Education of the Modern Doctor: Marcus Welby vs. House 
Ryan Jefferies collects art, and during Arts Month, he'll be showing art, too.
- Photo by Kinsee Morlan
“It just struck me that we had so many events in September,” says Berchtold, whose own art fair is happening Sept. 2 through 5 at the Hilton San Diego Bayfront (artsandiego-fair.com). “All of these things screamed out that there needed to be a marketing campaign behind it.”
The banners are up and the website (artsmonthsd.com) is working, and, on Sept. 7, the San Diego City Council will proclaim September “Arts Month San Diego.” But it’s the real-world movement behind the superficial pomp and circumstance that’s become more interesting and important. Galleries around the city—especially in the up-and-coming arts districts of Barrio Logan and East Village—have risen to the occasion. And while Berchtold is excited to see the widespread response, her main focus is on making Arts Month, her art fair and the other shows successful. And that, she says, means art simply must be sold.
“If people show up, and if people buy work, the galleries leave the fair thinking San Diego is a place they want to be next year and they tell their friends,” says Berchtold, who’s quick to point out that San Diego has a reputation for being a wealthy region that doesn’t seem to buy much art. “I’ve always kind of had this hope that this fair could be one of the larger West Coast destination art fairs. Another one of my hopes is that this event turns more people into collectors—I believe that collecting is infectious.”
Meet Ryan Jefferies. He, too, thinks buying art can be an addictive endeavor.
“The funny thing is,” Jefferies says, standing in front of a strikingly large piece by Ed Ruscha hanging in the living-room of his La Jolla condo, “the title of this piece is called ‘Hot Air Blowing,’ and I thought it was so apropos because I’m full of hot air and constantly blowing it. So, when I heard about it and saw it, I kind of laughed and said, ‘OK, this is the piece for me.’”
Jefferies sells himself short. While he does have a tendency to air-quote, end more than his fair share of sentences with “if you will” and act far older than his 24 years, he doesn’t really blow hot air, especially when he’s talking about art. Jefferies loves art, and if the top-notch collection hanging on his walls doesn’t convince you, five minutes with the young man will.
Jefferies came from a long line of art appreciators and collectors. As a kid, he got dragged around from museum to gallery, and he still remembers the moment he went from being bored to being intrigued. He walked into Martin Lawrence Galleries in Beverly Hills, scaled a flight of stairs and came face-to-face with a huge print of Andy Warhol’s “Grevy’s Zebra.”
“It drew me in and it clicked,” he says. “Right there, I was like, OK, I do have an appreciation for beautiful things.”
Jefferies wasn’t even 10, but his art obsession had already begun. He graduated from high school at 16 and by 18 was ready to sell an inherited drawing by Frida Kahlo in order to fund the beginnings of his own collection.
“I walked into the Martin Lawrence gallery in La Jolla, chatted it up and ended up buying this Chagall print right here, ‘Mountebanks,’” he says, lifting the print from the wall. “It was almost like something clicked. It became this addiction, if you will.”
Since buying that first print, Jefferies has moved up in his finance job and has found ways—payment plans, mainly—to feed his habit. He says a third of his paychecks go to art every month. His small condo now looks like an alternative art gallery with pieces by San Diego emerging artists like Dark Vomit hanging next to works by Sam Francis, Robert Nakin and other blue-chip artists. Slowly, he found himself becoming more involved with the local art scene, too. He joined The Gallery, a San Diego Museum of Art membership group for young art enthusiasts, and hoofed it into most of the galleries in La Jolla and asked if he could work for them for free in exchange for being around art and learning more about the gallery business.
The recession, though, meant that business was slow. None of the galleries he approached gave him a chance.
“I thought, You know what, to hell with all of you,” he says. “If I can’t find a job in the art world, I’ll just make one. And one day I woke up and I said, ‘You know what, today’s the day I’m going to make my own gallery.’ People joked with me; they said, ‘Every art collector becomes a dealer when they run out of wall space.’”
Jefferies used the wheeling-and-dealing skills he picked up in the finance industry to score reduced rent at a vacant store in La Jolla. He started Jefferies Projects (jefferiesprojects.com) and put on his first show in July featuring the conceptual works of two local artists, Alexander Jarman and Jesse Mockrin. The show was cut short, though, when his landlord found someone willing to pay full price for the space.
He could have taken it as a sign to give up, but instead, he took it as a sign to move Jefferies Projects to a new, improved locale. He heard about the Art San Diego Art Fair, found out about Arts Month San Diego and decided that he wanted to be among the new art galleries, collectives and happenings that were going on Downtown. He’s working on scoring a deal on some empty retail space inside the Harbor Club Towers. If that doesn’t work out, he’ll take one of the artists he plans to show in his space, Sheryl Oring, and help her set up a pop-up of her “I Wish to Say” performance piece somewhere near the fair. Inspired by Arts Month, he’s got a lot more programming in the works for September with his two favorite artists, Oring and Jarman, in mind.
“You know,” he says, gazing up at his collection of art, “I live with art because I love it, and to be able to give that passion or that bug to someone else who will start collecting, it truly makes me smile.”
