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Encinitas archivist says city has roughly 800 public artworks; calls for online inventory and partnerships
Summary
Hillel Schwartz of the Encinitas Historical Society presented a multi-year inventory that documents more than 800 public artworks in Encinitas and urged a digital map, volunteer contributions and collaboration with Visit Encinitas and MiraCosta students.
Hillel Schwartz, archivist with the Encinitas Historical Society, told the commission April 7 that his ongoing inventory effort has documented roughly 803 works of public art visible today in Encinitas and called on the city and local partners to create a durable digital index.
Schwartz told commissioners that his count — West of Interstate 5 and east combined — includes works on private and public property that are “fully and freely visible to an undifferentiated public.” His inventory, he said, currently lists 571 works west of I-5 (60 of those have vanished) and 157 east of I-5 (five vanished), plus about 40 distinct painted or crafted mailboxes, producing a present-day total of 803 works.
Schwartz described the city’s public-art landscape as unusually varied and ubiquitous, including mosaics, murals, painted mailboxes, sculptures, mobile-home murals, ocean-view installation pieces and privately maintained “art gardens.” He pointed to the city’s existing ArcGIS story map for the Santa Fe underpass — which lists 53 mosaics — and said similar digital documentation is needed for other sites, including recent mosaics at the El Portal pedestrian underpass.
Why it matters: Schwartz said a comprehensive, maintainable inventory would honor artists, preserve backstories and help promote Encinitas as a destination for public art. He recommended a dynamic GIS map that would allow users to click a dot to view a photograph, artist name, title, medium, year, dimensions and related tours by artist, genre or neighborhood.
Partnerships and next steps: Schwartz said Visit Encinitas is already working with his inventory and with four MiraCosta College design students to create a bicycling tour of about 90 images along the Highway 101 corridor. He asked the commission for volunteers to help locate missing photos and artist names, and urged the cultural-arts department and the Historical Society to create a submission function that allows artists and residents to add new works.
Examples and context: Schwartz showed images from Leucadia, Cardiff and San Elijo, and cited the Dave Dean rock art garden at Moonlight Beach as an example of a highly visited, community-driven site. He said some works have disappeared because buildings were demolished or owners changed. The inventory, he said, aims to record both extant artworks and those lost to demolition or decay.
Ending: Schwartz asked the commission to help make the case that public art is already abundant in Encinitas and could be better mapped, maintained and promoted through modest digitization, volunteer support and targeted grants or donors.
