By the time Antonio Proa was 5, he knew. Art was his calling.
“I realized that for me, communication was easier through drawing or painting,” he said Sunday. “That for me was my language.”
But his parents wanted a practical career path for him, so off he went to earn a degree in business administration. Two years into that work, depressed, he turned to painting. “It was like flying.”
Artist Antonio Proa, from Tijuana, holds his painting depicting Spanish artist Salvador Dali, titled “Motivos Dali”, as he looks for a spot to hang his multimedia painting at his booth during the Mission Fed ArtWalk in Little Italy in San Diego on Sunday, April 26, 2026. (Hayne Palmour IV / For The San Diego Union-Tribune)
Nearly 30 years later, the Tijuana man makes his living as an artist, showing his works in North America and Europe. And over this weekend, several of his paintings were on display as part of Mission Fed Artwalk, a two-day street festival that stretched over several closed-to-traffic blocks of Little Italy.
There were 250 rather coveted spots for artists to show their works, from paintings to jewelry, metal sculptures to ceramics. There were also four stages for live music.
Attendance over Saturday and Sunday reached 80,000, officials said. That included San Diego resident Martha Carver, who said she attends every year. “I just love looking at the creative side of humanity,” she said. “It is such a salve in these fraught times.”
This time, she came eager to see what one of her favorite artists — Monica Prado — had on display, and happily left with a treasure from Prado, a ceramic piece featuring small flowers and dragonflies.
People write on the “Gemini Project,” a collaborative art work created by artists Geoff Pecoff and Stephanie Clair. On it, people write what they want – or what they want to let go of – during the Mission Fed ArtWalk in Little Italy in San Diego on Sunday. (Hayne Palmour IV / For The San Diego Union-Tribune)
This year marks the 42nd year of the art fair and the 18th year that Mission Fed has sponsored the event. Courtney Pendleton, Mission Fed’s community relations manager, said Mission Fed started as a credit union for teachers, and its roots in education run deep.
“We know that art ends up being the first to get cut in schools,” Pendleton said last week. “Art is so important to our culture… and our support makes it free to the community.”
Artist Jeffrey Siegal with his porcelain clay ceramics at his booth during the Mission Fed ArtWalk in Little Italy in San Diego on Sunday. (Hayne Palmour IV / For The San Diego Union-Tribune)
Two of the eight featured artists were county residents, including Jeffrey Siegal, who took his first ceramics class in high school. Loved it. Didn’t want to be a starving artist, though, so by day he was a broker and at night traded his suit for overalls to work with clay. “For most of my life, ceramics was just a hobby,” Siegal said last week. He favors working with porcelain, “a very beautiful clay” that requires carefulness and diligence. “It’s extremely difficult to work with.”
Now 70, the Mission Hills resident only began showing his pottery at art fairs about five years ago — and promptly took the gold medal at his first showing, a festival in Florence, Italy. His pieces have also been shown in The Los Angeles Museum of Folk Art.
Artist Karla Preciado of Chula Vista next to her paintings during the Mission Fed ArtWalk in Little Italy in San Diego on Sunday. (Hayne Palmour IV / For The San Diego Union-Tribune)
Chula Vista resident Karla Preciado was also a featured artist. She said inspiration hit her about 20 years ago when her husband’s military career had them stationed on the southern coast of Spain. “I had a creative void and I took my first oil painting class there,” she said Sunday. “I fell in love with it.”
She has since moved to acrylics, and the inspiration for her expressionist paintings comes from nature. “I paint what the landscape makes me feel rather than how it looks,” she said. “That’s why you see a lot of color in my work, because color is linked to emotion.”
Glass sculptures by glass artist Michael Panetta on display at his booth during the Mission Fed ArtWalk in Little Italy in San Diego on Sunday. (Hayne Palmour IV / For The San Diego Union-Tribune)
Artist Mike Stachowski on Sunday stood among his sculptures of torsos and heads, pieces inspired by classical Greek works but in metal.
He gestured toward a piece he calls Stargazer, which he said was “a test of my endurance and commitment.” It took the San Fernando Valley man 400 hours over two months to craft. And here’s the thing: For him, the move into art didn’t come until after he turned 50 — which brought “a sense of urgency.”
And it was 2020, when COVID-19 lockdowns created “a legitimate excuse” to try his hand at it.
A few booths down, Oceanside resident Julie Sobolewski showed her art: surfboards featuring stained-glass mosaics. “I started at 60,” she said, “and I had never been an artist.” That was six years ago. She recently sold her 150th piece.
The weekend event was one of four ArtWalk San Diego festivals in the region each year, and the events support ArtReach San Diego, an organization aimed at increasing equity in visual arts education in schools with free or low-cost workshops.