S1: It's time for KPBS Midday Edition on today's Arts and Culture show. Point Loma Liberty Station celebrates 25 years as a creative arts district in San Diego. I'm Andrew Bracken in for Jade Hindman with conversations that keep you informed , inspired , and make you think. We hear about Liberty Station's evolution from Navy Base and to becoming a recognized cultural hub in California. Then we hear about one of the films highlighted at this year's San Diego Jewish Film Festival. Plus , KPBS Arts podcast The Finest is back. We hear about what they have in store for season two. That's ahead on Midday Edition. 25 years ago , Point Loma Liberty Station began its transformation from military base to art center. It was named Art center. It was renamed Arts District Liberty Station and soon became a cultural hub for the city. In fact , it was recently designated as a California Cultural District for its contribution to the arts. My next two guests are here to talk about the place Liberty Station has in our cities arts and culture scene. I'm here with Lisa Johnson , president and CEO of Arts District Liberty Station. Lisa , welcome.
S2: Thank you very much.
S1: Great to have you here. Also here with us is Rachel Lang. She works in the city. She works for the city in economic development. Rachel , welcome to you.
S3: Thanks for having me.
S1: So , Lisa , what was your initial reaction to the news of this cultural designation ? Tell us about it.
S2: Well , obviously , something very exciting for us. It's something we put in for many years ago in the first round and weren't successful. And so we were overjoyed to be recognized in a way with our fellow districts. To something like this , it's amazing.
S1:
S2: There were 14 in the first round in 2017. And then this time they selected ten throughout the state of California. And we were the only one this time in San Diego County.
S1:
S3: We've got Bubble Park and Barrio Logan are the two other state designated. Um. And what it does is it really brings it highlights and reflects a great work by , by these folks to , to um , to highlight , you know , all of the , all of the resources that we have in this , in this particular place. It drives it drives tourism , it drives recognition from within the city of San Diego For for our residents throughout the city and the county. So it's really actually very important. And it's and it's a great honor.
S1: I want to talk more about that , you know , tourism piece you mentioned there. But Lisa , you know , this this comes at a time when Liberty Station is celebrating this , you know , 25 year milestone. I wonder if you could take us back to 25 years ago , paint the picture for us , what Liberty Station was like before it became the cultural hub it is today.
S2: Uh , Andrew , it was lots of mud. Um , you would have been walking through in waders probably 25 years ago. Um , and it was a lot of work to get to this point , and we still have more to do. But 25 years ago , we were really taking the the city's vision that had been laid out for an arts and culture hub and envisioning what that was going to be and how we were going to activate that. And before we could activate it , we had to work on plans to repurpose the 26 buildings that are in our portfolio. Those are all historic buildings. There's more than that. More historic buildings at Liberty Station. But for Arts District in our portfolio , we have 26.
S1: And with that , you know , historical piece , I imagine that added a lot of challenges of how to because you kind of retain the history of the base. Right ? It's kind of like reinforced. You know , throughout Liberty Station today. But but talk , talk to us about some of the challenges.
S2: It's much easier to knock over an old building and build it new. You can even build it to look exactly like it did. And you see some of that reflected at Liberty Station , because depending on at what age buildings were , some we were able to retain and some had to be constructed new , but they resemble nearly exactly the the old buildings. However , all of the buildings in our portfolio are historic buildings and there are many challenges , but it would be easy If we just push them over and built new and what fun would that be ? We love the challenge of doing what we call adaptive reuse. While we do celebrate , and there's a historic thread that runs through all of our buildings and everything that we do. Adaptive reuse is a little different than historic preservation because we want to continue to keep the buildings activated. For example , we have some of our like our dance building and our music and arts building. Those were once education spaces for the Navy where people learned dental technology. Um , they learned how to build bombs and a variety of other things. So we like to say that we've returned education and training to the Naval Training Center , just in the form of arts and culture.
S1: Rachel , you mentioned this , this tourism piece , and I want to return to that. I think for a lot of people , you know , when you think of tourism and the role it plays in our economy , Beaches weather. Right ? Like , that's that's kind of the top of mind. But , you know , talk to me about cultural tourism and it's , you know , impact on our economy or potential for it. Right.
S3: Right. So so this helps define San Diego and what we really have to offer. So we're known for a sun and sand like you said. But we have so much more. We have world class theater. We have music and symphony with stunning venues. We have an underground music scene and really unique , authentic cultural experiences like what you'd find in Barrio Logan and obviously our military , a big part of our culture. So , so cultural tourists are very attractive for a lot of reasons. You know , when the economy turns down or their ups and downs and convention business , um , cultural tourism is is part of a diverse , diverse offering of , of tourism. And they stay longer. They spend significantly more than any other type of leisure tourist. Um , and so they it's , it's a virtuous cycle because when people come , they stay in our hotels and they spend money , then that's actually giving the city revenue that we then in turn put back into arts and cultural organization in the form of grants and other support.
S1: So , Lisa , I mean , one thing that I think , you know , special about Liberty Station is it's just like a wide range of arts and culture of what you guys , you know , include in that. You might hear a jazz band rehearsing. You mentioned that kind of space where , you know , there's arts classes happening , ballet class , but you could be going across the street to see a play now at the Joan Wright. We'll talk more about that. But , you know , for someone who hasn't visited the district , you know , talk to me more about the vision of what you wanted to include in this arts district.
S2: Well , we want to make art accessible to everyone , regardless of income , regardless of where you live. So we have many free opportunities. For example , we have an open air gallery that we're very proud of. Um , we have over 15 installations , and we try to add a couple of those each year. And each installation you can actually hit the QR code. You can hear from the artist directly , and that's all free and accessible. We really love that opportunity for people as well as in all of our barracks buildings where we have working artists , we also have opportunities for them to display their art. So even if they're not in the studio at the moment , you can see examples of their work.
S1: And there's also the Joan and Erwin Jacobs Performing Arts Center that opened , what , September of last September. Yes.
S2: Yes.
S1: I was just there for the first time a few weeks ago that houses Cygnet Theatre , but there's more than just one theatre there. Can you just tell us briefly about that ? Absolutely.
S2: That is an amazing project that was building number 18 of our 26 in our portfolio , and that was originally the base exchange and the basic base exchange. If you're not familiar with , um , military , um , you know , a military building , a base exchange is kind of like a department store , so it can house a variety of uses. And back when it was a functioning exchange , it actually had a bowling alley in the basement. And you will see nods to that in the theater if you didn't notice in the first time , hopefully you'll notice them the next time. Um , but it really was a place. There was a , um , a dance hall there. There was a coffee shop and a variety of things at any one time. And so it's nice again to be able to create another entertainment hub. So yes , the Joan and Aaron Jacobs Performing Arts Center , lovingly known as the Joan , uh , because we wanted people to say , meet me at the Joan , uh , houses two independent theaters. Uh , both. The whole building is operated by Signet Theater. That is their home. There is the Clay's , um , Mainstage Theater , which seats about 288 people or can seat up to that many. And then the Dotty , which is more of a studio theatre and can seat up to 150 people depending on the configuration. So it really gives Cygnet an opportunity to if you're producing a big musical , for example , you have a mainstage theatre , but if you're doing some more avant garde or creative or edgy stuff.
S1: Something more intimate. Yeah , yeah. So , Lisa , you know , in addition to the arts organizations , the spaces I want to get to the artists because that's obviously essential here to what we're talking about. And there are artists , you know , that take up residency at the district. One of those recently was Eden de la Vera Vara. She recently wrapped up her residency and she spoke with KPBS about her experience. Here's a little of what she had to say.
S4: I'm no longer creating work in isolation. I have a community supporting me , and I'm also getting helpful critique or just feedback on on what I'm making. And I think that makes me feel really appreciative for this space , because I'm able to see the impact of my work and what I'm actually offering to the community.
S1: You know , we hear from a lot of artists just about the challenges of what it's like to be an artist in anywhere , let alone someplace as expensive as San Diego. I'm just wondering if you can tell us a little bit about Liberty Station's approach , and maybe what it could do better to support artists and and help them out. It's so hard to find space , let alone affordable space.
S2: I appreciate that question. And not only finding space , finding affordable space , but also finding safe and well-maintained spaces , because oftentimes we found that artists in almost any community they're relegated to , they get low cost space because it's in a warehouse that's being repurposed. And so then they get relocated when somebody's going to repurpose that or something. And we wanted to make spaces for artists where they feel safe. It's clean and they can interact with other artists. So Eden is an example of one of our emerging artists. We have an emerging artists program that we fund , and we offer visual and performing artists opportunities for free space , depending on the type of medium you're doing. The visual artists , I think at six months , the performing artists get I think it's 12 months. Um , and we provide them a small stipend. We give them the space , and we also give them the tools to understand what it means to operate an art studio , for example. Um , I think it's really important what we do , because there are many amazing creative souls in our region and we want to retain those people. So having the designation as a cultural district from the state really recognizes and elevates what we do , but the ability to support people to pursue their passion. Art can be a vocation , and we want people to understand that. um , we want to be able to do that and retain those creatives in our own community. Otherwise , people feel like they have to move to L.A. or New York or New Mexico or something.
S1: Very common. I know a lot of artists that did just that , actually. Yeah , yeah. And we'll try to have a link up on our website to that application to the residency for any artists interested there. I mean , Rachel , I just want to bring in your thoughts. We have just a couple of minutes left here , but , you know , just on this , you know , affordability issues that so many folks are facing. I mean , what what's the city doing to support artists so they can better sustain themselves and stay in San Diego , not move away to LA and New York ? Exactly.
S3: As as you mentioned , space is the number one concern of artists space to perform , to exhibit , to create. So it is actually our top issue. And it is it is kind of my , my charge as a as leader of cultural affairs in the economic Development department. What I'm trying to address. So we , the city did a creative city cultural plan that we released early last year. This is this is one of the most important things. And so , um , you know , this this space is going to be it's critical. It's critical that that the you have a district that has , um , creative businesses alongside artists. Um , it creates this synergy and it makes it really special. And frankly , you know , anytime you go to Arts District , Liberty Station , anytime you go to Liberty Station , it doesn't really matter what time of day you're going to find people walking around experiencing the art , looking at the murals. It's it's it's important for San Diegans to know that we're we're addressing this and that and that we're working to to provide more spaces for them to to see and enjoy and experience art.
S1: We just run out of time here. But quickly. Before we go , Lisa , I'm wondering if you can , you know , let it. What's one arts thing you'd recommend people check out at Liberty Station , whether it's this weekend or just more generally.
S2: I would say come and explore and enjoy our open air gallery. Once you get to one of our installations , you can get a map that takes you around to see all the rest of the installations. And just doing that free and accessible tour will really give you a taste and a feel for Liberty Station , because it really takes you all around Arts District.
S1: Rachel , what about you ? You mentioned murals. Yeah. Yes.
S3: Yes. Wonderful public art. The murals in the galleries , in these historic buildings. So you walk , you walk through the galleries and you can see all these amazing murals by local artists. And then we also have. Yeah , they also have a number of sculptures , a sculpture garden. And personally , I love to go there on a Sunday afternoon and just wander through and you're going to come upon something. They have all of these wonderful little shops as well as , you know , if you go to Carruth Cellars , you'll see live music on a Sunday afternoon. So it's just go , go there and find your way and find your place.
S1: I've been speaking with Arts District Liberty Station's president and CEO Lisa Johnson , along with Lisa Lang from the city of San Diego , thanks to you both. Thank you , Rachel Lang. Sorry. That's okay. Thank you. Coming up , we hear about one of the films featured at the upcoming San Diego Jewish Film Festival.
S5: Henriette is old. May be the most famous Jewish female icon you've never heard of.
S1: Hear more when Midday Edition returns. Welcome back to KPBS Midday Edition. I'm Andrew Bracken in for Jade Heineman. The 36th Annual San Diego International Jewish Film Festival kicks off on January 24th , but KPBS Cinema Junkie Beth Accomando wanted to highlight one of the films well in advance. It's the documentary Labors of Love The Life and Legacy of Henrietta Szold. It's about a Victorian woman transformed into a pioneering political activist. Beth sat down with director Abby Ginsberg to discuss sold and the film. Here's that conversation.
S6: Abby , you have a film coming up at the San Diego International Jewish Film Festival called Labors of Love The Life and Legacy of Henrietta Szold , and you have a unique connection to the subject in this film. So explain what that is. Yeah.
S5: Yeah. Which gave really provided the reason for why I decided to do the film. So I am related to Henrietta Szold on my mother's side. My mother's maiden name was old. Her father , Roberts old was I mean , he was a somewhat distant cousin. He was a third cousin of Henrietta's , but they were close and they were very friendly. And my maternal Grandparents , you know , were people that she saw every time she came back to the United States. So I grew up knowing about Henrietta's old because , as I say in the film , she's the famous old , but I didn't know much about her. You know , I knew that she had founded Hadassah. I knew that she had done , you know , important work on health care , but I didn't really know her story. And , oh , let me tell you the other piece of my family's story. So I knew who Henrietta's old was in the world. And I also knew growing up that she had been in love with the man who became my paternal grandfather , Louis Ginzberg. Louis Ginzberg is known in kind of Jewish circles as a Talmudic scholar. When he first came to this country in 1902 , Henrietta early on became his editor , translated his lectures to his students. They had a close working relationship through the Jewish Publication Society , and I knew because a book had been published about this in the mid-sixties that she really was in love with him , even though she was 13 years older than he was. And of course , they never got married. Nothing ever came of it. And the film explores kind of a little bit of the story of her heartbreak from her perspective , because she wrote it all up in a diary , and I thought it was important really , to document this as part of her life story.
S7: I could not hide my grief and humiliation from him and from the world. I cannot conceive it possible that he should not have known that I was madly in love with him. I must assume that he never loved me in the least , and moreover , he had no inkling of my love for him.
S5: Okay , so I'm related to Henrietta. I'm also related to the man who broke her heart. So that's that's the personal connection. And what's interesting , I think , is that I didn't know much about her. And so the film sort of accompanies me on my journey as I learn more about her as I meet , you know , members of Euthalia who were saved by her and who remember arriving , you know , to the boat dock in Haifa and meeting her for the first time. So I did my best to tell a story about a woman who has been dead for 80 years in as sort of as lively away as I possibly could as a filmmaker. So the good news is , between Henrietta's letters , what was in the archives and various biographies that had been written that have done a lot of excavating of her life story , I was able to basically get Tovah Feldshuh to read a lot of Henrietta's words so that you do feel like you're getting to know her. You do feel like you sort of feel some of the intensity that she's feeling about the life choices she's making , etc..
S7: When we left Jerusalem , my mother said , you must provide practical help to Palestine. This is your task and that of the women's group.
S5: Henrietta's old may be the most famous Jewish female icon you've never heard of. It is so true. How few people have heard of her both here and in Israel. Or if people have heard of her in Israel. She's known as the name of a street. And in the United States , she's known as the founder of Hadassah. But that doesn't tell us a 10th of what we need to know about her. Credit to the archives that had so much of the material , and credit to the few people who were still alive who remembered her. I kind of pieced together what I think is , you know , an inspiring story about a woman that we should all know more about.
S6: And give people a brief description of who she was , since she may not be known to a lot of the people here in the US. Yes.
S5: Yes. So , okay. She was born in 1860. She was the daughter of a rabbi and a Hungarian immigrant in Baltimore , grew up in Baltimore , went to the public schools in Baltimore and did not go to college , however , because she was her father's like assistant. And he was this rabbi and she was helping him prepare his sermons and so on. She was extremely well educated and also fluent in other languages. So she grew up speaking German. She grew up knowing Hebrew. She obviously spoke English. That was her primary language. That really enabled her to sort of educate herself. And one of the stories that we tell in the film is that she and her father spent a lot of time going to the docks in Baltimore and meeting the Russian and Eastern European immigrants who came to this country to work. And Henrietta has the the obvious insight that these people need to learn English if they're ever going to adjust to life in America. So she basically identifies the problem. They need to learn English. The other part of the problem is they're working all day. So this has to be a night school. And she essentially invents out of whole cloth what becomes really the protocol for ESL classes across the country. What I derived from that piece of her history is that this was a woman who was undaunted in the face of identifying problems. She was just like , well , what am I going to do to make this better ? When she goes to Israel and sees people of Palestine rather , and sees people Arab , Christian , Muslim and Jewish , all on the streets without health care , etc. , she has another blinding flash of the obvious and she's like , okay , what are we going to do to improve health care in Palestine ? This was a woman who lived through very troubling times and made a huge difference in terms of the two skill sets that I think really made her work so unique. One was she was a person of vision who could see a problem and think through , what are we going to do to solve this ? Russian immigrants don't speak English. We need to provide them with English speaking classes. People are dying of bad health in Palestine. We need to provide health care. Hitler is killing Jewish kids in 1933 to 35. in Germany. We need to save them. And so she is on the front lines of major programmatic change at every key moment in world history. Not just her own personal history , but world history. Working like a dog to really try to figure out what are going to be the solutions to these major social problems that she is confronting. So what did she do ? She created really , the first ESL program. She moves to Palestine at some point and helps create the infrastructure for health care in Palestine. That is going to serve everybody. And that to this day , is a sort of shining example of great health care in the Middle East. If you get sick in Qatar , you want to be treated at Hadassah Hospital. What else does she do ? She saves 10,000 plus children from the Holocaust , and she is constantly going back and forth between Germany and Palestine , trying to work out how she is going to get visas for the kids that are coming from Germany , how those kids are going to get trained to do agricultural work since they all grew up in cities , etc. so she is both incredibly detail oriented and running large scale programs that people back home are helping her fund.
S6: Well , we're at a point in time where there's a lot of talk of how we're not learning from history , we're not remembering things that happened. And she lived through a lot. And her idea , this sense of like , you have to embrace everyone equally.
S5: And as people in the film say , sometimes they were two thirds of the population when Henrietta was working there. So Henrietta felt like we should be able to work this out. Her viewpoint did not win out. And when the Ben Gurion , which I'm just calling it that for ease of purpose , you know , when when the view about we are creating a Jewish state in which the Jews are going to be in , you know , we're not interested in by nationalism. We want a Jewish state , given what's happened to the Jews in this world , that's what we're going for. They did that to some extent at their peril , and we are looking at some of the terrible repercussions that come from the choices that were made back in the 30s and the 40s. So one lesson that we might learn from Henrietta's experience would be , well , if you agree with Henrietta's view that we have to somehow figure out how not to go for either a maximalist Jewish position or a maximalist Arab position , what does that look like today ? And there are , you know , there are scholars and there are politicians , and there are people who are trying to kind of bring some kind of dialogue to this entrenched , terrible situation. So what we can learn from Henrietta , I think , really , is that there were people back in the 20s and 30s that were worried about all this and that foresaw and were prescient about the problems Israel was going to encounter if they did not figure out how to create some kind of coexistence with their Arab neighbors , and they never figured it out. So are we surprised that we're in the mess we're in today ? I mean , I think not , and what she would say to us from the grave is we need people who are going to try to broker communication and cooperation to the extent that some of those people exist. We need to help support them as they chart a new course. I mean , she would say , look , if you don't stay in dialogue with your neighbors , nothing good is going to come of that. There's a line in the film where I read her thing saying , you know , Jews have always been guided by love , not by might. And we need to remember that. Well , there's a part of me that really agrees with that. It's like , you know , we're not going back to the Maccabees , so let's try to figure out how we're going to live peacefully with our neighbors. So I found her. As I say , I found her prescient. I found her advice meaningful. And we're living in a world where people did not heed it. And we're paying the price for it. So I don't I mean , I don't mean to be too negative about it , because I think the message of the film actually is hopeful , at least if it's not hopeful , it's inspirational. It's like we may not achieve either peace or security or whatever in our own lifetime , but that doesn't mean that it's not our job to keep fighting for it. So I feel , you know , the thing about channeling my inner Henrietta , I'm feeling it. I'm feeling the need to keep working. I'm feeling the need to keep struggling for a better world than the one we're currently inhabiting. And I feel like I am now carrying her on , on my shoulder and in my heart where somebody says about her , she never gave up. Well , I sort of feel like , okay , that's what I want to be inspired by because it's easy to feel overwhelmed. It's easy to feel like there's nothing I can do. It's easy to feel like I've tried my entire life to make this world better. I fought for abortion rights. I fought for this , I fought for that , and now where are we ? Well , it's like nobody ever told us it was going to be easy. And nobody ever told us we weren't going to have to fight again. So we need to just , you know , put on our big girl pants and get back out there so that when you go to bed at night , you feel like , okay , I tried. I may not have accomplished what I set out to do or at the end of a month or a year , but I'm still at it. That is what you would say for us. That is the message that you would want to leave us with , is you may not see the fruits of your labor in your own lifetime , but that does not mean you should stop fighting for the values for both. What are Jewish values and democratic values ? There's kind of the same values , and I believe we're challenged in this country , just like they are in Israel , to keep fighting for those values. So be inspired by Henrietta , you know , take her words to heart. dreaming. When you dream , dream big and then fight for those dreams.
S1: That was KPBS Beth Accomando speaking with filmmaker Abby Ginsberg. Her film Labors of Love The Life and Legacy of Henrietta Szold will screen on January 30th as part of the 36th Annual San Diego International Jewish Film Festival. Up next , you might recognize that sound KPBS Arts podcast The Finest is back , and we hear what they have in store for us in season two. You're listening to KPBS Midday Edition. Welcome back to KPBS Midday Edition. I'm Andrew Bracken in for Jade Hindman. By now , fans of San Diego arts and culture are likely familiar with the KPBS podcast The Finest. It's hosted by Julia Dixon Evans and explores the people and places defining our local culture. And the first episode of season two is out today. And Julian Julia Dixon Evans joins me now to talk more about it. Hey , Julia.
S8: Hey , Andrea. Thanks for having me.
S1: Great to see you. So congrats on season two. You have a lot of new stories coming out this year , you know. Tell us more of what's new and different about the season.
S8: Well , it's the stories and the people really that are the new and the different. We remain committed to more of the same from season one , really like this idea of sharing stories about the people who are creating amazing things or making a difference in the community , in the region. And I think we've gotten a lot more ambitious about broadening our scope. Right. Like , I think I personally talked a lot last season about what we were not as a podcast , which was important and would like to help us refine our mission and our vision. But the Sierra , we're really just thinking big , like , not what we're not , but about what we can be. If that distinction.
S1: More expansive.
S8: Makes any sense. Yeah. And like , how can we share this story ? Or how can we look at this topic or phenomenon and make it relevant ? And the answer to that is always the people. Yeah.
S1: Yeah. So tell us more about some of the people will be meeting this season.
S8: So starting off we meet a local press and just a community. It's been all books. These are some people locally who've brought Riso graph printing to San Diego. We'll also meet a local chocolate maker who really wanted to share the chocolate from her childhood in Mexico , so she figured out how to make it herself in a certified home kitchen. We hear from Jessica Sanchez , the local who won America's Got Talent , about her career and then also some local botanists and scientists and citizen scientists or community scientists kind of like this new frontier of apps like iNaturalist and UCSD , Costco Club. So much more. Wow.
S1: Wow. So yeah , it covers a lot. You touched on this , you know , and this is the new episode takes us into the world of Riso graph printing. What can you tell us about it ? Yeah.
S8: So a riso graph printer is a form of a stencil printer. It basically went obsolete decades ago when other forms of printing technology or copiers just got better. But for a while it was like the go to for huge print jobs. So in schools or churches , the government , anywhere you needed a bunch of copies run off quickly and cheaply , and then these machines just kind of like languished in church basements or , or school storage rooms until artists got Ahold of them. And artists were really drawn to the way that it's sort of imprecise. It also prints one color at a time , which is a really fascinating way of approaching a project. And eventually it made its way here in San Diego. You'll hear mention at the start of this excerpt of this guy George. It's George Wieder , who is in Grand Rapids in Michigan , one of the first artists to use Rosa Graf for art in the United States. And that brings us here to Burnell Books.
S1: Let's take a listen to that now.
S8: As the research community spread across the US , artists began organizing meetings at the first North American Reso conference held in Chicago in 2017. George said he met Nick Bernal , who co-founded Bernal Books , with his wife , Amanda. Nick and Amanda grew up together in San Diego and met in junior high school. When I was.
S9: 21 , I got married and then we've just been together forever and ever , ever.
S8: Around the time of that conference , Nick had discovered graph printing , and he convinced Manda to attend a reserve graph workshop with him in LA.
S9: I was like , super into it right away. After that , Nick already knew that he was going to like it a lot.
S8: Shortly after , they ran into a friend at an art show.
S9: And we just told him that we took this workshop. We wished that there was a machine down here. And he said , well , I have a machine and it's broken and it's in my friend's garage. If you think you could fix it , you could totally use it. And I was like , sure , I'll fix it. I don't I can't fix anything like really anything in my life. It's like , yeah , I could do that. Um , so then we picked it up in Chula Vista and I found a , like a tech manual online , like PDF. And I found a bunch of old threads from , like this message board called copy TechNet from like 2010 and , like , figured out how to get this door to close on this machine and get this , like , drum unstuck. And then I freakin printed it. What was on the drum already ? And it was an ad for a nail salon that was around the corner from where I grew up in Santee. And that's when I realized that this machine had been at the print shop that was next to my house. This Rizzo was just there like that whole time. So. So that was the first machine I had , and it just had , like one drum.
S8: Nick and Amanda set up their reso machine in a back room at Verbatim Books in North Park , where they both worked. They invited people in to experiment , learn and print together DIY style. They called their project Burn All Books.
S9: We're really just art lovers and like , dealers and like , neither of us had any formal arts background or education.
S8: Let me tell you a little story about the Rizzo graph and me. I first met Amanda and Nick when they were getting started with Bernal books and became fascinated by the unusual , ephemeral output of the research graph. At the time , I was struggling with creativity in a big way. I'd recently published my first novel through the traditional publishing process , and the pressure of creating the next thing was an anxiety I was not prepared for. I was unable to write anything new for fear of it not being good enough to publish again. Feeling like I needed to knock it out of the park , this time creating something simply for the joy of following a spark felt out of reach. And that made me feel detached from the creative community. But research , graph printing and the local DIY art scene offered a different path supporting artists right where they were. The research graph movement seems all about that joy and spark. It's accessible. welcoming and built on the shoulders of community of artists. Supporting artists. Printing one of my short stories on Reza Graf and holding it in my hands felt revolutionary , not just for my own creative pursuits , but I felt part of the cultural fabric of the city again , just from a sheet of paper and ink. One of the first things Nick and Amanda told me one year in to burn all books was that they wanted to do their part to keep artists in San Diego by offering viable printing options locally and fostering a community of DIY minded creatives to share ideas and bring them to life.
S10: We like to point at like others , we like to like guide people to others. In San Diego , we forget that there's such a rich like history of like artists here. I don't know. We love it here. That's why we're staying here and making stuff.
S8: So they built a little research world here. Publishing zines and literary journals and a monthly mail mag with local writing and art. During Covid , they had to close their shop behind verbatim books. And the bigger project went on a break. It could have been the end of the Russo community experiment , but in the midst of their hibernation , one of their friends scoped out a huge opportunity.
S9: And our friends Allie , who I always call like the DIY real estate agent because he's just always like scoping for science and like , texting people. Um , this is just that this space was open.
S8: Since I've been reporting on art in San Diego , countless indie art spaces have been shuttered , whether from losing a lease or the artists moving away. Finding and keeping a space is essential to creating and sharing art. It harkens back to the squatters in the Netherlands. That fundamental need to have a space to gather , organize and create. Here in San Diego , it's a constant struggle for artists or arts organizations. The cost of real estate exacerbates the problem. So it was a big deal when Amanda and Nick's DIY real estate friend found them a strange but affordable space , an old TV shop on the edge of normal heights. And like so much of what they have accomplished. Finding the spot was a group effort.
S9: You need like a network of people who want to help you. That's like something cobbled together very slowly over a long period of time. I just feel like so much of our success , to me , like , has felt like a combination of , like , flukes and , like , Really wonderful , like favors and opportunities.
S8: That building now houses a store , gallery and printing studio for Burnell Books and the headquarters for Scanners Archive , their non-profit community zine archive. Bernal books also operates a newsstand in bread and Salt , and still sells zines and prints elsewhere. A patchwork of projects and income. They make it work.
S9: Consignment at the bookstore and off of our subscription program , and off of like , sales of the shop. And like we're able to pay for this space and like , every day I'm like , whoa. I was like , how are we doing that ? Like , it's not like by a huge margin. We're working with like the hundreds of dollars here , but it's working and we've been able to sustain it.
S8: On a chilly night in November. Producer Anthony and I visited the shop. Anthony.
S11: Anthony. Yeah , this is Amanda. Hey , Amanda. How's it going ? My name is Nick. Nick. Hey. Yeah.
S8: Are you.
S11: Recording ? Uh , yep.
S8: He was recording all of that , guys.
S11: Always recording.
S8: The space is cozy , colorful , and eclectic. There are plants and bright bookshelves and tables covered in books and reso printed zines and posters. Anthony , they're printing a calendar. Oh.
S11: Oh. They are. Oh , the 2026 calendar. Yeah. Amazing.
S8: We have the Burn All Books annual Rizzo printed calendar at our desks at the finest. So we were a little starstruck when we heard they were printing the 2026 edition. At that moment , tucked in the back of the shop , their friend Kevin was printing away.
S12:
S11:
S13: It in a yellow drum. Typically , we print lightest to darkest. It just makes the process easier.
S8: This art uses three layers of color. This particular page has yellow , pink , and blue. Kevin runs the same 150 sheets of paper through the research machine for each layer. He picks up each large cylinder of bright ink. Latches it into place , and lets the machine do the rest.
S14: So if you see even with two colors , it's already so much more like dynamic. Yeah.
S11: Yeah. It's awesome. Yeah , it's very satisfying to see it come together like one color at a time.
S14: Yeah , exactly.
S8: 14 local artists contributed to the 2026 calendar. While most of the artists are familiar with designing for Rizza Graf , the Rizzo can be unpredictable. An exact replica of your image isn't always a guarantee.
S14: Because it's not like a completely like , machine run process. It's like every sheet of paper will be jostled around a little bit , like kind of become like imperfect.
S8: This page is a colorful take on the famous Matisse painting of people dancing in a circle , holding hands with an intricate border. But each of the 150 copies Kevin printed turned out a little different from stencil and paper movement , or how each color layered or saturated. The effect is one of a kind and undeniably cool.
S14: I don't even know what happened here.
S11: I have a dozen like white.
S14: Yeah , yeah , yeah. Like that pink was supposed to go in that white spot.
S8: Kevin has worked with Nick and Amanda almost since the beginning , when they fixed up their first reso , just like George Wieder. Kevin loves the Russo graph , but it's the people he works with that really keep him coming back.
S14: I pretty much wouldn't do this if it wasn't for that aspect. I think any like do it yourself. Like DIY space is ultimately about like the community you build. Doing all this , like labor , oftentimes for free. Isn't really worth it , right ? If you don't like. Like what you're doing. I think I'd have a hard time doing this with people who I don't consider my friends.
S8: Today , burnout is a lot more than printing.
S9: We were able to amass like , just an enormous group of friends , really. Like they're all volunteers to run their own projects and their own programming. But like people who come here every week on a Tuesday , like just because they want to. Um , it's pretty crazy.
S1: That was an excerpt from the KPBS Arts podcast The Finest. You can listen to the entire episode wherever you get your podcasts. That's our show for today. I'm Andrew Bracken. KPBS Midday Edition airs on KPBS FM weekdays at noon , again at 8 p.m. you can find past episodes at KPBS or wherever you listen. Thanks again for listening. Have a great day.
