Commission · MCASD
Giants of
San Diego
Walking into each studio felt like I was a part of a moving exhibit. Giants of San Diego is a commission I did for MCASD, documenting five San Diego-based artists whose practices live and breathe in this city. But what I took away had less to do with the work on the walls and more to do with the people behind it. The process before the product. The inner life before the output.
Commissioned by MCASD in connection with Giants: Art from the Dean Collection of Swizz Beatz and Alicia Keys, the landmark exhibition's inaugural West Coast debut. This project, Giants of San Diego, documents the local artists selected and curated alongside the exhibition, capturing the city's own giants rather than the full collection's international roster. May–August 2026.
This is what I saw.
01 / 06
ChataPhotographer · In the Dean Collection
Chata was the first. We shared a moment I didn't expect — standing across the street from the museum where her work now hangs, she shared her family's roots that ran through La Jolla itself. Generations of family photographs, a lineage woven into the land right outside those doors. She reminded me how important it is to keep family photos. The kind of images most people don't think to preserve. She had things to pull from — a beach snapshot from the 1960s, the house her family first bought. Evidence of belonging in a place that sometimes tried to forget them.
Her work being in the Dean Collection, shown at MCASD, in La Jolla — it isn't just an exhibition. It's a homecoming. Being in that room with her, I understood something about what it means to be documented in a place that holds your family's memory. The camera wasn't just pointed at an artist. It was pointed at a story they tried to erase — one that members of the 1% now occupy, a space that was native to the marginalized.
02 / 06
Stephen WilliamsVisual Artist · Youth Educator · Downtown San Diego
Stephen Williams has a studio in downtown San Diego where he creates with acrylic and hosts events for youth and the art community at Hyangle — a space he calls Club Art. What I took from being in his world is how fluid and loose his relationship to making is. I asked him what it's like to work with children. He said something that stayed with me — when you go in with a vision of how you want them to learn or create, they end up doing something that surprises you. A perspective you didn't think of. They end up teaching you.
As an artist, I think that says everything about how he works. The children reinforce something he already knows — to keep the childlike play alive in the work. To not get so locked into a vision that you miss what's actually emerging.
03 / 06
Maxx MosesVisual Artist · Community Educator · Reigning from Philly
Maxx Moses's work is one of the most mesmerizing things I've encountered. You step into it and it takes you somewhere. Strong contrast, and each corner holds more than the last. The kind of work you have to earn by looking slowly. He reigns from Philly, spent years there before eventually landing in San Diego. You feel all of it in the work without him having to say it.
What I respect most about Maxx is how he shows up beyond the canvas. He teaches financial literacy. Facilitates conversations about what adulting actually looks like — not the highlight reel version. That kind of community investment says everything about who he is underneath the artist. He set the scene for the most grounded shoot of all of them. Music playing, incense burning. The studio already felt like something before we even started.
When I asked if he could work on a piece for the editorial, he basically said — I don't do the fake shit. Paraphrasing, but barely.
Maxx MosesI felt that immediately. Because I'm the same way. Beautiful things come from just being. He already knew that.
04 / 06
Chris TuckerWoodworking · 3D Printing
Chris Tucker works at the intersection of woodworking and 3D printing. His pieces start as digital concepts before he brings them together by hand, piece by piece, like a puzzle. Of course, every artist in this project is unique. But I've never seen work like this before, where a piece gets conceptualized digitally and then assembled, physically, in wood.
05 / 06
Misty HawkinsArtist · Charcoal · Oil
What stuck with me about Misty was how much her family meant to her — especially her father. It showed in the space. Painted portraits of him, portraits of her dogs past and present. The studio as an extension of love.
There's a softness in Misty's work that carries across everything she touches, whether charcoal or oil. Even in the roughness of charcoal there's tenderness. Her work feels like a portal — a glimpse into her world, the intimacy of it. The kind of work that makes you feel like you were let in somewhere private.
06 / 06
Manuelita BrownSculptor · Legend · UCSD
A legend amongst our midst. What surprised me most about Manuelita was her sense of humor — and how patient she was in explaining her process to someone who has never sculpted a day in her life. I left with more curiosity around sculpting than I've ever had.
What stays with me is that she sculpts her loved ones from memory. She has a sculpture of her granddaughter capturing moments from when she was born. To hold onto someone's essence like that — to pull it from memory and make it physical — that's the kind of magic and genius in the arts we don't talk about enough.
In Closing
What stayed with me most is how many talented artists exist in this community. I've lived in San Diego for almost a decade. I hadn't heard of a single one of these artists until this commission. Maybe others are more plugged in than I am. But I always figure if I feel that way, I'm probably not alone.
I left feeling like there needs to be more. More platforming, more light, more spaces where people can actually commune with artists, not just observe them from a distance. In person. Connected. Especially now, with the city cutting funding for arts and culture, it falls on us to amplify the artists we feel are due their flowers. Even the ones who don't yet see their own magic.