30 San Diego-Based Holiday Gifts to Support Local

San Diego is full of people who deserve a few thousand words on what they make, who they bring together, and how their work changes the city around them. The artists, makers, advocates, and behind-the-scenes talent below are a small part of that larger ecosystem.

To help us narrow our list, we looked for names that kept coming up, work that reflects the diversity of our region, and people building something bigger than themselves.

Some ancient philosophers believed that humans experience seven-year life cycles or phases of life. Some went so far as to believe that every cell in the body regenerates every seven years.

Much later, in the 1800s, Austrian philosopher, architect, and social reformer Rudolf Steiner developed anthroposophy—an integration of science, art, and spirituality—into his understanding of the human experience. Steiner believed that each of us changes every seven years—from spiritual beliefs to physical evolution—and art is the connective tissue through each of these cycles. Still today, Steiner’s teachings are foundational to the principles of Waldorf education.

While I’ve certainly experienced more than a few human life cycles of my own, I believe that, just like us, cities have their own life cycles.

Cities are living organisms, regenerated every day by the people that live, work, and gather there. Environmental changes, human migration, economic shifts, technological advances, politics, and public policy—they all inform a city’s evolution, sometimes intentionally and sometimes by forces outside of our control. But ultimately, we as humans respond, adapt, and sometimes make our most important new advances.

In the aftermath of World War II, in 1947, the Edinburgh International Festival was established to promote international peace through the performing arts. Today, that festival continues as a global gathering place to experience some of the world’s most innovative dance and theater.

In post-revolution Mexico, that country’s government launched a monumental muralism program to celebrate the history of its Indigenous cultures. Today, that tradition still informs the way Mexico tells its stories and how we understand its history.

Here in the US, the National Endowment for the Arts was established in 1965, at a time when the arts were seen as part of our national strength and resilience. For the first time, federal funds were directed to communities across the country to invest in the arts at a local level.

San Diego may be relatively young as a major American urban center, and even younger on the world stage, but our region as home to humans is ancient. Today, we love a San Diego that is built on roads and traditions of the Kumeyaay Nation, where we share a modern mega-region with our sister city and cultural twin, Tijuana, on unceded Kumeyaay land.

History has shown us that the arts generate the very human connection and understanding that allows our politics, policies, technological advances, and human migration to move forward. In that way and more, the arts are the very heartbeat of our city.

In this issue of San Diego Magazine, we celebrate the artists, creatives, culture bearers, and workers who keep our region connected and in conversation as we take on challenges big and small—internationally as well as on our own neighborhood streets.

Artists are our storytellers. They respond to and chronicle the best and the worst of us—our foibles and weaknesses, our struggles, and, undeniably, our successes.

Now: a look back into the past seven years in history. They have not been a walk in the park, with a pandemic, global unrest, and shifting domestic politics as only a few forces that have challenged our lives and our region. Together, we experienced some of our greatest struggles and witnessed tremendous resilience.

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That’s exactly why this is an exciting time for the arts in San Diego. We are on the precipice of an even more fertile, sustained, and inclusive time for the arts in our region.

In some ways, Covid seems like an eternity ago. I remember all too well the massive economic impact on our cultural institutions, some of which have never fully recovered. I remember the mass layoffs of the workers who keep our arts institutions going and the teaching artists who were suddenly out of work.

I also remember the poets, filmmakers, actors, and musicians who helped us grapple with the disruptions of the pandemic. Our communities became virtual, and artists gave us the space to make sense of it all.

In fact, a common phrase emerged from the Covid: artists as second responders.

Still today, I think about the short film made by San Diegans Susanna Peredo Swap and Gill Sotu called History of Joy, which captured so brilliantly what we were experiencing during those days of lockdown.

Since then, as an arts community, we’ve pushed forward transformational work that we will continue to build upon in this next seven-year cycle and well beyond.

Hundreds of artists and culture bearers have spent the past several years going to work with community groups across the region as part of Far South/Border North, our region’s component of the California Arts Council’s groundbreaking artist work program, Creative Corps. The impact resonated so deeply that local government and philanthropy partnered for a second iteration, Artist Count, this time a binational initiative launched just a few months ago.

We’ve invested mightily in cultural infrastructure. Need some examples? There’s the reimagined Jacobs Music Center and Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, the Black Arts & Culture District, the state designation of Arts District Liberty Station, and now the burgeoning Art + Design District downtown.

World Design Capital San Diego Tijuana 2024 elevated what we already knew—that the two neighboring cities are culturally and creatively intertwined as one region—and boosted our global presence as a creative juggernaut. Artists, designers, and community leaders worked together to produce more than 600 events across our region that year, and the impact continues.

And “Creative City,” the City of San Diego’s first cultural plan that incorporates arts and culture advancements in the city’s development, was crafted by thousands of San Diegans as a roadmap to take us into the future.

Here’s what I know about the past seven years: San Diego’s artists, creatives, and culture bearers showed up for our region as our storytellers, second responders, and creative workforce.

And for the next seven? San Diego will morph and change, as every city does. Sometimes because of us, sometimes in spite of us. But our city’s creative community has a solid foundation on which to build, led by the artists who witness and tell our stories each and every day.

—Jonathon Glus, Conrad Prebys Foundation’s Senior Fellow for Art and Design in Residence at the Downtown San Diego Partnership

What makes San Diego, San Diego? That’s the question at the heart of this issue.

Over the course of eight weeks, San Diego Magazine staff and I spoke to dozens of people, from long-time leaders at some of our biggest institutions to emerging artists working alone at night in studio apartments after eight hours (or 10 or 12) at their day jobs.

Tasked with bringing this issue to life as editor at large, I’m just one member of a stellar team of artists in their own right. I repeatedly told owners Claire and Troy Johnson: This is your baby, I’m just the babysitter. Which is wink-and-smile cute, until you spend two months with the kid and realize you’d take a bullet for it.

San Diego’s beaches are gorge and the weather the envy of those who spend winter scraping ice from their windshields. But sand and sun are the least interesting things about this place. Traditional territory of the Kumeyaay people, San Diego is a majority-minority region with cultural and artistic depth that’s unmissable unless you’re looking directly at the sun (don’t do that, please).

For me, the creatives make San Diego. The composers, the painters, the sculptors, the writers. From Oceanside to the border, and Tijuana too, this is arguably the most culturally layered region in the country. That shows up in murals, music, textiles, food, dance, street art, and beyond.

Almost nobody I talked with does just one thing. The visual artist is also a musician. The culture keeper is also a painter. Their personal stories shape their work and compel them to create in San Diego, even when staying costs them more than San Diego gives back.

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That world is what San Diego’s artistic and cultural community gives to us. It’s the mural on the side of the building at Ace Parking on the corner of India and A streets. It’s the buskers overlooking the pier in OB. It’s cultural drumming classes at WorldBeat Center. It shows up invited (or not: we see you, street artists), and we’re all better for it.

I believe we’re all artists, by the way. That natural state gets trained out of us early, in favor of deadlines and the idea that anything made with your hands needs to justify itself with a return on investment. A lifetime doodler, I picked up a sketchbook three years ago; watercolor followed. Talent’s debatable, but that was never the point. When I’m creating, my brain quiets; I can’t be anywhere else in my head except exactly where I am. My work won’t be on gallery walls, but it’s not a hobby either. It’s a portal to the world I want to live in.

For this issue, we reached out to dozens of people across the arts community and asked them to give us names—artists and culture makers they felt were especially crucial, compelling, moving the city forward. The result was a list of 190 artists, makers, builders, doers.

We also wanted this issue to be its own art project, not just a write-up of one. To give artists proper acreage, we enlisted one of the city’s top photographers, Matt Furman, to capture their image.

Then we began the Sophie’s Choice process of narrowing the list of talented humans—each deserving of their own 2,200-word profile—down to 31. Our criteria was broad with bumper rails: Names that kept coming up again and again had to be included; so did people doing work that reflects our diverse region; and people building something bigger than themselves, gathering others, and galvanizing pockets of scene. Individually and collectively, these creatives are reaching toward a future in which art and culture is what brings people to San Diego; a main attraction before getting a sunburn, not a side quest after.

Strip all of it away—the murals, the music, the makers, the stories—and what’s left of a city? Concrete and buildings with the Pacific Ocean and a mythological green flash. That’s it. That’s the whole inheritance.

Turns out the babysitter fell hard for this one: Seeing these artists through Furman’s lens made me feel all the things, and I hope it will do the same for you. I hope this issue compels you to get out your calendar and make a plan to buy the ticket, step into the gallery, sit in the audience. Showing up is how you tell San Diego’s creatives that art and culture matter—and that they matter, too.

This issue is my love letter—San Diego Magazine’s love letter—to them. To the people working and fighting to ensure that the stereotype is never all we are.

SDMA’s 100th Anniversary

On February 28, 1926, the Fine Arts Gallery of San Diego (now called the San Diego Museum of Art) opened its Plateresque doors to 3,000 guests for opening day. Over the next century, the museum changed with the times—even once functioning as a naval hospital after Pearl Harbor. This year, the museum is celebrating its 100th birthday with an exhibit (open through January 24, 2027) featuring photographs, ephemera, and film footage spanning the museum’s history.

Free Concerts at Spreckels Organ Pavilion

Every Sunday from 2 to 3 p.m., stop by the historic Spreckels Organ Pavilion for a free concert presented by the City of San Diego on the largest outdoor organ in the world (more than 5,000 pipes). The pavilion seats 2,400 for performances by the civic organist or guest artists.

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The New Natural History Museum

Some think natural history museums are just cemeteries for dioramas that haven’t received an update since the Reagan administration. When it comes to The Nat, which just finished a $7.5 million rejuvenation, they’re totally wrong. The museum debuted a new rooftop that replaces its 25-year-old atrium. The old roof created a greenhouse effect that steamed up some exhibits, so the new one—which includes 200 solar panels and better temperature control—will help preserve the artifacts inside. Each Friday in the summer, The Nat also becomes one of the season’s vibiest hotspots during Nat at Night, with food from places like Wolf in the Woods and The Craft Taco, bars and signature cocktails on several floors, and a rooftop DJ.

Fleet Science Theater Remodel

The Fleet Science Center just received its most significant update since the 1990s. It expanded its exhibit space by 20 percent and introduced a newly designed entrance gallery (formerly the IMAX theater lobby) that includes free exhibits for visitors who want a taste of the science without paying an admission fee. The former ticketing area now houses the Mindbender Mansion exhibit, and there’s a new café, Element 8, that will, of course, sell the center’s famous soft serve.

Ramona Rodeo

Meet some rodeo queens (or be crowned as one yourself) in R-Town’s annual celebration of the Wild West. Three days of mutton bustin’, tie-down roping, and barrel racing are all doing the community some good: Proceeds from the event funnel into local organizations like Ramona Town Hall and the Guy B. Woodward Museum. This month marks the 45th annual Ramona Rodeo, which takes place in the Fred Grand Arena and draws more than 12,000 attendees each year.

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Ocean Beach Street Fair & Chili Cook-Off

For nearly half a century, OB has hosted a chili cooking competition that has drawn thousands of hungry locals. (Buzz Cannabis presented this year’s event, so taste testers could have been under the influence of munchies-enhancing drugs.) Non-chili-related street fair festivities include beachfront live music, Fun Zone family-friendly play areas, and a Dirty Birds wing-eating contest.

Chicano Park Day

In 1970, Chicano Park was set to become a California Highway Patrol station. The problem: The city had promised a community park in that area. After decades of development fractured Barrio Logan and displaced thousands of families, Chicano locals were tapped out. So, for 12 days, locals occupied the area under the Coronado Bridge, blocking bulldozers and planting cacti. It worked. Construction stopped, and that area is now Chicano Park. Each year, locals celebrate the successful preservation of Chicano Park and the resilience of the Chicano Movement.

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Fiesta del Sol

Solana Beach gathers at Fletcher Cove Park at the start of each summer for two days of live music ranging from country to pop to Chicano rock, plus an arts and crafts fair, an international food court, a beer and wine garden, and the Solana Beach Firefighters Association’s pancake breakfast. The event is free, but if you want an elevated experience, grab Seaside Pavilion ($75) or VIP Deck ($160) tickets for reserved seating, private cash bars, exclusive restrooms, and discounted swag.

North Park Music Fest

The entire North Park neighborhood hosts an annual music festival, meaning a dozen venues—from Queen Bee’s to Bacari to North Park Community Park—become live music spaces each June. Some locations are open to the public, but if you’d prefer lounge access at Granada House and line-skipping privileges, check out the $65 VIP passes. General admission otherwise starts at $25.

Lemon Festival

It’s weird if you don’t wear a lemon-themed outfit at Chula Vista’s annual Lemon Festival. For one day each August, Third Avenue pays tribute to the city’s former “Lemon Capital of the World” status with live music, citrus-themed photo ops, arts and crafts vendors, a lemon cook-off competition, and plenty of other food that doesn’t include the famed hesperidium. But who would want that at Lemon Fest?