The artists toiling away in their studios and workspaces, and the environmental advocates encouraging others to their work, believe in the power of art to nudge people to care a little more about nature. Locally, that power will be on display during a new exhibition at Grossmont College’s Hyde Art Gallery, “One River, Many Stories.”
The San Diego River Park Foundation and the San Diego River Artists’ Alliance are partnering in this display of the stories of the San Diego River and its ecosystem, with an opening reception from 4 to 6 p.m. March 25 (the exhibit is open March 24 to April 24; the artists will also meet with the public again from 2 to 4 p.m. April 10).
“(It) was an idea of the San Diego River Park Foundation to collect the oral histories of people associated with the river when it was very different,” says Rob Hutsel, president and CEO of the foundation. “The foundation wanted to capture those stories, those first impressions, before they were lost.”
The works include acrylic, photography, mixed media, glass, watercolor, oil, fiber arts, and paper, according to a press release. In the gallery’s Patterson Memorial Window space, a series of cyanotype scrolls by Louise Russell—one as the voice of the river and the others as the voices of storytellers—will also be on display. Russell, a photographic artist and retired teacher, curriculum developer, and education software professional, is ed in conversation with Hutsel to talk about the exhibition, their own histories and stories of the San Diego River, and their hope that others will be inspired to keep the river clean and accessible. (These interviews have been edited for length and clarity. For a longer version of these conversations, visit sandiegouniontribune.com/author/lisa-deaderick/.)
Q: How did the idea for this exhibit come together?
Hutsel: (With) the San Diego River Artists’ Alliance, we’ve often been inspired by the power of art to get people thinking and be transformative. It’s a powerful lens which really gets people thinking about the river, or nature in general, in different ways. Think about Ansel Adams. Maybe you’ve never been to the Sierra (Nevada mountains), but if you’ve ever seen one of his photographs, you are transformed by the Sierra. Or, think about the power of artists and photographers in the creation of Yellowstone National Park. People like Thomas Moran, whose artwork went back to Congress to create the first national park. Those sorts of things, I believe, when we’re looking at the San Diego River are part of (the power of art) and if we can use art to create a better future for our river, that would be super cool.
I love the concept of artists coming together around nature and using it as a canvas for demonstrating their immense talents and sharing those with the public to, hopefully, insipre people to care about, to love, nature. In this case, they’re doing it around the San Diego River and, my gosh, it’s such an amazing place, from the mountains to the ocean. The San Diego River Artists’ Alliance, I’ve been fortunate enough to go to some of their shows and just seeing their incredible interpretation of the river is stunning, it’s really quite wonderful to see.
Q: Tell us about your contribution to this exhibit. You’ve created a series of cyanotypes? What was your process for conceptualizing this piece?
Russell: I have two components in this exhibit because there’s the main gallery, which is a beautiful space, long and cavernous; then outside, they have what’s called the Patterson (Memorial Window), and it’s more like a diorama window, so you stand on the outside and look in. It’s a 55-foot long space, about five feet deep and 10 feet high. On the inside, I have created 15 photographs. I call them photographs, but they’re actually made with an 8-inch by 10-inch pinhole camera with film. That’s a camera that goes on a tripod. Then, I scan them, process them in my little dark room garage, and then I edit them in Photoshop. I have a few different ways I treat them, but for this show, I print them on a different type of film so that it’s transparent. I can then put white gold leaf, or sometimes called gilding, on the back. You have to brush on a sizing, and then you put on this gold leaf. For me, that is doing a few things: it’s the preciousness of gold and the preciousness of the river, that metaphor, but it also shows more the hand of an artist in of a photograph. You can see the brush marks. The gold doesn’t go on perfectly, so I think of it as more organic, more nature-like.
The river stories drive my image making, it’s why I’m making them, and the beauty of the river guides the framing that I do as a photographer. The beauty includes elements that can suggest the troubles of the place as well as the wonders of the place. Those troubles go back to the Kumeyaay, who were first here; but there’s also the trash and the trash removal the San Diego River Park Foundation has done. There are problems with the quality of the water, all of the stuff that gets stuck and flows to the sea. Then, of course, there’s the homeless issue. In my photographs, it’s subtle, but it’s hopefully a look at it.
For instance, I have one titled “Flooded Kumeyaay Villages, El Capitan Reservoir” because Kumeyaay villages were there and there was a lengthy back-and-forth with the city and the water wars. Eventually, the City of San Diego and the federal government removed these villages and that’s when they built the Barona reservation for one of the villages and the Viejas reservation for the other. To me, that’s a really crucial thing that happened in our fairly recent history in San Diego, removing the Kumeyaay.
This is unique for me, I haven’t been a big cyanotype photographer. I’ve played with it before, but cyanotype is one of the original photographic processes.
Q: The news release about the exhibition says that the alliance “encourages the public to connect with the variety of experiences available along the river.” What are some ways you’ve done this? What kinds of experiences have you enjoyed along the river?
Hutsel: With over 20-plus years of thinking about the river every day, I probably have thousands of things I could share. One of my favorite things is going down to the estuary in the area that’s part of Mission Bay Par, where the river runs through it by Dog Beach, including Dog Beach, and watching the birds. It’s an amazing thing and so seasonal; the variety of birds down there is incredibly special. I love looking for the burrowing owls, I love the white pelicans when they show up and watching them dance in the water-I find great joy in observing that.
Up in the upper reaches of San Diego River, few people have been up there, I’ve seen Mildred Falls, which is a 300-foot waterfall, and it’s stunningly beautiful and it’s a surprise that it’s easily accessible. It’s off of a county-maintained dirt road called April Peak Road; I love that place.
I love to walk along the river in Mission Valley. You can walk along the river and not feel like you’re in the middle of Mission Valley. It’s always there, but you can look out and just see the beauty of it, the grandeur, the tranquility of it all. Maybe you’ll see a few birds, if you go at night you’ll see some bass. It’s a very special place, very seasonal. If you go down there in the fall, the views are jaw-dropping, it’s really beautiful.
Q: What story did you want to tell about the San Diego River?
Russell: I wanted to tell stories, so I recorded people. I got recordings to tell seven different stories. One of them is the Kumeyaay and that removal process, so I printed out text on my printer. All of them are three feet wide and range from six to seven-and-a-half feet long. They each tell a different story. So, one tells the story of the removal of the Kumeyaay and has quotes from two different Kumeyaay about it. One shows tells a story about birding along the river, with me talking to two different birders in San Diego who are of the San Diego Bird Alliance. Another is about Japanese American farmers in the valley with this woman I recorded back in 2009 and the families being forced out of their homes at the river. Another one is with Joanne Anderson, one of the co-founders of the San Diego River Park Foundation who came to San Diego in 1958 and was hired to work in the construction shack while they were developing Mission Valley. She talks about the development of Mission Valley. One is a mother talking about her son being homeless and being found by the San Diego River Park Foundation. Those are all texts on scrolls and they’re very organic, on fabric. I like to say that it looks like some of the text is kind of floating in the water because the blue (of the cyanotype) is representing water.
Q: From your position with the San Diego River Park Foundation, how would you describe the story of the river?
Hutsel: Immense. That’s a wonderful thing about the river, it starts with the Kumeyaay people who have lived along the river and love the river. The river has been in their lives for thousands and thousands of years, so that is the keystone story of the river, our native peoples who continue to live along the river. We also know that, after that, came the arrival of the Spanish; we had the Mexican period; we had the early American period of history. Then, we get into this interesting period of history when Mission Valley was largely farmland and we had Japanese farmers and Chinese farmers; some of them were kicked out and sent to internment camps (during World War II). It’s just a rich tapestry of the history of San Diego, all found in this one, geographical area.
Q: What is your story of the river?
Hutsel: As somebody who has grown up in San Diego and multiple generations of my family have been here before me, I grew up in a place that was very different than today, but in some ways similar-I was always taught to leave it better than I found it. So, when I had an opportunity to get involved with the river and building and forging connections to the river, just from my own background of urban planning and working in government a little bit, nature is truly something that brings people together and also has intrinsic value. I think, too often, we forget about the intrinsic value of nature, and just the sense of awe and wonder that people can get from that is truly powerful. I have been fortunate to take people out to the river and having them see something they’ve never seen before, like a golden eagle, or be surprised by another species of wildlife and just the grandeur of the upper San Diego River, and getting them emotionally connected to the river. That, to me, is kind of what gets me going. I love to see when people have that moment of awe and then become stewards of the river.
Russell: I grew up in La Mesa and we would drive to the beach. My dad was a fisherman and we’d go swimming, and we’d stop on the two-lane road through Mission Valley in the ’50s and buy corn so we could have corn on the cob when we got to the beach. That’s my childhood memory. My dad would tell stories of how, when he was 14 or 15, all the kids would go to a big pond over by Grant Park and swim there. As I grew up, I live in North Park now and if you go straight down Texas Street, there’s the river. I’ve always watched it and knowing it was there, I would come across people who were new to San Diego and they would go, “What do you mean there’s a river?” It is pretty amazing.
Q: What would you hope people would learn and understand about taking care of this part of the environment, as a result of the art in this exhibition?
Hutsel: I really believe that, much like Thomas Moran’s paintings inspired and captured the grandeur (of the places he painted), that people will feel that emotional connection to the San Diego River and work to fight to conserve it and care for it. If everybody would love and embrace the river, gosh, wouldn’t that be cool? It would add a lot of value to our community and to our visitors.The artists with the San Diego River Artists’ Alliance are just amazing, talented artists and I would really encourage people to go out and see their shows. I’ve always been impressed by the quality of the work.
Russell: One, to recognize that there have a been a number of San Diegans who have protected it already. In the ’60s, there was a move to try and channelize it and people, advocates and activists, have helped that not to happen. So, part of it is to be aware of it and to keep it as natural as we can. To the vision of the San Diego River Park Foundation that we’re trying to educate and get people to connect, create, and communicate about it. We want people to understand its importance and in keeping it a biodiverse environment with the conservation of the animals, the removal of invasive plants, the creation of a wonderful place for San Diegans to go to.
