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Lizzie Zelter's Art Exhibit “Wall Plates” Makes the Familiar Strange | San Diego Magazine

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Lizzie Zelter's Art Exhibit “Wall Plates” Makes the Familiar Strange | San Diego Magazine


When he and I were small, my younger brother used to claim he could see without his glasses. He’d press the tips of his thumbs and forefingers together, leaving a tiny diamond of space to peer through. With everything else blocked out, he’d say, a once-blurry sliver of a scene would shift into sharpness.

San Diego artist Lizzie Zelter knows that trick, too. 

Courtesy of Lizzie Zelter

A 2022 graduate of Columbia University’s painting MFA program and the founder of new La Jolla gallery Two Rooms, the 27-year-old, New York–born artist has long been fascinated with space. Her immersive paintings offer an accessible but slightly off-kilter experience of the world: real-life rooms and buildings made strange by tweaks in dimension or color.

Wall Plates, a series of works on view at Tijuana’s Sala de Espera gallery through May 4, is something else. “I had this one light switch cover, and I started realizing it worked as a viewfinder,” Zelter recalls. “I would hold it up in my studio and I would see through it. Little sections of the world would come into focus. I started collecting them because I thought they were an interesting object—something we see every day and don’t really think about.”

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The collection became the focal point—no pun intended—of her latest work. The solo show (the first of Zelter’s career) depicts 12 oversized wall plates, the nondescript, usually plastic frames that hide electrical wiring. 

“Making paintings based off of objects versus places was an exciting shift for me,” Zelter says. Still, place has its, well, place. The holes in each plate offer glimpses of worlds beyond, some familiar—a chain-link fence, a skeletal tree—and some strange, a smorgasbord of texture and color.

Though they are cartoonishly large in scale, there is something sobering and even frustrating about the way they block you out from the paintings’ inner worlds. It’s a narrowing of scope in the tradition of Georgia O’Keefe, who used animal bones, camera viewfinders, and even a piece of Swiss cheese to tighten her visual perspective.

Work that denies you full access has obvious resonance at Sala de Espera, an abandoned hospital converted to a living space (gallery co-owner Luis Alonso Sánchez dwells there) and art gallery in a border town. 

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Uproot and Replant painting by San Diego artist Lizzie Zetler as part of her Wall Plates art exhibit at Tijuana gallery Sala de Espera
Photo Credit: Daniel Lang

The wall plates—domestic objects so common they usually disappear—become portals to places you can neither visit nor fully witness. Only one work, Uproot and replant, brings the inner world’s textures to our side of the wall, muddying the sense that the dimension beyond the plate is one entirely separate from our own.

“There is a lot of power or possibility in switching the focus,” Zelter adds. “I hope it has this kind of layered read about the dangers of flattened representations of spaces.”

After all, there’s a problem with my brother’s trick. Reducing the world to a pinprick isn’t really seeing—not when a whole story exists just past it, blurred beyond recognition.

See Wall Plates at Sala de Espera (Avenida de la Televisión, #2681 Col. Juarez, Tijuana, BC, Mexico) through May 4.





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San Diego, CA

Judge sentences rapper to time served in 2023 San Diego arrest

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Judge sentences rapper to time served in 2023 San Diego arrest


Federal courthouse in downtown San Diego. (File photo by Chris Stone/Times of San Diego)

Rapper Boosie Badazz was sentenced Friday to credit for time served in the case stemming from his 2023 arrest in San Diego for being a felon in possession of a firearm.

The 43-year-old, whose real name is Torence Ivy Hatch Jr., was arrested in Chollas View after police found two guns inside a vehicle in which he was riding.

Hatch was in town to shoot a music video and perform at a Gaslamp Quarter nightclub.

In a social media video clip recorded during the video shoot, Hatch was spotted with a gun in his waistband. Police then used a helicopter to track down his vehicle, after which officers conducted a traffic stop and discovered the firearms.

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He pleaded guilty to a federal gun possession count last year. As part of his sentence, Hatch will also serve 300 hours of community service.

Defense attorney Meghan Blanco said in a statement released after Friday’s hearing, “The resolution brings a sense of relief, allowing him to finally put this chapter behind him. He can now focus on continuing his music career, dedicating time to his family, and being a positive and inspiring presence for his children and the wider community.”

Federal prosecutors sought a two-year prison sentence, arguing in court papers that custody was warranted due to Hatch’s “insistence on carrying a weapon despite his status as a convicted felon” and allegations that he threatened his security detail shortly after his arrest.

Blanco, in her sentencing memorandum, denied any such threats occurred, noting that the statements are not included in any police reports stemming from the arrest and that no recorded evidence of the threats exist.

The defense attorney wrote that Hatch’s gun was never fired, brandished or used to threaten anyone. She also said there have been no allegations that the weapons were intended for any other offense and that Hatch’s last criminal case had occurred around 10 years prior.

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“The case represents an isolated lapse in judgment, not a pattern of ongoing criminal conduct,” Blanco wrote.

Hatch was initially charged by the San Diego County District Attorney’s Office. His defense attorneys have stated that Hatch intended to plead guilty at the time and was expected to be sentenced to probation, but the state’s case was dismissed before that plea deal could be reached and federal prosecutors took up the case.

U.S. District Judge Cathy Bencivengo, who sentenced Hatch on Friday, previously dismissed the case against him following a 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals ruling that said it was unconstitutional to prohibit convicted felons who served sentences for nonviolent drug offenses from possessing firearms.

But a larger panel of the 9th Circuit overturned its earlier ruling and San Diego federal prosecutors re-filed the charges against Hatch.

Hatch was previously convicted in Louisiana of marijuana possession. He also was indicted in an alleged murder-for-hire plot, but was acquitted by a Baton Rouge jury in 2012.

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Mayor Gloria defends Balboa Park paid parking, blames council for rocky rollout

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Mayor Gloria defends Balboa Park paid parking, blames council for rocky rollout


San Diego will put off issuing citations for paid parking in Balboa Park for about one month while improvements are made, but Mayor Todd Gloria says the new system is functioning well and being “actively adopted.”

In a long and harshly worded memo released Thursday, Gloria said recent calls by City Council members to suspend the program were politically motivated and examples of bad governance and erratic decision-making.

Gloria also deflected blame for the chaotic way enforcement began Monday, when city officials raced to put stickers about resident discounts on parking kiosks and lobbied a vendor to deliver crucial missing signs.

The mayor said the council had “shaped, amended and approved” paid parking in Balboa Park and contended an accelerated timeline chosen by the council made it hard for his administration to implement it flawlessly.

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The mayor’s memo came in response to a Tuesday memo from Councilmembers Kent Lee and Sean Elo-Rivera in which they called implementation of paid parking “haphazard” and “not ready for prime time.”

Lee and Elo-Rivera said the process for city residents to get approved for discounts was so complex, cumbersome and confusing that Gloria should waive fees for residents until they have had time to adapt and learn.

While Gloria rejected that suggestion in part of his memo, he later said “enforcement remains focused on education, not punishment, during this early phase, to ensure park users are aware of the new parking fees.”

Dave Rolland, a spokesperson for Gloria, said Thursday that no specific date had been set for when the city would shift from education to enforcement. But he added that “about a month” would be an accurate timeline.

City officials have already corrected one key mistake: Signs that were missing Monday — alerting drivers that the 951-space lower Inspiration Point lot is free for three hours — have since been installed.

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Lee and Elo-Rivera in their memo decried “an inadequate effort to educate the public on how to use this new system.”

They said San Diegans had not been clearly informed about when a portal for city resident discounts would go live or how to use it.

And they complained that residents weren’t told they couldn’t buy discounted parking passes in person, or when enforcement with citations would actually begin.

City residents must apply for discounts online, pay $5 to have their residency verified, then wait two days for that verification and choose the day they will visit in advance.

Lee and Elo-Rivera called the city’s efforts “a haphazard rollout that will surely lead to San Diegans missing out on their resident discount and paying higher parking rates than they have to.”

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Gloria said the city collected $23,000 in parking fees on Monday and Tuesday and another $106,000 in daily, monthly and quarterly passes — mostly from residents who get discounts on such passes.

“Early data shows that the program is functioning and being used,” he said. “These are not the metrics of a system that is failing to function. They are the metrics of a system that is new, actively being adopted, and continuing to improve as public familiarity increases.”

While Gloria conceded that some improvements are still necessary, he rejected calls from Lee and Elo-Rivera for a suspension, citing his concerns it would jeopardize city finances and confuse the public.

“Your proposal to suspend paid parking for residents two days into the new program would have immediate and serious fiscal consequences,” Gloria said. “This reversal could introduce confusion among park users and would disregard investments already made to establish the system, potentially compromising the program’s effectiveness.”

Paid parking in Balboa Park is expected to generate about $3.7 million during the fiscal year that ends June 30, but revenue is expected to rise substantially when the fees are in place for a full fiscal year.

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Gloria said the money is a small part of the city’s overall solution to recurring deficits it faces of more than $100 million per year.

“What we will not do is reverse course days into implementation in a way that undermines fiscal stability, creates uncertainty, and sends the message that addressing a decades-old structural budget deficit that has plagued our city is optional because it is politically uncomfortable,” he said. “That kind of erratic decision-making is not good governance, and San Diegans deserve better.”

Meanwhile, a spokesperson for the San Diego Zoo said Thursday that paid parking there has continued to go smoothly since it began on Monday.

The zoo, which is using Ace Parking for enforcement, opted for immediate citations instead of an educational grace period.

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Barricaded individual in custody following police response in Mission Valley

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Barricaded individual in custody following police response in Mission Valley


SAN DIEGO (FOX 5/KUSI) — San Diego Police responded to a barricaded individual in the Mission Valley area Thursday afternoon, prompting a heavy law enforcement presence.

  • The Nexstar Media video above details resources for crime victims

The department confirmed around 1 p.m. that officers were on scene in the 1400 block of Hotel Circle North, and are working to safely resolve the situation. Authorities asked the public to avoid the area and allow officers the space needed to conduct their operations.

Police described the incident as a domestic violence restraining order violation. At this time, it’s unknown if the person is armed.

No injuries have been reported.

The suspect was taken into custody within an hour.

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Further details about the barricaded person were not immediately released. Police say updates will be shared as more information becomes available.

This is a developing story. Check back for updates.



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