Alley Cat Art Fest<\/a>, put on by the Downtown El Cajon Association.<\/p>\nThis year\u2019s celebration unveiled the newly restored Birds of Paradise mural \u2014 a longtime landmark located in Arts Alley, a corridor lined with murals acting as a permanent art gallery. Proceeds from the event will fund the restoration of existing murals and support future public art projects.<\/p>\n
Mosley works in watercolor and oil paintings and also illustrates children\u2019s books. Her pieces \u2014 ranging from smaller paintings to large murals \u2014 blend portraits with a variety of animals, a combination she says represents \u201cembracing your inner wild.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you come by a mural, it just makes you stop in your tracks because it\u2019s so colorful and vibrant,\u201d she said. \u201cRestoration is a big thing we need here because after years, the sun beats down on the colors, so they kind of fade away.\u201d<\/p>\n
The summer heat was noticeable during the festival\u2019s first few hours, and may have contributed to lighter crowds during the all-day event.<\/p>\n
While the event has taken many forms in the last two decades, its focus has always been on celebrating the arts, local businesses and artists in the region, said Erin Perschbacher, art program manager at Sophie\u2019s Gallery.<\/p>\n
The gallery is one of many on Main Street, but Sophie\u2019s is specifically a space for adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities to create and sell their art.<\/p>\n
Fundraising to restore existing murals \u2014 and possibly create new ones \u2014 will draw new visitors to the art corridor while investing in local artists, Perschbacher said.<\/p>\n
\u201cEl Cajon has a great collection of public murals,\u201d she said. \u201cWe have a lot of people that come here specifically to check them out.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the art alley directly behind their business, a bright blue butterfly mural acts as an interactive photo spot where passersby take pictures in front of the wings.<\/p>\n
A mother-daughter duo stopped to take photos of each other in front of the mural. While stopping downtown to grab lunch, the pair said they stumbled across the festival and learned about the murals.<\/p>\n
Ceramic artist Brianna Gardner worked on a new piece at her booth, surrounded by pottery that ranged from eccentric hollow luminaries with carved openings to animal-shaped teapots.<\/p>\n
This was her second year traveling from her home in Huntington Beach to El Cajon to participate in the event.<\/p>\n
\u201cI love that it brings the culture back to the downtown area,\u201d Gardner said. \u201cArt is such an important essence of humanity and in this era, it\u2019s especially important to keep it going. I just like being a part of that.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"From quirky ceramics to vibrant paintings and handmade jewelry, artists turned downtown El Cajon\u2019s mural-lined streets into an…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":462110,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[23,100,74,76,75],"class_list":["post-462109","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-diego","tag-local-news","tag-news","tag-san-diego","tag-san-diego-headlines","tag-san-diego-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/462109","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=462109"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/462109\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/462110"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=462109"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=462109"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=462109"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}