Cathy Coverley grew up in Ocean Beach exploring the San Diego River.
Now as an adult, she has the chance to celebrate and share that experience via her glass art. It’s all part of a new multi-artist exhibit being showcased through Dec. 30 at Point Loma/Hervey Branch Library, 3701 Voltaire St.
“We moved here (OB) in 1951 right after they put the jetty up, so I grew up playing in the river and climbing inside the jetty as little kids,” recalled Coverley, who works out of her Sunset Cliffs artist’s studio. “It was all big dunes where people would ride their horses, and we used to catch crabs in the flood zone and bring them home and eat them.”
Coverley noted there is an intimate connection between her love for the San Diego River, and how she depicts and interprets it through her studio glass art. “Glass is liquid in solid form,” she pointed out adding, “You heat it until it becomes liquid, and you can bond it together to have beauty and visual opulence of glass with its layers. The imagery of layering and textures within the glass is just lovely and very sensual.”
Coverley is part of the San Diego River Artists’ Alliance, a collective of visual and 3-D artists creating artwork about the San Diego River and its ecosystem. Their joint show, “Ebb and Flow: Art Along the River,” opened with an artist’s reception at Point Loma’s library on Oct. 5.
San Diego River Artists’ Alliance is a collective of 22 visual and 3-D artists from around San Diego County who hike and spend time along the San Diego River from its source in the mountains near Julian to the ocean. The artists create artwork about the San Diego River and its ecosystem to celebrate its history, beauty, and promise. They hope to encourage the public to connect with the experiences along the watershed.
The collective works about to be exhibited by the San Diego River Artists’ Alliance in Point Loma include numerous styles. Those include acrylic, photography, mixed media, glass, watercolor, oil, color pencil, fiber arts, paper, ceramic, and polymer clay.
Regarding her work for the San Diego River exhibit, Coverley concluded: “It allows me to present my impressions of water and other natural elements, re-creating my experience for the viewer. I love the way water moves. Every time you look at it it’s different. Creating glass art for the SDRAA is an opportunity to bring the joy of the river to life.”
There is one other trait about the San Diego River that stands out for Coverley. “Besides how wonderful and important the river is as a resource, visually, it’s the one green place all year long in San Diego – everything else turns brown,” she noted.
An SDSU graduate with a degree in crafts, Coverley has taught children. She has also taught people how to do stained-glass art, along with focusing on jewelry and silversmithing.
“It’s fun and technically challenging,” she noted of her artwork, two pieces of which will be displayed alongside her 16 colleagues at Point Loma Library. The artist also does private commissions.
San Diego River Artists’ Alliance is working alongside the San Diego River Park Foundation to support its work and long-term vision of creating a 52-mile park system the entire length of the San Diego River. San Diego River Artists’ Alliance began in 2021 and has participated in several San Diego River Park Foundation events such as RiverFest and sponsored hikes. San Diego River Artists’ Alliance has previously exhibited work at Gallery 21 in the Spanish Village Art Center in Balboa Park. A portion of their sales goes to the San Diego River Park Foundation to support their work.
