VICKI
LEON
ARTIST
ART
FOR
COMMUNITY
Projects
Manzanita
Gathering
Place
2013
Pomegranate Project Partners:
ARTS/A Reason to Survive, San Diego Foundation
Design Team: Brennan Hubbell, Ilisa Goldman, Vicki Leon, Milenko Matanovic (Mentor)
City Heights transformed a dilapidated and dangerous city lot into a beautiful, artistic gathering space. The Pomegranate process uses a collaborative effort between community organizers, government, artists and community members to make neighborhoods more livable, safe and socially engaged.
What's so amazing about the Pomagranate Process is how it brings community together, from government bodies, to artists, to kids in the neighborhood, to make something real and physical happen in such a short period of time. The physical space is transformed and so is our thinking about how things get done.
2015: this project received a Merit Award from the American Society of Landscape Architects.
The creation of Manzanita Gathering Place transformed a dangerous and unsightly area into a safe, beautiful gathering place.
Early Success: The artist developed a curriculum that involved having community members create designs which they then sandblasted onto tiles.
Community members were given the opportunity to make a design for a tile that was then sandblasted into the tile and incorporated into the mosaic designs on the columns.
Many members of the surrounding communities participated in creating approximately 1,500 square feet of mosaic art for the columns.
Many hands make light work. Neighbors spending time together while learning and growing.
The four main columns are based on the theme of earth, air, fire and water, and also represent the intersection of the four adjoining neighborhoods.
The entry column incorporates tiles sandblasted with the names of all participants, donors and supporters of the Manzanita Gathering Place project.
A miraculous transformation ocurred in three days with over one hundred people working together.
Previously hidden behind barbed wire, we never even realized what a great sunset perch the gathering place would end up being.