It’s time for our next “Meeting of the Minds” event. I hope you’ll join us next Thursday, March 14, at Bread and Salt in Logan Heights. That spot, historically Cramer’s Bakery, is undergoing a transformation as it rolls out spaces for artists to live and work, galleries and a café. We’ll get a sneak peek at the under-construction spot.
We started this popular culture event in June 2011 to combat contradictory sentiments: “There’s nothing going on here!” “There’s so much going on I can’t keep track!” The event brings San Diego County’s very different neighborhoods and niches together and spotlights the stimulating highlights they offer.
Our six speakers will use the rapid-fire pecha-kucha style to show us 20 images for 20 seconds each. That’ll leave you lots of time to poke around the bakery and compare notes with other curious San Diegans.
And you can do so over a drink, thanks to our friends at St. Petersburg Vodka and Karl Strauss Brewing. (The $10 suggested donation for admission includes a drink ticket; admission is free for VOSD members at the ‘Inside Voice’ level and up.) We’ll have a food truck or two roll up outside, too, so you can grab a bite to eat.
Sign up and let us know you’re coming. Check out the poster, designed by Chadwick Gantes, that our Sezio friends will be putting up all over town:
Click the graphic to enlarge.
Here’s a bit more about the fascinating minds you’ll get to meet:
• Don Bartletti won the Pulitzer Prize in 2003 in feature photography and is a photojournalist for the Los Angeles Times. He lives in Vista and travels all over the world on “scavenger hunts” for his next project — whether news, feature or documentary. He’s fascinated by international migration. He’ll highlight the work and artistic considerations he makes to tell such stories through photography.
• Denitsa Bliznakova is a costume designer who’s worked in film, theater, music videos and opera. She’s designed a number of recent productions at The Old Globe and leads the costume design program at San Diego State University. She’s designing the costumes for San Diego Opera’s upcoming “Murder in the Cathedral” and will take us through the effort of costuming a large production.
• KPBS/Fronteras Desk reporter Adrian Florido fell in love with a southern Mexican folk music style called Son Jarocho last year and has grown more obsessed since. The first time I knew the music was changing his life was when we met for lunch and he brought his jarana — the small, eight-string guitar-like instrument central to the music — with him to the table. Here’s a story he did for Fronteras last year about the music and the community it’s spawned on both sides of the border, despite its roots much farther south.
• Susanna Peredo has worked all over town in local arts organizations and just launched a new website to round up compelling arts events. She’ll be describing the work that ARTS: A Reason to Survive does to connect troubled kids with art training and support — work that helped propel a film about one of the group’s kids, “Inocente,” to an Academy Award last week.
• Michael Prinz is fascinated with coffee and roasting and has been closely watching San Diego’s coffee scene percolate over the last several years. A city planner by day, coffee “pseudo-snob” by night, Prinz will guide us to the caffeinated places he thinks are doing the best roasting and brewing in San Diego.
• And James Brown, the architect behind the transformation of Bread and Salt, will explore the intersections of art, architecture and neighborhoods. Brown’s firm Public Architecture and Planning has already set up its offices in the bakery space, and there are more plans that include a café, a spot for museum gallery and spaces for artists to live and work. Here’s a recent U-T story about the space, and an accompanying photo gallery.
On the fence? Let these photos of your neighbors having a fabulous time learning about San Diego culture sway you.
From our first event, at the Kettner Daylight Studio in June 2011:
Our second at Luce Loft in East Village in February 2012:
Our third, on “7 Lemon” level atop the parkade at Horton Plaza last August:
And our most recent, a Balboa Park-centered night at the San Diego Natural History Museum.
Join us! Here’s where you register.
I’m Kelly Bennett, reporter for Voice of San Diego. You can reach me directly at kelly.bennett@voiceofsandiego.org or 619.325.0531.
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