Spanish Village is an art enclave located in Balboa Park resembling a small town with cute cubby-hole shops set around a large, rolling plaza which is covered with cement slabs painted every color of the rainbow. The shops are pinkish-beige stucco with red tile roofs. There are many plants, banners, tables, benches and lots of artwork both on the outside and inside the shops, which make this a very inviting and colorful destination. Spanish Village was originally built in 1935 for the second California-Pacific International Exposition with the theme of depicting a quaint Spanish Village. During the exposition, it housed restaurants and shops. After the exposition closed in 1937, it became an art colony with shops and galleries. During World War II the entire village was transformed into an army barracks and the war left the village in ruins for several years. Starting in 1948, artists returned to Spanish Village to repair and restore it. Once again, the village became an art colony. Today, it is registered as a National Historic Landmark and houses six art guilds and 37 galleries/working studios and more than 100 artists. The guilds in the Village include San Diego Potter’s Guild, The Art Glass Guild, Sculpture Guild, Enamel Guild, San Diego Woodcarver’s Association and the San Diego Gem and Mineral Society. The oldest art organization or gallery in Spanish Village is the Southwestern Art Association (SWAA), which was founded in 1949. The SWAA gallery is located in the middle of the village, on the east side, in Studio #23. You can easily identify it by the round watch watchtower on its roof. The inside of the gallery is a large room covered with paintings and filled with jewelry, baskets, ceramics and pottery. In the far back of the gallery the featured artists of the month have many examples of their work posted up for viewing. The SWAA has 55 members. Each one went through a jury process in which examples of their work were evaluated by the entire membership. Jo Ann Scott has been a member of SWAA since 1984. She is a landscape painter whose career began in the fifth grade in South Carolina when she drew The Nativity Scene on the classroom blackboard with colored chalk, she said. “The SWAA is a wonderful organization. It motivates you, so that you take a lot of pride in what you’re painting,” Scott said. Arlene C. James has been a member since 1981. She is multi-talented, but her latest interest is the rare and unusual method of “encaustic” art. Encaustic art is an ancient technique that was lost for many centuries. The word encaustic comes from the Greek “enkaustikos” — meaning to heat or burn in. Arlene uses a hot plate to heat up colored wax and then presses it onto paper or canvas. The wax is made of pure beeswax, damar resin and pigment. James says it was originally developed by the ancient Greeks, then taken to Egypt and used to adorn wooden mummy cases. Encaustic art was revived in modern times by the Mexican muralist Diego Rivera and by Jasper Johns. Judy Hanford did not start painting until she was in her 50s. She is interested in painting wildlife, especially birds of the tropics. She said she loves their colors and wants to make people more aware of them so they will be conserved and not become extinct. “Spanish Village is very peaceful and relaxing,” Hanford said. “I especially love to hear the chimes of the hourly clock tower bells.” John G. Davis is from Massachusetts and has been with SWAA since 1996. He had a career as an electrical engineer with gas and electric companies back east, but always attended art classes in the evening after work. When he retired and moved to San Diego his art work blossomed. “My involvement with art is so relaxing — like being in Never-Never Land,” Davis said. “The worries of the day do not exist for that increment of time spent creating a work of art.” Neal Evans is a younger newer member of the SWAA. He owns a frame shop Mission Hills, where he makes custom frames, boxes and protective glass for preserving valuable paintings from fading. Evans specializes in photograph-quality oil paintings that look life-like. He loves to paint old cars because he finds the reflections in their chrome bumpers and shiny paint fascinating. He said his style is “not hard, but very time consuming.” During the month of August the work of five members of the Association will be featured in the gallery. Judy Hanford and Ann Semasko will be on display now to Aug. 15. John Davis and Neal Evans will be highlighted Aug. 16 to 31. For further information see SpanishVillageArt.com/ SWArtists.com or call SWAA at (619) 232-3522.