Visitors to Point Loma’s Liberty Station can expect to see familiar objects showcased in new and different ways in the newest additions to the Arts District’s Installations at the Station public artworks.
Beliz Iristay is deg a sculpture and Mischka Ippolita a mural for their new attractions that will debut in coming months. Color and whimsy will be a big part of both.
“The pieces will be multicultural, multi-layered, very vibrant interpretations of this area and the broader region,” said Gaby Quevedo, associate director for creative programs at Arts District Liberty Station. “Their ideas blew our staff away.”
Beliz Iristay
For her sculpture, titled “Fuente Fantasma,” Iristay plans to create a 9-foot-tall fiberglass fountain covered by alcancias, or plaster piggy banks.
The Turkish American multimedia artist divides her time between San Diego and her ceramic studio, TurkMex, in Ensenada, Mexico.
Alcancias became familiar to Iristay on her regular visits across the border, where they are commonly sold as souvenirs.
“Alcancias such as those sold in Tijuana are a craft with a very old tradition,” she said. Pigs decorated with painted flowers are traditional motifs for the banks.
Iristay said newer alcancias often are more colorful and range from versions of Bart Simpson to the past president of Mexico and pop culture icons.
Many of the original-style alcancias, made of plaster cast, aren’t available online. Newer styles can be found in ceramic and concrete.
Iristay said she plans to try to find the oldest molds she can and mix them with today’s styles for her piece.
“It’s going to be a fun and entertaining piece for me,” she said. “I like challenges. It’s how an artist can grow, and every piece has some challenges.”
The fountain base is a “symbol of the constant flow of energy,” Iristay said. She will attach the alcancias to each of several tiers of the fountain, “sitting and walking and talking and in different compositions.”
“I find it particularly fascinating — the innovation behind the alcancias, managing to keep a fresh finger on the cultural pulse of both Mexico and the U.S.,” she said.
Iristay, who was born in Izmir, Turkey, said she was always creative as a child. She would mix water and soil to make sun-baked plates and liked to paint.
Her father was an art lover who planned to study design at a fine-art university, but his parents wouldn’t let him. He worked Mondays through Saturdays, but on his free days, he and Iristay would spend their time painting together, she said.
“He would bring big rolls of paper for us to paint. He was painting all the time,” she said. “That was my exposure, and I’ve never been able to stop doing it.”
With a degree from Turkey in traditional ceramics, Iristay’s studies ran the gamut from interior design to ceramics and glass.
“I’m very lucky that my parents always ed my decisions,” she said. “I’m happy with what I am doing and fortunate that I am able to make a living doing what I like.”
She moved to “this side of world” after she met her now-husband in Istanbul. He had attended a month-long workshop where she working for a traditional glass-making school.
She said her piece will embrace the art and cultural values of the border region’s past and present.
“Liberty Station is a unique place in San Diego,” Iristay said. “My artwork will showcase the complex layering of the region. The park is beautiful but also has a greater geopolitical significance.”
Her sculpture will be along the North Promenade by Barracks 16 and 17.
“It’s really exciting to put work there that will have visibility to visitors from every different part of San Diego and California,” she said.
Iristay said her children haven’t yet been exposed to the traditional craft of alcancias.
“They sell really popular kitsch ones and funny ones, but we never thought we should have one and use it as a piggy bank,” Iristay said. “Now I’ve been thinking it would be really fun to bring the tradition back to the U.S. to the younger generation.”
Mischka Ippolita
Ippolita, based in Tijuana, said the inspiration for her work comes from microbiology, mostly plant histology (the study of the microscopic anatomy of biological tissues).
“I construct pieces based on the aesthetics of ‘microworlds’ and secret landscapes,” she said.
With a bachelor’s degree in fine arts, Ippolita made a lot of friends in marine sciences at the university she attended in Ensenada, she said.
Through them, she fell in love with plant histology and photomicrography, or photography of objects under a microscope.
That led her to create an avant-garde movement she calls “microbioart.”
“It basically encapsulates art inspired by microbiology and microscopic life,” Ippolita said. “I place most of my artwork in this category.”
Her work typically begins with a microscopic slide of a transverse section of plant tissue that has been decolorized and stained with natural dyes.
She then gathers various laboratory references to create “fantasy” or “hypothetical” mutations and hybrids of the plant section.
From there, she constructs large images, usually 3 feet or larger. Her pieces usually have an amorphous shape imitating the outline of the plant’s transversal cut, like a very thin slice of a branch, root, leaf or seed.
“I enjoy the irony of representing something too small to see with the naked eye and enlarging it to a big format,” Ippolita said.
“Navigating the microscopic world, I started to make abstractions of what I saw under the microscope and what I like to call ‘anatomic mandalas.’ These later evolve into creating imaginary environments, landscapes and structures.”
Ippolita said her Liberty Station mural, titled “Vitral Sunset: A Marine Perspective Across the Border,” was inspired by marine and terrestrial landscapes, aerial views of the site and of ships at sea, architectural elements, native plants from California and Baja and microscopic life.
“The sea is the most important aspect, represented by the different shades of blue, and the warm tones allude to a sunset,” Ippolita said.
To unify everything, the mural’s style seeks to resemble the stained-glass windows of Liberty Station’s North Chapel.
The mural, which will be at Barracks 19 — home to Wildflour, Apricot Yarn and several artist studios — will cover three outside walls, four inside walls and the floor.
Ippolita said the most difficult part of exterior murals is carrying the materials.
“It’s a very physically demanding activity similar to construction work, from shaking every paint can for three minutes to loading the car with the ladder and buckets of paint or manipulating the lift. I always end up with very sore muscles and a couple of days in bed after I finish,” she said.
She also climbs ladders or scaffolding, always gets a sensation of vertigo and sometimes even experiences hyperventilation, she said.
But the physical issues have never been enough to keep her away from her work.
Ippolita said she first started painting when she was 5, influenced by her grandmother and biologist Ernst Haeckel.
“My grandmother was a painter; she also studied fine arts and held a workshop every Saturday for kids at her studio,” Ippolita said. “Her work was mostly surrealism and expressionism, with a strong focus on portraiture. In my early work, I painted a lot of surrealism and faces.”
Ippolita said she hopes her mural at Liberty Station will offer an open-ended interpretation for viewers.
“I really hope my intent to create an abstraction of bits and pieces from Liberty Station’s history offers visitors a wide range of possible interpretations so they can integrate into the meaning of the mural as part of an open dialogue,” she said.
Quevedo described both Ippolita and Iristay as “stellar artists” and added that “we’re very excited to have them be a part of the program.”
“We really asked them to focus on the community that is here,” Quevedo said. “They are taking agency and artistic practice in a very cheeky way, and we’re excited to see that come to life.”
Quevedo said she expects Ippolita’s mural to be completed by the end of summer, while Iristay’s sculpture should be finished in the fall.
Open Air Gallery
Once completed, the artworks will be part of Liberty Station’s Open Air Gallery.
Though past visitors might be familiar with the self-guided approach to touring the large-scale outdoor art pieces, Quevedo said the Open Air Gallery is “more like having a docent” on a digital guided tour.
“With a phone, they can scan a QR code in English and Spanish [located on a teal and white sign near each public art piece], learn the inspirations behind each piece, what the artists took as ideas and themes, hear from the artists themselves and even get directions to the next piece,” she said.
Quevedo said the tour also is available through the website artsdistrictlibertystation.org/art-in-public-places.
“It brings the installations to life so people can see what’s behind the art,” she said. “We want the public to interact with the pieces. They add so much life and community to the area.”
