{"id":236225,"date":"2013-06-03T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2013-06-03T07:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sdnews.com\/exploring-balboa-park-3\/"},"modified":"2013-06-03T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2013-06-03T07:00:00","slug":"exploring-balboa-park-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/exploring-balboa-park-3\/","title":{"rendered":"Exploring Balboa Park"},"content":{"rendered":"

Johnny McDonald | Downtown News<\/p>\n

Visiting the village of artists<\/b><\/p>\n

\"Johnny<\/a>
johnny mcdonald<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Be sure to take a look over the shoulder of any talented artist when visiting colorful Spanish Village. Don\u2019t worry, they\u2019re happy to know you\u2019re interested and willing to converse.<\/p>\n

There are 37 studios managed by 250 juried artists in this friendly colony, celebrating over 78 years in a location sandwiched between the Natural History Museum and the San Diego Zoo.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you step inside one of our studios, someone should be working on a project or be on the internet showing people what we do,\u201d said ceramic artist Vaughan Nelson. \u201cWe encourage people to be a participant.\u201d<\/p>\n

Quick learning, Nelson is relatively new to the Spanish Village scene, having moved there just three-and-a-half years ago.<\/p>\n

His pottery achievements, which now go beyond San Diego, began when he took a class at San Diego Mesa College.<\/p>\n

\"Spanish<\/a>
Spanish Village in Balboa Park is home to 250-juried artists (Photo by Linda Hite)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cTwenty minutes into the class I fell in love with it,\u201d he said, while unloading some pottery in front of his studio. Pottery work time means 40-plus hours a week.<\/p>\n

Nelson shares a studio with Chris Stell, who offers diachronic glassware and jewelry, Gail Woods with her polymer clay, Jan Petec\u2019s lamp work glass beads and jewelry and Howard Mosley with objects made in cold glass or metal sculptures.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is my way of being around people, because I do much of my work at home,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

He sells to shops and exhibits in galleries throughout the United States. \u00a0A few days earlier, he had been in Philadelphia.<\/p>\n

His price range might run from $34 to $350 … and involve anything from wedding plates to large urns.\u00a0Nelson was born in Portugal and raised in England and has been in this country since 1987.<\/p>\n

Danielle Deaton showcases eye-catching watercolors, as does Sally Bly in another studio that includes Laura Wells\u2019 jewelry and lamp work.\u00a0You might believe the majority of the residents here are from other countries but Deaton, who was born in Paris, said no. \u00a0\u201cMaybe only 10 percent here are foreign born,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Deaton is a Village veteran, sharing different studios over 20 years. Her watercolor choices include seascapes and deserts to house portraits.<\/p>\n

\"Artist<\/a>
Artist Danielle Deaton holds up one of her works (Photo by Linda Hite)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a great companionship among these sharing artists,\u201d she said. \u201cI came to the United States with my parents when I was 16.\u201d<\/p>\n

Her side job? She teaches French at the San Diego Oasis, a unique educational program for mature adults who want to continue to learn.\u00a0When on commission, Deaton said she paints at home. She proudly held up a copy of a painting of the US Navy destroyer she had done.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was commissioned to do this and when it was completed, I was invited by its (the ship\u2019s) captain to be a guest for lunch aboard the ship,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Samplings of quality work \u2013 oil seascapes created by Carol Foster and Yanush Godlewski, talented artists with over 25 years of experience … Kay Frances Hubbard\u2019s watercolors, photography by Denise Strahm, and ceramic tiles by Kathy Wailer \u2026 Lucy Wang\u2019s delicate and beautiful watercolor on silk and rice paper. Wang also teaches Chinese brush painting. Then there\u2019s Rebecca Lowell\u2019s hand-woven baskets of palm sheath … Michelle Gonzalez\u2019 mixed-media watercolor and acrylics, Laura LeMaster\u2019s silk paintings … Fused glass jewelry handcrafted in gold and silver by Grace Miller and Sandra Davis.<\/p>\n

And elsewhere around the Park<\/b> \u2013 The San Diego Zoo\u2019s<\/b> newest exhibit, Australian Outback<\/b>, is a three-acre home to more than 20 Queensland koalas. It also includes a variety of other pouched mammals, such as wombats and wallabies and also has 23 species of Australian birds … Featured through Sept. 10 at the Natural History Museum<\/b> will be a photographic exhibition of the Sea of Cortez\u2019 marine life by Raul Gonzalez<\/b>. This exhibit was produced in collaboration with National Geographic and sponsored by Sony Electronics Inc., which has a major research and conservation stake in the museum. Sixty plates will illustrate the magnificent marine life that John Steinbeck and naturalist Edward Ricketts chronicled during their historic journey to the Sea of Cortez (known also known as the Gulf of California) back in 1940.<\/p>\n

After an award winning, 38-year sports-writing career with the San Diego Union and authoring three books, Johnny McDonald now considers writing a hobby. He enjoys covering aspects of the port district, convention center, Balboa Park, zoo, and stories with a historical bent. You can reach him at johnny23@cox.net.<\/i><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Johnny McDonald | Downtown News Visiting the village of artists Be sure to take a look over the shoulder of any talented artist when visiting colorful Spanish Village. Don\u2019t worry, they\u2019re happy to know you\u2019re interested and willing to converse. There are 37 studios managed by 250 juried artists in this friendly colony, celebrating over […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":1182,"featured_media":236226,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"Exploring Balboa Park","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[11549,11547,11600],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-236225","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arts-entertainment","category-features","category-sdnews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236225","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1182"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=236225"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236225\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/236226"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=236225"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=236225"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=236225"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}