“I’m going to throw some bags down, and you have to catch them,” hollers San Diego purse designer Brandi Shigley, who is leaning over the edge of a sleep/work loft in her El Cortez-area apartment. “Ready?”

As she tosses her creations down one by one, it becomes increasingly difficult to concentrate on catching the next one. Each finely crafted bag commands lingering admiration.

Twenty bags later, Shigley clamors down from the loft and enthusiastically rummages through the pile that’s been neatly organized on her desk.

“I love this one,” she exclaims, holding up a subtle tweed bag with a stripe of satiny red Oriental fabric down the center. “I call it ‘Asian Persuasion Meets Grandma.’”

“And this is ‘G.I. Jolena Goes To Prom,’” she giggles, referring to a camouflage number with a whimsical swath of jagged pink lace. “It’s the perfect balance of tomboy and girly.”

The 27 year old is not afraid of unexpected contrasts. Like her bags, Shigley’s personality is a captivating blend of incongruent elements. The ebullient young woman speaks with equal enthusiasm about purse-making and skateboarding, punk rock and cute haircuts.

Shigley is also fearless about venturing into unfamiliar territory.

Though she made her first purse out of paper when she was but two-years old, things took a more serious turn in 1998 when a friend’s mother bought her a sewing machine.

“I had no idea what I was doing. I didn’t use patterns. I didn’t take classes. I just broke needles left and right until I figured it out.”

Her combinations of fabric were equally unplanned. She picked up material at thrift stores and rummage sales, and sat among the disheveled heaps of scraps until something clicked.

She’d never intended to become a fashion designer, but she found herself addicted to the creative process of making “something beautiful come from a mess.”

Within 12 months, Shigley created 12 bags. She hung them up at a friend’s annual pool party and sold every last one by the end of the night. Some of the guests asked for custom-designed purses.

She realized she was on to something.

In October of 1999, a tech-savvy friend taught her how to build a Web site. After spending three weeks huddled in front of a computer, Shigley launched www.bshigley.com. Now she could show off her bags to the world, and with any luck, the world would start buying.

Shigley—then a Denver, Colo. Resident—worked as her own publicist. She wrote to the fashion editor of the Rocky Mountain News, who adored the samples the young designer sent over.

That April, a story about Shigley’s fledgling business was published and picked up by the AP, a newswire service that provides stories for papers around the globe.

“Things just snowballed after that,” Shigley admits somewhat incredulously.

She appeared on local TV several times. Denver’s 5280 magazine named her the “Top Up-and-Comer of the Year.” And The Denver Business Journal listed her in its annual round-up, “Under 40: Denver’s Up-and-coming Business Leaders.”

More important, her bags started selling well. Unlike the majority of people around her, she was making a living doing something she loved.

“Passion is a vehicle to travel through life. Because of my passion, good things have happened for me,” Shigley says.

Her no-holds-barred approach to everything has certainly taken her places, including San Diego.

“Ever since I was a little girl, I’d wanted to live in Southern California,” she recalls. “When I ended a long-term relationship [in Denver], there was nothing holding me back anymore.”

Trusting her instincts, she packed up in April, 2002 and headed west. Since arriving here, Shigley says her “life has fallen into place.”

She shares an art-filled apartment with her boyfriend, Gerald Jide, a French graphic designer she met a few months ago. She recently showed off her creations to a chic crowd at a festive trunk show held in downtown’s Un-Un boutique. And she makes new friends wherever she goes—an easy task with her buoyant personality.

In addition to testing her limits with new bag designs, Shigley regularly updates her Web site. With its cute illustrations and well-organized content, it’s an easy and inexpensive way for Shigley sell her purses and post events and press clippings.

Shigley’s business continues to grow, but she won’t be hiring a fleet of seamstresses any time soon. “There’s no factory behind these bags; it’s all Brandi!” According to her Web site, she’s “a one-woman sweatshop.”

You can occasionally find her bags in stock at various boutiques around the county, including The Basement, Union and Home in Encinitas, but most of her sales are through her site. She also accepts custom requests.

Whenever Shigley faces a new challenge, she repeats the advice a good friend once gave her: “Good things come to those who step outside their boundaries to pursue their dreams.”

If Brandi Shigley’s life so far is any indication, she definitely isn’t the kind of girl to hang around in the comfort zone.

For more info on Brandi’s funky lil’ purses, visit bshigley.com.

Since Warhol’s exit, alternative music’s tie to the art world has been tenuous at best. Though paintings by Yoko Ono or Marilyn Manson may appear in the pages of Rolling Stone, the only art at concerts is on band t-shirts, flyers or a few stickers.

Two years ago, Tijuana’s Nortec Collective reconnected art and music. Graphic designers, filmmakers, sculptors and painters exhibited at the all-night DJ events. It was a cultural resurgence—a traveling gallery of Tijuana’s ripe, young artistic community.

In the same vein, local publicity company Holiday Matinee, with help from 91X and the Casbah, is taking San Diego culture on the road. Their “Can You Hear Me Now?” tour will bring cutting edge San Diego art and music to six west coast cities.

“San Diego has long been [a] birthplace of underground music and art,” says David Brown, president of the downtown company. “Behind the scenes… are a small army of photographers, graphic artists, independent record labels, musicians, collectives, writers and promoters who lend their talents to spread the gospel of San Diego’s artistic underground.

“If the Visitors Bureau of San Diego were to take notice and support us, then I think it would mean a lot for the local culture,” he says. “I guess it comes down to the fact that people in our community will be in the know and hopefully we’ll be able to reach out to some new faces in our own city.”

Along with art rock ensemble Ilya and Tijuana’s Loopdrop, “Can You Hear Me Now?” will feature the works of collage artist Joshua Krause, jewelry designer Gabriella Fuentes, filmmaker Andrew Pates and photographer Max Stromberger.

“Anyone can put together a show of music, but to really represent what’s going on in a city with art and music is really cool,” Stromberger says, though he’s realistic. “Do I think people in Oregon are going to pay for pictures of my friends playing music? No.”