Encinitas: Our History and People

G
IMAGES ARE COURTESY OF KYLE
THOMAS PHOTOGRAPHY.
ARTIST
KEVIN
ANDERSON
The character and quality of our most
awesome City of Encinitas is in large part defined
and molded by the talented and creative people
that have resided here over the generations. One
such person of note is Encinitas’s very own, artist
Kevin Anderson.
Kevin’s art is expressed as public art in the form
of outdoor and indoor murals, which can be found
all over Encinitas, San Diego and beyond, and
Kevin is one of Encinitas’s most prolific painters,
who can be frequently spotted outdoors along the
coast between Del Mar and Encinitas painting the
coastal scenes in his ‘plein air’ style.
Kevin is not a transplant that arrived here
later in life, that happens to be a great artist, but
is an artist who’s very inner artist being was a
creation born of his own experience of having
been raised in the special collective community
us old-timers fondly called ‘San Dieguito.’
Kevin will tell you that, “As a kid, I grew up
in Solana Beach, and then later in Cardiff. It was
a great life. Went to the beach a lot in the
summer. We lived the ‘Beach Blanket Bingo’ life
in Solana Beach. Sunburned all day and partied
all night for years and years, until I was older
and out of high school.”
“My high school experience in the early
seventies, while I wasn’t into academics, it was
rich in culture and art. The teachers there were
the ones that pretty much paved the way for me
to become an artist.”
“There were a couple of teachers, in particular,
Marianne Hanafin and Marilyn Delise, that were
instrumental in opening my eyes to wanting to
paint and draw, and kind of convinced me that
that’s what I wanted to do with my life.”
“Hanafan would take a student, put them in
front of her, and sketch them and made it look
just like them. When I saw her do that, I go, “I
want to know how to do that!”
“And then Mrs. Delise took a glass, it was
actually a glass ashtray, put it on a table, with
the light shining through the transparency, and
did a color chalk drawing of it, that just blew
my mind. I go, “I need to know how to do that!”
“San Dieguito High School was just a great
place to go. They had an open campus, so if I
wanted to get away for a day, I could go surfing. It
wasn’t so structured that it took the life out of a
person. Actually, it was open enough to let you
flourish, and do what you wanted to do. Mainly, it
was the art that turned me on. From there I went
to Palomar College, and then on to Long Beach
State University, because of those teachers.”
“But I never left Encinitas. I always lived in
Cardiff, while I was going to college. I would
commute. On Mondays, I would go to Long
Beach, stay up there, oftentimes sleeping in my
truck, and stay there all week and come back on
Fridays to Cardiff.”
“Living around here, it’s kind of like living a
pretty good dream. I keep mind focused on
what’s still here, the underlying beauty,
regardless of the growth and the development. It
has a certain soul and feeling. As far as painting
the area, it’s unlimited what you can paint.”
“I have spent a whole year painting from
Swamis to Seaside, painting around sixty
pictures and I never left those confines or ran
out of new views or ideas to paint.
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