This weekend, infuse some art and culture into your quarantine plans — and Mother's Day — and not all of them involve screens or live streams. There's plenty to find on digital platforms in San Diego, but there are also a few ways to go low-tech (and low budget) this Mother's Day. And let's go on the record to say that the mothers in our lives definitely deserve a do-over after this.
Autobiographical Comics Workshop With Fifi Martinez
Visual Art
Tonight and next Thursday, local artist and cartoonist Fifi Martinez will run a free online workshop on autobiographical comics. Martinez had a really powerful solo show at Chula Vista's Weird Hues about a year ago, featuring massive murals and some 10-foot paintings in vivid colors, and her cartoon and comic work is really vulnerable. She's approaching this class as writing autobiographical comics as a form of therapy and self-expression, and it could be a really great way to start a visual or graphic journal of this pandemic. Everyone has a story to tell, and the tiny squares of a comic are a forgiving and low-pressure way to tell it. Hosted by the Front Arte Cultura gallery in the South Bay.
Details: 5 - 6:30 p.m. Thursday May 7 and 14. Zoom, hosted by The FRONT Arte Cultura. Free.
San Diego Opera Vault: Salome
Theater
The San Diego Opera has been posting dress rehearsal clips in conjunction with UCSD-TV, and if you've ever been to a San Diego Opera dress rehearsal with a school group, you know they're incredibly polished performances. The vault (i.e. their YouTube channel) is loaded with these short clips and is definitely worth a browse. And the latest is a clip of "Ich habe deinen Mund gekusst" from a performance of Richard Strauss's "Salome" performed by San Diego Opera in 2012 — specifically the song where Salome sings to John the Baptist's severed head, which she delivers at the request of her mother. Happy Mother's Day.
DIY Tinkerbell Wings With The La Jolla Playhouse
Theater, Crafts
Make mom a DIY set of Tinkerbell wings, courtesy of the cast and costume designer for the La Jolla Playhouse's FLY. If you were lucky enough to catch the show before the statewide shut-down, you'll know the actor who plays Tink, Isabelle McCalla, is incredibly dynamic, and along with costume shop supervisor Jennifer Ables, they'll walk you through making wings with some wire coat hangers and old tights.
Floral Arranging With Native Poppy And San Diego Museum Of Art
Visual Art, Crafts
Fortunately, the San Diego Museum of Art got a head start on our need to make or embellish Mother's Day florals at home. They brought in Natalie Gill of local floral design shop Native Poppy for their Virtual Art Alive, to help people learn floral arranging with a variety of starting points — either a nice bouquet from a shop like Native Poppy, something a bit more rudimentary from a grocery store or stuff you can forage from your garden. The workshop is still up on SDMA's Instagram and she walks you through the geometry and color theory of an arrangement, as well as shows you how to amend with things you find in a yard.
Nature Mandalas And Portraits
Visual Art, Crafts
I love the idea of a found-nature mandala or a nature portrait. Inspired by projects by Art Reach San Diego, which is a nonprofit that brings free art education to schools that lack an art program. A mandala is a geometric design with intricate patterns, and Art Reach recently asked its students to make designs with flowers, petals, leaves, stems, rocks and what have you that you find in nature or your backyard. It's a nice way of meditating on the temporariness of this pandemic.
Curbside Take-Home Mother's Day Brunch
The upside to all of this is breakfast in bed, right? There are a few camps of takeout style to choose from this virtual Mother's Day:
First, a standard takeout brunch of a full brunch like The Catamaran, The Grill at Torrey Pines, Breakfast Republic, Kindred, DZ Akins, Madison… You and Yours Distillery has an afternoon tea takeout — scones, mini tea sandwiches, Battenberg cake, and of course some cocktails… tea-infused. Another silver lining to this pandemic is that all of these offer to-go bottles of wine, mimosas or cocktails.
And then there are the brunch kits, where you can pick up baskets of ingredients and recipes and assemble a brunch yourself, skipping the grocery store and getting to play chef. True Food Kitchen has one, Tajima is doing build-your-own ramen kits, Petite Madeline Bakery has a kit with premade cakes and waffles with eggs, sausage and bacon that you prepare yourself. Just don't let the mom do any dishes.
And if you don't want to spring for takeout, House of Blues will send you its favorite southern brunch recipes and will livestream its famous gospel brunch performance on Saturday at 11 a.m.
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