For Chula Vista metal sculptor Michael Leaf, art is not simply a calling. It literally called to him from what Leaf described as “another dimension.”
Now, Leaf, along with leaders of the tiny Bonita Museum, are seeking to leverage Leaf’s otherworldly, larger-than-life metal designs into what they hope will become South San Diego County’s first truly regional artistic attraction.
This month, museum leaders are unveiling four Leaf sculptures that they said will be the first installments in a planned sculpture garden featuring artists from throughout South County.
The garden, they said, will be the region’s first public sculpture garden. They said they hope the garden draws visitors to a part of San Diego County with a rich but often overlooked artistic tradition.
“I hope it’s a new beam of inspiration for our community,” Leaf said. “The goal is to get eyes on the art.”
Leaf, 41, is a self-taught artist with what he described as a spiritual need to make art and an affinity for metal that runs in his family. His grandfather, Burt Raynes, co-founded Rohr, Inc., the aircraft manufacturer that anchored South County’s economy for much of the 20th century.
Leaf’s parents ran a Chula Vista metal distribution business. Leaf initially tried to sidestep his metal heritage by competing as a professional rollerblader on the X Games circuit in his 20s.
Then, one day, in the middle of a rollerblading photo shoot, he said he had an epiphany and walked away from competition.
Soon after, he awoke in the middle of the night from a dream.
“I dreamed about an 18-inch-by-18-inch [metal] imprint of a hand,” Leaf said. “I looked into it and saw outer space, like a portal into another dimension. I woke up at 3:23 a.m. and said, ‘I have to make this.’”
Leaf bolted out of bed, drove to his parents’ metal warehouse on Main Street, “got a [blow]torch, made the [metal] hand…and stared at it, thinking, ‘This is what I’m going to do for the rest of my life,’” Leaf said.
That was in 2006.
Late last month, Leaf, now married with a son and working full-time as an artist, stood outside the Bonita Museum, excitedly showing me the sculptures that will anchor the museum’s planned sculpture garden.
Since his 2006 epiphany, Leaf has built a career designing metal sculptures for private and public clients.
In 2015, the Port of San Diego commissioned Leaf to craft a 32-foot-tall turbine-like sculpture commemorating the South Bay Power Plant on Chula Vista’s bayfront. The plant was destroyed in 2013 to make way for redevelopment projects.
At the Bonita Museum, the most visible of Leaf’s four installations is a 2,000-square-foot pattern of undulating, ocean-blue metal panels cladding almost the entire exterior of the museum.
“I call it, ‘It,’” Leaf said. He hand-forged the sculpture’s 59 aluminum panels, coated each one with eight layers of paint and bolted them onto a steel frame anchored to the building.
No more, he said, would passersby mistake the Bonita Museum for the Bonita Library next door.
“This is [now] the signature of the building,” Leaf said of “It.” And soon, he and museum leaders said, the planned sculpture garden would draw even more attention.
“Artists here in South Bay and San Diego County have [exhibited] work all over the place,” said Bonita Museum Director Wendy Wilson. “I wanted a sculpture garden so people can see what our local artists can do.”
Perry Vasquez, a professor of art at Southwestern College, said the planned sculpture garden would be the first of its kind in South San Diego County.
Vasquez said he was not surprised an artist with an industrial, self-taught background such as Leaf’s was anchoring the Bonita Museum’s initiative.
South County’s art scene, Vasquez said, traces its heritage in part to the region’s industrial history. Since many South County residents have worked in industrial occupations, Vasquez said, they have gravitated to art forms, such as custom car design, that require industrial skills.
“That word industrial is very important,” Vasquez said. “That feeds not a traditional gallery system but a street art scene as opposed to, say, a scene like in Los Angeles.”
Vasquez said other aspects of Leaf’s work, including his channeling of dreams and alternative dimensions, echoes the New Age strain in San Diego’s history. Vasquez cited the region’s utopian spiritual communities, such as the city of San Diego’s Self-Realization Fellowship, as indirect sources of spiritual inspiration for regional artists.
The Bonita sculpture garden, Vasquez said, could help draw wider attention to a region where many artists live because the cost of living is lower – but where some art is also regarded as purely regional because it addresses local themes such as cultural identity or the charged politics of the U.S.-Mexico border.
“It’s been more regional and community-based art,” Vasquez said of South County.
Leaf’s other installations at the Bonita Museum include a pair of eight-foot-tall metal chairs with intricately decorated surfaces and a four-foot-tall steel heart imprinted with the words, “Lead with your heART.”
Leaf said he is most proud of what will probably be his most eye-catching installation at the museum.
Moving nimbly, he clambered onto a pair of roughly 20-foot-long steel beams sprouting from a concrete block near the museum’s parking lot entrance. The beams were curved, branching away from one another like outstretched arms.
When complete, Leaf said, the sculpture, which that day was still being installed, would also feature a human figure forged of twisted metal wire grasping two massive chains, as if straining to pull the two curving beams toward one another.
In the center of the human figure, Leaf said, would be a shining metal orb reflecting sunlight.
Leaf braced his legs between the beams, as if, for a moment, he himself was the metal figure straining to bend the steel to fit his vision.
He said he regards the sculpture as his crowning achievement.
“It’s all of who I am from an artistic aspect,” he said. “From a spiritual aspect. From a why-I’m-here aspect. It shows you our individual journey.”
“I see it as clear as when it will be done,” he said, surveying the site of the museum’s planned sculpture garden. “You have shining light within yourself.”
Mayor Responds on Immigration Vote
This morning, I published a story about Chula Vista Mayor John McCann’s bid for a second term in office.
The story mentioned McCann’s opponents dinging him for not supporting or even voting on a beefed-up sanctuary policy approved earlier this year. McCann said his service as a Naval Reserve officer prevents him from taking a stand on policies that could contravene federal law.
It’s the issue that refuses to die. Arguments over McCann’s claim have flown back and forth for months.
Today, McCann sought to put the matter to rest once and for all. He sent a letter written by Craig Candelore, founder of the San Diego-based Veteran’s Legal Center, which advocates for military veterans seeking to access disability benefits.
McCann asked Candelore to weigh in. Candelore’s conclusion: “Mayor McCann followed the legally required and ethically appropriate course of action.”
In Other News
The city of Imperial Beach will host a workshop Tuesday to solicit community input on a new Palm Avenue Master Plan, which will guide city efforts to upgrade a major traffic artery with new sidewalks, landscaping, drainage and possibly a new signature piece of public art to mark the entrance to the city. Details here. (Friendly note to the IB communications team: The press release announcing the workshop refers to the new plan as the “Plam Avenue Master Plan.” Maybe the new public artwork could include an exotic plam tree?)
A Reason to Survive, National City’s lauded nonprofit arts education program for underserved youth, announced it will hold its annual fundraising event, Bright Lights, at the center on June 13. This year’s event will commemorate ARTS’ 25th anniversary. Details here. (I wrote about ARTS last year. There’s lots going on there.)