![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/timesofsandiego.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/JFin-102825-112-scaled.jpg?ssl=1\")
<\/a>From left to right, UC San Diego\u2019s chief curator Jess Berlanga Taylor, Oram Hotels co-founder Kevin Mansour and art advisor Jennifer Findley inside the Granger Hotel. (Photo by Angela Garzon)<\/p>\nNormally, a hotel residence means simply that an artist creates something to be displayed in the hotel. With finding studio space a top challenge<\/a> for San Diego artists, a residency can provide new opportunities to showcase works and a deeper connection to the area.\u00a0<\/p>\n But interdisciplinary sculptor Max Hooper Schneider, who has a background in marine biology and landscape architecture, is living out of the Granger Hotel in downtown San Diego \u2014 all while conducting intensive research about the city and its ecosystem for a major installation at the University of California, San Diego\u2019s campus.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201c(A residency) really builds on a consistent kind of relationship between the artist and the site and the community within it,\u201d said Alessandra Monteczuma, a fine arts professor who sits on the city of San Diego\u2019s Commission for Arts and Culture<\/a>.<\/p>\n According to the leaders who envisioned the residency, this gets Los Angeles-based Hooper Schneider out of a college campus silo and into the urban heart of San Diego.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThis is a new kind of way of thinking about artists being, \u2018in residence,\u2019 because the art is not being made for the hotel. The art is being made for the community, the larger community,\u201d said Jennifer Findley, who spearheads the residency program.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cUCSD can be \u2014 although such a place of fomenting ideas \u2014 still very idealized,\u201d Findley added.\u00a0 \u201cSan Diego\u2019s downtown is a little more raw and real, what a lot of San Diegans are experiencing in their everyday lives, too.\u201d<\/p>\n For artist Hooper Schneider, the interior of the historic hotel, dynamic location and art events have broken him out of ritualistic workdays and exposed him to the city\u2019s rhythms and character.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI used to think San Diego meant \u2018La Jolla,\u2019 but living in downtown San Diego has expanded my naive imaginary into something rougher and more kaleidoscopic,\u201d said Hooper Schneider. \u201cThere is a juxtaposition of grit, border commerce, edenic surf culture, and world-renowned academic cul-de-sacs that I find thrilling\u2026 This type of urban education has energized my artistic process.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Although he is creating art for UCSD\u2019s campus, being embedded in San Diego culture means the piece will speak to more than the bubble of academics and students on the campus.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201c(Artists in residence) get the opportunity to be fully immersed in San Diego, and so that will, ultimately, come through in some of the works and connect to people here, instead of \u2014 as it has happened with a lot of public art \u2014 being sort of this foreign object that comes and lands somewhere and it doesn\u2019t really relate to the context or the people there,\u201d said Jessica Berlanga Taylor, who heads UCSD\u2019s Stuart Collection<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n Since its founding in 1981, the Stuart Collection has commissioned 22 major sculptures for UCSD\u2019s campus. It includes the teetering house atop the engineering building (\u201cFalling Star<\/a>\u201c) and a bird sculpture that inspired the annual Sun God festival, named, appropriately, \u201cSun God<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n Hooper Schneider is part of Taylor\u2019s new Emerging Artists Program<\/a>, helping less-established artists create their first permanent public art installation. His Granger Hotel residency will be followed by Mexico City-based artist collective RojoNegro<\/a> and fashion designer Carla Fern\u00e1ndez<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s these collaborations with the local context that make the work we do more meaningful for everyone who\u2019s able to enjoy it,\u201d Taylor said. \u201cThe fact that he can come and go and stay at the Granger makes the whole project more endemic to San Diego.\u201d<\/p>\n Granger Hotel owner Kevin Mansour believes his may be the only hotel in the region with dedicated art studio space.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m not aware of a hotel in San Diego or anywhere that has space that actually artists can work and build sculpture,\u201d he said. \u201cWe actually have space in the hotel for Max and for other artists to be able to play and create and have fun.\u201d<\/p>\n Findley curated art for the Granger Hotel, including a piece from Hooper Schneider, for communal spaces at the guest-only hotel. She believes having pieces from artists as high-profile as Hooper Schneider in a setting where people are drinking coffee, having video conferences, or taking meetings is a necessary rebuke to the \u201cwhite cube<\/a>\u201d aesthetic that exists in many art galleries and museums. <\/p>\n \u201c(Art) isn\u2019t something so rarefied that it can\u2019t exist with you in your everyday life,\u201d Findley said.\u00a0<\/p>\n To both Mansour and Taylor, the collaboration with Findley means that their institutions, whether a hotel or college campus, can grow as arts and culture destinations for San Diegans.<\/p>\n The fact that San Diego is less established as an art city, like Los Angeles or New York City, actually gives them more freedom to try new things since there is not a well-trodden path that keeps artists confined by tradition.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWe can invent and come up with these new models of collaboration and new ways of doing things and of thinking about community and art and what that means for future generations,\u201d Taylor said.\u00a0<\/p>\n Without the strong art markets of Los Angeles, Alessandra Moctezuma noted that much of San Diego\u2019s support for the arts comes from public funding and, more recently, philanthropy. <\/p>\n \u201cThe more that we make people realize that art is an integral part of our society, the more that you will have different institutions, whether it be private or public institutions, be willing to support artists,\u201d Moctezuma said.\u00a0<\/p>\n Mansour thinks bringing together the hospitality industry, academia, and art will offer long-lasting benefits for the region.<\/p>\n \u201cWe think this is going to put San Diego on the global stage as it deserves to be. This is a maturity. It\u2019s going to take many years to build,\u201d Mansour said. \u201cWe\u2019re planting seeds now that we hope will inspire others.\u201d<\/p>\n For now, hotel guests and coffee pop-up Solana Coffee Co.<\/a> customers can see the Everything Touches<\/a> art show at the Granger Hotel alongside aspects of Hooper Schneider\u2019s creation process. <\/p>\n READ NEXT<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A collaboration between a curator, hotelier and art advisor is creating a new vision of what a hotel…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":129452,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[2308,35261,66641,66642,74,76,75,14725],"class_list":["post-129451","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-diego","tag-art","tag-artist-in-residence","tag-granger-hotel","tag-max-hooper-schneider","tag-san-diego","tag-san-diego-headlines","tag-san-diego-news","tag-ucsd"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129451","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=129451"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129451\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/129452"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=129451"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=129451"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=129451"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/a>From left to right, JFiN founder Jennifer Findley, UCSD chief curator Jess Berlanga Taylor and Oram Hotels co-founder Kevin Mansour inside the Granger Hotel. (Photo by Angela Garzon)<\/p>\n<\/a>From left to right, hotelier Kevin Mansour, art advisor Jennifer Findley, sculptor Max Hooper Schneider and Stuart Collection leader Jess Berlanga Taylor. (Photo by Stacy Keck)<\/p>\n<\/a>A guest takes a photo of Max Hooper Schneider\u2019s piece on display inside the Granger Hotel. (Photo by Stacy Keck)<\/p>\n<\/a>More pieces in the Everything Touches exhibit curated by Jennifer Findley inside the Granger Hotel. (Photo by Stacy Keck)<\/p>\n<\/a>Art advisor Jennifer Findley, curator Jess Berlanga Taylor and hotelier Kevin Mansour with a piece by Max Hooper Schneider inside the Granger Hotel. (Photo by Stacy Keck) <\/p>\n