After the Oceanside Pier fire in April, artist Marisa DeLuca gathered fistfuls of charred wood from the beach — charcoal she could mix with oil paint. With the resultant pigment, her city is now both inspiration and material in her art.
"My work has always been kind of a love letter to Oceanside."— Marisa DeLuca, artist
"My work has always been kind of a love letter to Oceanside and to the ancestors of Oceanside. And when that fire happened, it really put an exclamation point on the rapid change in the region," DeLuca said.
Now on view at The Hill Street Country Club is DeLuca's solo show "What Goes Up Must Come Down." Featured is "She's Not There (After Andrés Ximenez)," a striking black-and-white painting of the pier on fire, created with paint born from the fire itself.
"The remains that I picked up were, I kind of felt, you know, the remains of a loved one," DeLuca said. "So, it becomes like a reliquary painting — in the same way the relics of saints hold divine energy. I feel like the paintings that I've made here in the gallery hold that same memory."
"What Goes Up Must Come Down" is the final exhibit at The Hill Street Country Club, a nonprofit Oceanside art space co-founded in 2012 by Dinah Poellnitz and Margaret Hernandez.
They created this space to fill a need.
"We needed a space that welcomes us, and it's kind of like that Solange song, 'F.U.B.U.' — for us, by us. That's what we needed. We needed to feel welcome. We needed our own creative space," Poellnitz said.
The building has hosted countless art exhibits, concerts, workshops, outreach, meditation sessions and community events over the years — a true "Third Place" hub for neighbors and artists to gather.
"Some of us are creative people, and we like to be in creative spaces that feed our intellect and our souls. So I think it's very important to have these gathering spaces. This is where you meet your best friend. This is where you listen to a poet that influenced your work. This is maybe where you meet your spouse, over some music or dance or looking at art," Poellnitz said.
The building’s landlord put it on the market several months ago. Once the sale enters escrow, the gallery will close. It's a situation emblematic of broader changes in Oceanside, Poellnitz said.
"We're one of the last coastal cities in California to, to actually pull off gentrification."— Dinah Poellnitz, The Hill Street Country Club
"Everything's just very uncertain. It's the coast, it's by the beach. We're one of the last coastal cities in California to, to actually pull off gentrification finally. Oceanside has been doing a horrible job at (gentrification), but I think they figured it out — they figured it out with a good Starbucks — but they finally figured it out, and this time, it feels like it's permanent," Poellnitz said.
Throughout its history in Oceanside, The Hill Street Country Club collaborated with the library and other organizations to create all-ages educational offerings like mobile art kits — a critical need, said DeLuca.
"Community arts spaces and nonprofit arts organizations like this, they fill the gap where public schools can't. It's just not in the budget to bring art to children and to the public anymore," DeLuca said. "It's heartbreaking."
John Arroyo, professor of urban studies and planning and Chicanx and Latinx Studies at UC San Diego, said cultural bearers like Hill Street make neighborhoods better.
"We've seen so many artists and cultural bearers do so much to improve their neighborhoods, even when there weren't resources from that city or that neighborhood or that state or that county. And we owe a lot to them — to what they've done," Arroyo said.
But there's a disconnect, he said, between that improvement and the displacement artists face as a result.
"It feels like it's an assault on the actual creativity."— John Arroyo, UC San Diego
"One of the interesting things about all of the movement of hyper urban development across our urban cores — especially with arts related businesses and facilities — is that it feels like it's an assault on the actual creativity, on the cultural practices that these exhibitionary spaces are showcasing, are inspired by. But it also feels like a lot of these places are the last of those types of places."
Despite Oceanside's designation from the state as a California Cultural District, there’s little infrastructure to support cultural organizations facing displacement.
The challenge for cities and municipalities, Arroyo said, is to do more to preserve these spaces.
"What we haven't been able to do yet, and what I wish cities and the state could do more is figure out a way to help organizations like The Hill Street Country Club at the moment when there may be displacement. Could there be an emergency fund to help make a down payment on another property? Could the state, the city, the county evaluate other county-owned properties that are not being used that would allow for sort of the reuse in a cultural center?" asked Arroyo.
Hill Street Country Club plans to continue its work and hopes to secure affordable space elsewhere. Poellnitz wants to stay in Oceanside to continue serving the local community, but would consider other parts of the county.
Still, she wishes things had turned out differently. In her view, there was a straightforward solution.
"The museum is renting a city building, the theaters are renting a city building. The only folks that are struggling to stay and be sustainable are those who have to pay rent to a landlord."— Dinah Poellnitz, The Hill Street Country Club
"My city would give me a building. It's not that deep," Poellnitz said. "I mean, the museum is renting a city building, the theaters are renting a city building. The only folks that are struggling to stay and be sustainable are those who have to pay rent to a landlord. And everyone who's in a space that's owned by the city, they can worry about staff costs and operation costs and all those things, but one thing they're not worried about is losing their building."
DeLuca pointed out that this isn't the only art space in the region currently facing closure. Trash Lamb Gallery in South Park will close its brick-and-mortar gallery and shop in the new year. A similar story unfolded there: the landlord listed the building for sale, and the gallery couldn't survive a rent increase — it had barely been covering rent as it was.
"It's disappointing to me to see that, while the arts in cities can be like a huge economic boon, city governments aren't willing to step up and help these spaces out," DeLuca said.
As Hill Street waits for escrow, DeLuca's final exhibition serves as a sort of funeral for the gallery. This "burial site programming" is a nod to another form of community hub.
"My grandmother loves going to funerals. They're gathering spaces, too, you know. It's a way to mourn and (offer) remembrance and celebrate a person's life," Poellnitz said.
DeLuca's art is a fitting tribute to send Hill Street off to its next chapter. In addition to the Oceanside Pier painting, the gallery is adorned with paintings of seemingly mundane buildings and architectural details: stained grout between cracked tiles or abandoned homes.
In her paintings, DeLuca bestows a kind of gravity and beauty on what might otherwise be considered eyesores.
"A lot of the artworks created by Marisa are spaces that are vacant or no longer here," Poellnitz said. "A lot of us have our memories attached to that, but also some traumatic histories attached to those spaces — because of gentrification, because of imperialism, because of red lining in the community. This is a visual analogy of what's happening today."
While the coming weeks and months will be dedicated to honoring the art space's communal history, Poellnitz also has her eye on another goal.
"What we have to focus on right now is applying pressure to our city manager to understand that art is an infrastructure issue, that it's a public safety issue and it's a well-being issue — and we deserve Measure X funding," Poellnitz said.
"Art is an infrastructure issue ... it's a public safety issue and it's a well-being issue."— Dinah Poellnitz, The Hill Street Country Club
DeLuca's "What Goes Up Must Come Down" is on view now until escrow closes on the building. Gallery hours are 12-5 p.m. Monday through Saturday.
