Savannah Metcalfe

Savannah Metcalfe is an 18-year-old San Diego local artist, mainly focusing on painting and drawing. She wants to delve into digital arts, and maybe even music production, “but that’s a whole other story.” (That’s the beauty of San Diego DIY culture: members can delve into more and more diverse art forms, and because of the tight-knit nature therein, they have the resources to learn from their peers.)

We met up at Balboa Park’s botanical gardens, her choice for a place where she finds a close connection, and then sat down amongst the colours in the Spanish Art Quarter for a chat about the DIY scene.

Doing art helps Sav express her emotions in ways she struggles less with. “It just helps me understand myself better,” she tells me. “I pent everything up. If I’m angry, it stays in; if I’m sad, it stays in. Literally everything stays inside. So when I do art, it can actually come out, and no one really has to know what it is.”

She’s also a strong supporter of the San Diego DIY scene, and the diversity therein. “It’s definitely unique because we have a lot of different kinds of people. In particular I feel that the power in the youth in San Diego is really strong, because we kind of do what we want without remorse. It’s really unapologetic, and sometimes it can be really angry, it can be really uplifting, but either way it’s really moving, because we’re such a forward-thinking city.” Having a DIY scene, to her, is “kind of like giving art a new power.”

Check out Sav’s art here and on her Instagram, @hannavasart.