It all started in elementary school for Scarlett Baily. As a very young, burgeoning artist, she was so excited by an extra credit option to make a drawing to go along with the text for an assignment, she put everything into her drawing and forgot to write the text.
“There was also a pivotal moment for me when my fifth-grade teacher, Mr. Thompson, celebrated a drawing I did in front of the class. He asked if he could keep it and laminate it as an example for future students,” she says. “My heart began to sparkle. I was 9 years old and my art would be laminated. I made it. That is when I knew I was an artist.”
Today, Baily, 38, is a visual artist specializing in murals, portraits, and illustrations to create works that tend to be large-scale and public. Since earning a bachelor’s degree in art history and architecture from the UC Santa Barbara, and studying in Spain, New York City, and expanding her art studio to Mexico City 10 years ago, she’s most recently been working on a mural at Washington Elementary STEAM Magnet School in Little Italy. With the help of a team of artists, community members, and students at the school, everyone devoted more than 370 hours during the school day to complete the 2,000-square-foot mural. “Take Flight” is 100 feet long and 20 feet high, covering the auditorium’s façade.
Baily, who grew up in City Heights, now lives in La Jolla Shores with her husband, Jeronimo Hill, and their rescue Chihuahua, Pantera. She took some time to talk about her latest work at the school and her desire to build community through her art.
Q: How did you go about conceptualizing this mural? What was your process for figuring out the final version of what it would look like?
A: When working with schools, I shift gears and leave the art direction to the students. For these projects, I let the kids dream up the concept, and I step in to create a composition that integrates and synthesizes the student vision. For Washington Elementary, the students wanted to make a mural inspired by the location of their school, so they broke into teams by grade level and did drawing exercises led by the teachers. It was a blast to see what the kids came up with. The school is located in Little Italy, so we had lots of pizza slices, airplanes, sailboats, eagles, flower gardens, rainbows, and of course, our iconic downtown skyline.
What I love about La Jolla Shores…
I grew up in City Heights, which is still one of my favorite neighborhoods in San Diego, but every chance I could get, I would escape to La Jolla Shores. My best friend in high school worked at Surf Diva and taught me how to surf. The shores quickly became my local refuge where I could play while immersed in nature. I have memories of kayaking with leopard sharks and frolicking with dinoflagellates. I feel so blessed to call this neighborhood home now.
Q: From your position, artistically, what did you want to convey through this piece?
A: While this mural features the local icons, what is most important is how they relate to each other in the composition. Everything is saturated in color and has life and energy. Students spend more time on campus than with their family and, often, as in my case, I went to school searching for something I did not have at home. I wanted to spark joy, community, togetherness, and inspiration. I wanted to create something that makes students and faculty feel safe to explore and excited to create and learn together with empathy.
Q: Are there things about the culture and community of Little Italy that you’ve learned during this process?
A: Little Italy really loves artists. When my team and I walked around in our painting suits, we felt like celebrities—people stopped us to ask what we were working on. Francesco at Pappalecco made our iced lattes with extra intention. Emilio at the Frost Me Cafe and Bakery warmed our chocolate chip cookies to perfection. The Wednesday farmers’ market lunch breaks were a fantastic opportunity to connect with other local artists, like local illustrator Turtle Heights. Everyone we met checked in on the mural’s progress and cheered us on. We had a local hype crew! This is so encouraging because while this work is enjoyable, it is very physical, moving gallons of paint up and down ladders and assuming strange positions to get the perfect linework.
Q: Can you talk about some of the ways in which your artwork and your public art events have helped build empathy and community?
A: Community engagement is a building block of my mural projects. In this case, with the elementary schools, I wanted to empower the community by letting them create the design and painting of the mural. Working together and sharing materials and space with a collective goal of creating a massive art piece fosters a great sense of pride and accomplishment. Students were anxious to show their parents the mural section they painted. Those interactions signaled to me a new sense of connection to the place where they come for learning. This was a hands-on, collective experience. I think shared experiences build the bridge to empathy. When we come together with a common goal, who we are and our background all fall by the wayside, and we are united in a creative rhythm.
Q: What is the best advice you’ve ever received?
A: While living in New York and trying to forge my career as an artist, I ran into an incredible art professor at a shop I was working at. I was in my early 20s, contemplating grad school, but nervous about taking on more student loans. She told me, “You want to be an artist — just make art. And when you are done, make more art, and never stop. The rest will fall into place.”
Q: What is one thing people would be surprised to find out about you?
A: I did not formally attend art school; I am a historian. I was always intimidated by the art world and the myth of starving artists, so I decided to study art history while sneaking into art classes at the University of California, Santa Barbara. When I was studying, I was more interested in why we make art than how we make art. I have always been interested in the pieces left out of our history books. I thought those gaps must be filled with the art created by brave artists pushing alternative narratives over the years.
Q: Please describe your ideal San Diego weekend.
A: Now, back in my hometown after a 20-year hiatus, I appreciate a weekend in San Diego on a whole other level. We get to live in an incredibly biodiverse city that also has a bustling art scene. Barrio Logan has always been a special place for me and I am delighted to see our Chicano community and contemporary art scene thriving. I love picking up a horchata latte from Por Vida and catching the Barrio Art Crawl every second Saturday, or El Callejon Project. I know I will always bump into my amigos, hear an incredible vinyl DJ set by Las Sucias at a pop-up gallery, or stumble onto some rad, independent fashions by local designers.
For my nature fix, as I foray into my new birding obsession, I love strapping on my CamelBak (a brand of backpacks with a drinking tube and mouthpiece) and binoculars at sunrise and meeting my sisters for a hike at Silverwood Wildlife Sanctuary in Lakeside, or Tecolote Canyon with my rescue Chihuahua. A solid post-hike breakfast at Black Bear Diner in El Cajon is a treat, or a tasty macadamia nut latte at the Superbloom Cafe at the Mission Bay Beach Club is the perfect setting for catching up with old friends. If I feel like dancing and crave a night on the town, I love catching a drag show at Rich’s, or, if I need to come back to earth after a big project, a sound bath by the local legends, the Swirl of Sound.