San Diego, CA
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.
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.”
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.
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.
CORONADO, Calif. (FOX 5/KUSI) — Final preparations are underway for NASCAR’s historic race weekend at Naval Base Coronado, where stock cars will compete on an active military installation for the first time in the sport’s history.
Crews, race teams, military personnel, first responders and event staff spent Thursday putting the finishing touches on the temporary road course as thousands of fans prepare to descend on the base for the inaugural event.
“The countdown is on,” as organizers work to transform portions of the installation into a race venue unlike any NASCAR has hosted before.
“It’s a very proud moment for NASCAR and myself and my company for being part of it,” said Jordan Litchko, a NASCAR production partner with ignition production. “It’s the America 250, so what a year to celebrate and be here on the naval base.”
Officials say the event marks the first time a NASCAR national series race has been held on a military base, bringing one of America’s most recognizable motorsports directly onto a working military installation.
Unlike traditional oval tracks, competitors will tackle a temporary road course built specifically for the event.
“It’s a road course race, which adds way more excitement, so it’s going to be ultra challenging,” Litchko said.
Thursday’s preparations included long lines of team members, vendors, staff and emergency personnel picking up credentials and completing security and base access requirements ahead of race weekend.
Meanwhile, drivers and crews got their first close look at the unique layout, which winds through portions of the base and presents a challenge far different from a conventional speedway.
With large crowds expected throughout the weekend, organizers are encouraging fans to plan ahead and allow extra travel time. Traffic delays are anticipated around Naval Base Coronado and nearby access points as spectators arrive for the event.
After months of planning and construction, the wait is nearly over.
On Friday, engines will roar to life aboard Naval Base Coronado, marking a milestone moment for NASCAR and creating a new chapter in the sport’s history. By the weekend’s end, fans will witness a race unlike any ever held before — stock cars competing on a military base in the heart of San Diego.
SAN DIEGO (CNS) – The City of San Diego is beginning to install 286 metered parking spaces this week in downtown San Ysidro in an effort to increase parking turnover, it was announced Thursday.
To develop the plan, city leaders worked with the San Ysidro business community. Revenue collected from the meters is reserved for transportation, parking and safety improvements in San Ysidro.
“Feeding parking meters feeds neighborhood repairs, and we can’t wait to get to work for the San Ysidro community,” said Naomi Chavez, interim director of the city’s Transportation Department. “This new parking zone will bring long overdue change that will help support local business activity and generate revenue that will be reinvested directly into improving neighborhood quality of life in San Ysidro.”
Crews began preparing the bases for the meters last week and installation work is expected to last through June. According to the city, these will be multi-space meter kiosks and drivers should be aware that they will need to go to the nearest kiosk to pay for parking since there won’t be a meter at each space.
Metered parking goes into effect on July 1 and will be enforced 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Saturday, excluding holidays. The parking rate is $2.50 an hour, with a maximum time limit of four hours.
City-led parking studies determined vehicles were parking on the streets of the neighborhood for hours or days at a time, making street parking for the area’s businesses scarce.
Drivers who customarily use free street parking when traveling across the border to Mexico are encouraged to use “one of the many paid off-street parking lots in the area,” a city statement read.
“The findings [of the parking study] clearly demonstrate the need for action. High parking occupancy on unregulated segments, along with data showing that 37% of vehicles exceed the existing two-hour limit and an average parking duration of over five hours, indicate that current conditions reduce turnover and limit access for local businesses and visitors,” wrote Alfredo Ripa, president of the San Ysidro Community Economic Development Corporation. “The proposed introduction of approximately 286 metered spaces, along with better signage, clearer designations and continued enforcement, represents a thoughtful and data-driven approach to improving parking availability and supporting economic activity in the community.”
Areas where the meter kiosks will be installed include:
— East San Ysidro Boulevard between Border Village Road to Camino De La Plaza (both sides);
— Border Village Road between East San Ysidro Boulevard (north) to East San Ysidro Boulevard (south), (both sides);
— Front Street between Border Village Road to end of cul-de-sac (south side);
— Bolton Hall Road between East San Ysidro Boulevard to Border Village Road (south side);
— Louisiana Avenue between East San Ysidro Boulevard to end of cul-de- sac (south side);
— Virginia Avenue between East San Ysidro Boulevard to Border Village Road (both sides); and
— East San Ysidro Boulevard between Willow Road and East Park Avenue (south side).
POWAY, Calif. (KGTV) — The San Diego County Sheriff’s Office is asking for any information regarding the whereabouts of a missing Poway man.
59-year-old William Clayton Miller was reported missing by his sister, who last saw him on March 2, 2026.
Miller’s car was later found at the Blue Sky Ecological Preserve in the City of Poway, where it sat for several weeks, according to authorities.
On Saturday, June 13, around 80 Sheriff’s Search and Rescue volunteers and detectives from the Major Crimes Division conducted a search of the Lake Poway area and found nothing of significance.
This is the second coordinated search by the Sheriff’s Office and Search and Rescue teams.
Miller is described as a white male adult, 6 feet 0 inches tall, 210 pounds, bald, of medium build, with brown eyes and white hair.
Miller has been categorized as a voluntary missing adult and is not known to have any life-threatening medical conditions, nor does he require life- sustaining medications.
Anyone with information regarding the whereabouts of William Clayton Miller is urged to contact the Major Crimes Division at 858‑285‑6330.
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