SAN DIEGO -- After moving to San Francisco in 2016, artist Claire Starkweather Forrest and family left the city a year later. The home they were staying in with their two young children, while she was pregnant with their third, was being tripled in size to be sold. This had been their fourth rental in the city and they didn't want to have to move their two boys yet again, so they chose to return to San Diego.
"I wondered, 'What happens to a city when families can no longer afford to live there? What will be the long-term impact on a city when the families in the very communities that make the city a great place to raise children, have to leave? What happens to the cultural fabric of the city? What is left?'" she asked herself.
That was the catalyst for her current exhibition, "Where Have All the Children Gone?," inspired in part by a 2017 article from The New York Times with a similar title, documenting the decrease in the number of children in the city and its implications on community and culture. The art show is on display through the end of September at Gallery-by-the-Sea, inside St. James-by-the-Sea Episcopal Church in La Jolla, with an opening reception at 7 p.m. tonight. Her work includes 10 drawings on paper, with two pieces on vinyl records (including a painting).
