Marking its diamond anniversary, the San Dieguito Art Guild is celebrating six decades of North San Diego County art-making defined by resilience, reinvention and community roots. What began on a Del Mar back patio in 1965 has grown into the guild’s current identity as the Off Track Gallery in Encinitas.
On Saturday, Oct. 4, the guild will celebrate with a reception in conjunction with the city of Encinitas’ Art Night. The Off Track Gallery reception will be from 5 to 8 p.m. with Art Night starting at 6 p.m. The public is invited to come help the members of SDAG celebrate. Featured artists will be Virgina Ann Holt, silk painter, and Indu Ramkumar, oil, encaustic and casein. Live music will be provided by Coffee On The Moon. All artwork in the gallery will be 10% off all day from 10 a.m. to closing.
The guild was born when Del Mar artist Sue Beere gathered 11 fellow artists to draft a mission “dedicated to furthering artistic understanding and fostering artistic growth of members and the community at large” through education and promotion of the visual arts. Beere served as the first president in 1965-66. Early shows took place on the lawn of the old Del Mar Hotel site along Camino Del Mar (Highway 101). Sales, commissions and dues soon financed a first storefront — the Blue Lantern Art Gallery, named for the lantern hanging outside a tiny shop near the Del Mar Chamber of Commerce.
SDAG moved in December 1966 to the former St. James Catholic Church — now the Del Mar Library — where monthly membership shows, solo exhibitions and an art-supply counter made the space a creative hub through September 1969. When that building sold, the guild relocated to the Old Del Mar Hotel’s last remnant, the old Chateau, also known as the Honeymoon Cottage. Bedrooms became studios, the second floor a workshop and meeting room, with the main gallery at ground level. Rent was $150 per month, dues $7.50, and a $100 annual scholarship recognized an outstanding San Dieguito college art student.
By 1973, the Chateau was slated for offices, prompting another move — to the former St. James Academy school building — before the guild’s Del Mar chapter closed in 1975 with a shift north to Leucadia behind the Corner Frame Shop on Coast Highway 101. In 1982, 10 artists from Del Mar’s Art Garden Gallery opened the Offtrack Gallery in the old Leucadia train station beneath what is now Pannikin Coffee & Tea; in time, SDAG merged with Offtrack and the two became one.
In 1989, in its 25th year, the guild received the Grumbacher Silver Medallion Award at its May show, recognizing sustained service to artists across San Diego’s North County. A 1993 move to 835 N. Vulcan Ave. (shared with Bradford’s Frame Shop) coincided with the start of the annual Artists’ Studio Tour, which later paired a Saturday tea at Quail Gardens (now San Diego Botanic Garden) with a Sunday home tour.
The guild shifted again in 2005 to 914 S. Coast Highway 101 at Leucadia Boulevard. Usage of the gallery name often evolved to two words — Off Track. After a brief closure in early 2006 due to low foot traffic, SDAG kept going in a temporary site — the former Coast Dispatch newspaper building — before that structure was dismantled in 2008 for reconstruction in Calexico by Mision Dios Soberano. The guild then opened at 500 Second St. in downtown Encinitas.
By June 2009, SDAG operated a second venue, Off Track 2 Gallery, in The Lumberyard (Suite C-103). When the Second Street building sold in 2010, SDAG’s Board of Directors consolidated operations at The Lumberyard — home to the Off Track Gallery today, a steady North County presence at 60.
The Off Track Gallery is located at 937 S. Coast Highway 101, downtown Encinitas, in The Lumberyard Shopping Center. For more information, go to OffTrackGallery.com or contact pr@sandieguitoartguild.com.
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