Covering 75: February

san diego magazine cover 1958

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Beauty, then and now. The May, 1958 cover of San Diego Mag. Model Anita Moritz, ravishing in purity gloves, showing off the newest fashions from France and Italy that had just arrived in San Diego. She graced the steps of the Fine Arts Gallery (first opened in 1926, now San Diego Museum of Art)— as the city’s cultural institutions dug in their first footholds.

For our 75th Anniversary project—recreating old covers using artists and voices that are vital to San Diego’s now—we asked “artist organizer baddie scholar” Kelsey O. Daniels, ravishing in purity gloves, to grace the steps of the Guild Hotel. The newly revamped historic finding its own footing again, after being gutted during the pandemic.

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Shot by local photographer Jazzmine Taylor, Daniels is an electric poet, speaker, comedian, organizer, storyteller (she was recently the opening act for internationally known poet Rupi Kaur). On stage, the spotlight trapped by her sculptural cheekbones, Daniels is a reaffirming and unrelenting acceptance of self. A rare voice, and a relatable one.

“My work is love letters to all the different versions of me in the mirror,” she says. “We’re all navigating something and choosing yourself isn’t always easy, it’s not linear.”