Our annual San Diego Museum Month program may look a little different this year, but February remains the perfect month to discover (or re-discover) the story of San Diego as told through our diverse range of museums, historic sites, gardens, zoo/aquariums and more.

Join us every day in February as we explore a rich world of cultural experiences, including virtual activities, behind-the-scenes tours, and other special museum moments you can only find in San Diego.

Follow San Diego Museum Council on social media for daily updates and happenings, and check back here soon for details. #SDMuseumMonth

For more than sixty years, Mother Nature has transformed the rolling hills of North San Diego County into one of the most spectacular and coordinated displays of natural color and beauty anywhere in the world. The nearly fifty acres of Giant Tecolote Ranunculus flowers that make up the Flower Fields at Carlsbad Ranch in Carlsbad, California, are in bloom for approximately six to eight weeks each year - from early March through early May - literally bringing the famous fields back to life. This annual burst of color, which has become part of the area’s local heritage, also is one of nature’s official ways of announcing the arrival of spring here in Southern California.

Spanish artist Ana de Alvear’s work shifts perceptions and perspectives in a way that’s both subtle and transformative. A “search for identity” pervades her multifaceted projects, explored through this engaging online performance by Art of Elan musicians featuring the haunting “Spectra” for violin, viola, and cello by Icelandic composer Anna Thorvaldsdottir.

The Virtual SDMA+ Art of Elan: Identities video premiere will be shared on Friday, January 22 7:00 p.m. PT on The San Diego Museum of Art YouTube channel.

Learn more: https://www.sdmart.org/event/art-of-elan-pop-up-concert-identities/

Inspired by the golden age of the traveling carnival (1870-1930), with its social outcasts of carny folk, sideshow freaks-and-geeks, I have endeavored to re-represent that unwanted slice of society through the innocence of children.

These children represent vulnerability, the inherent need to be wanted and loved without a thought as to “why?”

I would like my images to nurture compassion for the differences within us all. Our need for acceptability and fitting in. But most of all the need to be valued and loved. My images of children are faultless individuals; possessing obvious imperfections and undesirable qualities, social outcasts, different, through no fault of their own, but nonetheless unwanted and made to feel unnecessary.