For Ligia Santillán, it truly is a tale of two cities: Tijuana and San Diego.
Born and raised in Tijuana, the longtime artist has always had a special place in her heart for San Diego. For as long as she can remember, she has been crossing the border to experience all the artistic and cultural gifts San Diego County has to offer.
“It’s just a part of me,” Santillán said.
Her father — a gastroenterologist by profession — had a lifelong affinity for all things arts and culture: the ballet, theater, museums. On weekends, it was not unusual to find him taking the family north of the border to San Diego to spend time in Balboa Park, grab a ballet performance downtown or enjoy public parks and beaches in La Jolla, Del Mar, Cardiff and Solana Beach.
“Most of the people here in San Diego obviously don’t come to Tijuana to experience arts and culture the way we did growing up,” Santillán, 54, said. “Maybe they’re just coming for the culinary experience or coming through to go to Rosarito or to El Valle de Guadalupe. But Tijuana has a lot more to offer.”
That epiphany of sorts planted the seed for what would eventually become Art Scene Baja, the cross-border cultural tourism project that has consumed her time and energy since 2023.
“I’ve always wanted to curate an experience that would bring the most important parts of Tijuana to people who love arts and culture,” she said. “I want people to discover a lot of different mundos — worlds. The world of photography, the world of dance, the world of … everything.”
That idea finally became a reality once Daniel Dennert, the curator and arts program manager at the San Diego International Airport, met Santillán at an art gallery downtown.
“I first met Ligia at the opening of the ‘Paisanos’ exhibition at Sparks Gallery in 2023. I was immediately drawn to her paintings because they felt simple, joyful and universal,” Dennert said. “After meeting her, I recognized she embodies these same qualities. Ligia’s charisma and appreciation of life’s simple things make her magnetic.”
Ligia Santillán is a Tijuana-born artist known for her contemporary and ceramic artwork. Since 2023, she has been curating arts and cultural tours south of the border through Art Scene Baja (Nelvin C. Cepeda / The San Diego Union-Tribune)
Santillán found out Dennert was working on a binational exhibition tied to Tijuana and San Diego’s World Design Capital designation in 2024.
“Ligia generously offered to introduce me and some colleagues to potential partners in Tijuana,” Dennert recalled. “What started as a day of art, food and cultural exploration became the foundation for Art Scene Baja. It was a carefully thought-through experience where she also helped me work through partnership details, timelines and logistics. That showed me her unique talent for building bridges between communities.”
Dennert had already been in San Diego for a couple of years but hadn’t had much exposure to the artistic landscape in Tijuana. Santillán wanted to change that. It was important for her to show Dennert “what happens in Tijuana and the amazing things artists are doing south of the border.”
To make sure the tour was a success, Santillán used her network and began, as Dennert said, building bridges. The tourism bureau sponsored the transportation. She invited artists and gallery owners to be a part of the tour. She got the best wine from the region and planned to give them as presents.
That tour became the jumping-off point for the official launch of Art Scene Baja, which has conducted dozens of tours for groups as small as eight people and as large as 45, taking them to Tijuana’s galleries, museums, artist studios and restaurants. It’s all designed to expose people to the richness and depth of Tijuana’s artistic and cultural scene.
“What I admire most about Ligia is her ability to see possibilities where others are encumbered by the obvious obstacles,” said Dennert, who added that Santillán soon will join the Airport Arts Advisory Committee at the San Diego International Airport. “She approaches challenges with optimism and a genuine commitment to people, which is why she has become such an important figure in the binational arts and culture community.”
And to think all this would never have been possible had she not gone to dental school at the University of Baja California. She worked as a dentist for six months and realized her heart just wasn’t in it.
Her happiness, like she’d known all along, was in the arts.
“I wanted to make my parents proud, so I entered dental school,” Santillán said. “I told myself: Yes, I’m going to be a dentist, but of course, I’m going to take time to paint as well.”
She began taking art classes and fell in love with art. The seeds for a life in the arts, of course, had already been planted by her father. Exposing the young Ligia to the murals and architecture of San Diego opened her eyes to the beauty of art.
Santillán took art classes for four years, learning the basics from Tijuana-born artist Yolanda Castaño, a well-known visual artist who taught art and also exhibited in some of the region’s top museums. She took many more classes with artists in Guadalajara and San Miguel de Allende.
Castaño “showed me the ropes of what it’s like being an artist, an active artist,” Santillán recalled. “Not just painting and doing the creative process, but really opening my eyes to the world. I remember her saying: ‘You have to go to another teacher. You have to travel. You have to do this. You have to do that.”
It was the encouragement — and the nudge — she needed to find her own artistic voice. These days, she is very much an artist comfortable in her own skin, working in a variety of media, everything from paper to metal and acrylic paint.
“Each figure, shape and color I incorporate into my work carries meaning and intention behind it,” she writes on her website. “The dynamics of interpersonal relationships, love with its conflicts and bonds, intrigue me, and I constantly explore my responses to these experiences as a way of releasing my most intimate dilemmas through catharsis, seeking to find balance in my life.”
She’s come a long way from her post-dental school days. Her work has been featured all over the world, from galleries in Point Loma and La Jolla to museums in Tijuana and Colombia.
These days, she’s busy with Art Scene Baja, which she runs with Berenice Martinez, who came on board for the first tour. “Uncover hidden gems of Baja California with art enthusiasts,” its website touts. “Join us in bridging cities through art and culture! Discover Baja California cultural treasures with personalized art tours.”
In 2018, Santillán co-created Arte Estandarte with artist Patty Roa. Today, Santillán is the director of the collective, which was formed to bring curated art exhibitions into airport lounges across Mexico.
What began with four artists at the Chihuahua International Airport has “grown to include more than 40 artists from both side of the U.S.-Mexico border and nearly 140 artworks presented at different venues,” including airports in San Luis Potosi, Monterrey, Mexico City and Toluca, Santillán said. Since 2023, it has moved beyond airports, expanding to venues like museums, galleries and universities.
This past June, she launched GestionARTE, an intiative “designed to empower artists with the knowledge, tools and connections they need to build sustainable careers and create real opportunities to make a living from their art,” Santillán said.
“It’s not enough to just be an artist,” she said. “I have met a lot of artists who have great talent, but it’s not enough to just have great talent to practice your art. You have to be structured. You have to think like an entrepreneur.”
GestionARTE, which held a binational conference for three days in Tijuana in June, put artists in the same room with lawyers, accountants and other experts who can help artists build “sustainable” businesses — “teaching them how to make art sustainable so they’re not losing money.”
“I love to get people together,” she said, adding that GestionARTE did exactly that.
Santillán said she considers herself lucky to be able to do everything she’s doing.
“It’s a reward just to wake up and realize I am doing what I’m passionate about and what I love,” she said.