P E O P L E | CONNIE SPITZER
A local watercolorist, whose dreams of growing up to be an artist were dashed in the first grade when her drawing didn’t make the wall for back-toschool night, didn’t pick up her first set of paints until decades later. Now, she’s delighting locals and visitors alike with her charming, quirky watercolors of everything that’s special about Coronado. “I didn’t think I was an artist,” says Connie Spitzer, as she sits on a wooden rocking chair on her front porch in the late afternoon sun. “In the first grade, everyone in the class was asked to draw a picture of an Indian papoose. The best pictures were hung on the wall for back-to-school night, and my picture wasn’t chosen…I was so sad! I remember it like it was yesterday. I just assumed I couldn’t draw.” In fact, Spitzer says she didn’t have much to do with art, until many moons later when her artist friend, Doris Rice, noticed the bright and happy colors she painted the exterior of her cottage on C Avenue. It was “dull and grey,” but Spitzer painted the outside a cheerful yellow, with a bright blue door. Rice told Spitzer that she could “tell she was an artist” from the colors she painted her house. “I said, ‘but I can’t draw a thing, I’m horrible,’” recalls Spitzer. “I even have horrible handwriting!” But her friend kept after her, and every time she came to town, she would try to get Spitzer to paint. Finally, someone lent her some paints, just so she could try it. Her first week, she painted for five days straight, and on the fifth day, something clicked: she painted a piece of art she was proud of. “I painted the Coronado boathouse, and I could look at it and see … this actually looks like the boathouse,” she says with a smile. “I was hooked! I had to do more of it.” Ten years later, Spitzer developed something of a local following, selling prints from her website, CoronadoWatercolor.com. She’s painted everything from the old ferry landing ticket booth and the Coronado Hardware Glass and Paint Store to the view from the Coronado Shores, the Hotel Del, and Boney’s Bayside Market. She’s even employed a drone to capture real-life images she can paint from. Spitzer’s whimsical lines and fresh perspective on special Coronado places are popular with the locals who buy her prints and notecards. She even paints portraits of people’s homes, mainly for buyers from her real estate business (yes, she has a day job too!) But for Spitzer, painting is all about the mental escape. “When I paint, there is this part of your mind that you go to, that is so relaxing, and you can kind of tune out the daily problems,” says Spitzer. “You don’t concentrate on anything but painting…you’re totally in the moment.” Spitzer has been commissioned to paint pictures for the Coronado Golf Course, and she’s even been featured on a video created by Coronado Public Art Commissioner, Brad Willis, one of her biggest fans. 26
CROWN CITY MAGAZINE
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DECEMBER 2020
A collection of Connie's cheerful Coronado watercolor paintings.
