From Luscious Noise to Garde Manger

Chef Christopher Romero's dish

Art

Women on canvas: On her Facebook page, artist Nuvia Crisol Guerra is doing a post each day on a female artist who’s inspired her throughout the years. March is Women’s History Month, and it’s her little way of celebrating it. Guerra, an artist with a degree in biochemistry whose work is strikingly over-saturated, bold and inspired by her Mexican roots, is one of the artists chosen by a museum-studies class at San Diego Mesa College to show her work in Raw Sugar, an exhibition opening at the San Diego Art Department (3830 Ray St. in North Park) from 6 to 8 p.m. Saturday, March 19. Other artists include Berenice Badillo, Stephanie Bedwell, Shanna Matuszak, Yajaira Villagomez and Nicole Waszak (read more about Waszak by clicking here). sdartdept.com

Exhibition foodie: Inspiration for an artist’s masterpiece can come from any number of places—but a plate of food? That’s the concept behind Garde Manger, a cuisine-and-art collaborative exhibition that opens from 6 to 10 p.m. Saturday, March 19, at North Park’s Thumbprint Gallery, 2637 University Ave. Five themes, ranging from patience to childhood memories, were assigned to five chef / artist duos. The chef used the theme to create a dish. The artists watched and, once it was finished, created a piece of art based on the chef’s creation. Artists include Eric Wixon, Ben DeHart and Cati Retz, and chefs include Frederick Keller, Dana Francisco and Christopher Romero. Stop by to see the 10 pieces of art created during the process and see some live food demos (and taste the results). thumbprintgallerysd.com

Discussion

Old school: Eighty years ago this past January, Lemon Grove Grammar School principal Jerome Green, on the direction of the school board and without notifying parents first, barred Mexican-American children from entering the school building, instead directing the kids to a decrepit, secondary building to be Americanized. The Lemon Grove Incident led to the nation’s first successful desegregation lawsuit. UCSD professor Roberto Alvarez, whose father was the lead plaintiff in the case, will deliver a lecture on the role of Mexican-Americans in U.S. school desegregation at 11 a.m. Saturday, March 19, at the San Diego Museum of Man’s Gil Auditorium (1350 El Prado in Balboa Park). The event coincides with the museum’s current exhibition, RACE: Are We So Different? The lecture is free with admission (adults $12.50, students $7.50). museumofman.org

Performance

Cultural buffet: If you’ve not yet checked out Luscious Noise, the Sunday, March 20, entry in the ongoing the classical-music / multimedia series looks to be a good one. Under the direction of conductor John Stubbs, members of the San Diego Symphony and the choral ensemble Sacra / Profana will perform works by Bach and experimental composers like Gyorgy Ligeti, Heitor Villa-Lobos and Edvard Grieg. To complement the tunes, there’ll be video—like scenes from 2001: A Space Odyssey to accompany Ligeti’s swirling, creepy, a capella soundscape “Lux Aeterna”—a dance performance from the ballet Le Spectre de la Rose and an excerpt from a documentary about Spanish architect Antonio Gaudi. The performance begins at 7:30 p.m. at Anthology, 1337 India St. in Little Italy. Tickets are $15. anthologysd.com

Material matters: When Joe Nalven set out to curate Insight on Metal: A PhotoArts Group Exhibit, he started with a simple idea: Display photographs printed on metal rather than paper. He recognizes that a good photo is a good photo, and the material it’s printed on shouldn’t really matter. But, after doing some research, Nalven found that not many (if any) photography exhibitions have been entirely about works on metal. On the arts blog he writes for the Union-Tribune, Nalven says he wants to start a dialogue about why paper seems to be the default way to display photographs. Some people, he says, think metal makes for a more accurate representation. See for yourself at the opening from 9:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Saturday, March 19, at Calumet Photographic, 830 W. Valley Parkway in Escondido. The exhibition will be on display through April 11.

Books

Yeats and Co.: In honor of the 32nd Annual St. Patrick’s Day Open Reading of Irish Poetry and Prose, which kicks off at 7 p.m. Thursday, March 17, at D.G. Wills Books (7461 Girard Ave. in La Jolla, dgwillsbooks.com), we offer this limerick:

There once was a bookseller named Wills,
Events at his store were great thrills,
The St. Patrick’s Day reading
Of scribes—Ireland’s leading,
Heard while guests sip on Harp, Guinness (no Pils)

Activism

When the stories end: In the universe of our imagination, a mythical, flat world is propped like a dish on the backs of four elephants standing on a giant turtle. That turtle rests on the shoulders of Sir Terry Pratchett, the beloved fantasy writer of 38 books in the Discworld series. In 2007, Pratchett announced his amazing mind wasn’t immortal like characters; he was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. With help of The Black Adder actor Tony Robinson, Pratchett delivered a heart-breaking plea for assisted suicide to the Royal College of Medicine last year. The Hemlock Society of San Diego, a right-to-die advocacy group, will screen the BBC-produced lecture video at 1:30 p.m. Sunday, March 20, at Joyce Beers Community Center (just north of Vermont and Cleveland streets in Hillcrest). hemlocksocietysandiego.org

Sports

Action-packed: San Diego native Tony Hawk, arguably the most recognizable name in skateboarding, is intent on giving back to the community by doing what he does best. And with him are a bunch of other skateboard and BMX pros, like Bucky Lawek, Andy Macdonald and Pierre-Luc Gagnon, to name a few. They’ll all show off their skills at the annual Clash at Clairemont demo from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday, March 19, at the YMCA’s Krause Family Skatepark (3401 Clairemont Drive). They’ll ride the largest outdoor ramp on the West Coast and sign autographs. Also check out some on-the-rise amateurs, a set by punk band Agent Orange, vendor booths and more. Proceeds go to Grind for Life, a nonprofit that supports cancer survivors and the YMCA. $10. clashatclairemont.com