methods for marketing their art. “They’ve become a surprisingly close-knit group,” Cottrell stated.
Pine Valley artist Norm Daniels seemed to be enjoying the event immensely while manning his corner booth on Sunday afternoon. His artwork emphasizes tropical, vivid scenes and subjects. His father was an artist, and Daniels said that he grew up in East County doing art himself. “No blank piece of paper was safe from me when I was a kid,” Daniels said. He retired six years ago from a career as an architect after medical problems sidelined him for a time. Now, he does art. Some of his pictures depicted recognizable locations from around San Diego County. Daniels responded to an inquiry about prices from a potential buyer strolling through, “No reasonable offer will be refused.”
The Mission Federal ArtWalk attracts over 100,000 attendees each year. The same organizing team puts together a companion event, ArtWalk NTC, which will be staged at Liberty Station in August.
