Before Isabel Dutra and Jim Brown opened their Bread and Salt art space on the corner of Julian Ave. and Dewey St. in Logan Heights, the building was a bakery. The Cramer and Weber bread factories saw the turn of two centuries, multiple wars and recessions — even prior outbreaks — and many changes to the city's skyline, economy and neighborhoods, and kept doing what it did best: making bread, for over a hundred years.
When Dutra and Brown bought the building close to a decade ago, they pulled out the bakery machinery and gradually built up a new local institution. Bread and Salt has become a mainstay in San Diego's art and event scene.
Their on-site studios (plus off-site studio partnerships with Seaport Village) house the creation of diverse new works. Subdivided into multiple galleries and partnerships, a stroll through Bread and Salt's campus could reveal a dozen art installations and exhibitions. The 45,000 square foot brick-lined interior holds events from intimate gatherings or experimental music performances to crowds of hundreds for gallery openings or corporate and nonprofit events.
Until now. Bread and Salt, like most everywhere else, has lost their event-based business. "And we lost it early," said founder Jim Brown. They made the decision to stop events early, back when the City of San Diego was still allowing larger gatherings. "We’re lacking that income and it has hurt."
Artist and curator Thomas DeMello has worked for Bread and Salt since Brown and Dutro lured him away from his museum job early on in the process. DeMello was part of the very first art show hosted in the building, and is now Dutra (who serves as artistic director) and Brown's sole employee.
"Bread and Salt is not a nonprofit, but we kind of operate as one," said DeMello. "The whole thing's in jeopardy if you think what it would mean if the tenants couldn’t pay rent."
The team of three had to innovate ways to embrace the new coronavirus reality for San Diego's art scene and economy, and Dutra suggested looping in their artists. So five days a week — Tuesday through Saturday at 1 p.m. — DeMello hosts daily one-on-one Instagram live interviews.
The interview project has evolved into a vibrant array of artists, attracting new followers and viewers who otherwise might not have attended artist talks at the gallery under normal circumstances. The conversations are archived on their YouTube channel.
"They're unedited, for good or bad," said DeMello, who delves into each artist's inspiration and background in the candid and lively conversations that showcase their work but dig deep — something that brings DeMello a lot of joy too. "I can't get enough of that stuff as an artist," he said.
They've also opened a Bread and Salt artist store, featuring smaller, shippable works by Griselda Rosas, Panca, Melissa Walter, Max Lofano, Christopher Wassel, Sofie Ramos and others, with more added each day, and the artists receive 100 percent of the proceeds.
Normally, taking a cut from each exhibit's art sales helps cover Bread and Salt's expenses, like paying DeMello's salary and keeping the lights on. But for now, they're focused on supporting their community of artists — studio tenants and more — many of whom are unable to create and show new work. They started a press, too, selling art books like Panca's "Los Perdidos."
As for the future, Bread and Salt is not only turning to their relationships with artists, but collaborating with other art galleries, like a just-envisioned project called "Gather," including North Park's Art Produce and the SDSU Downtown Gallery, which faces permanent closure when they lose the lease on their space near the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego at the end of May, according to Brown.
Bread and Salt hopes that what it does best — supporting and building community — will help the brick walls of Julian Ave weather this historical moment, too.
