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The La Jolla Art & Wine Festival celebrates its ‘best’ version yet

aerial view of the La Jolla art & wine festival in La Jolla. the street is closed and white pop up tents line each side of the street for art vendors

Pouring art, wine and community into La Jolla, Sherry Ahern hopes to pour about a quarter of a million dollars into the local public schools after last weekend’s La Jolla Art & Wine Festival.

“It was the best we’ve ever done,” Ahern said of the festival, held Oct 7 and 8 along Girard Avenue.

Ahern founded the La Jolla Art & Wine Festival to support programming at the five public schools in La Jolla; to date, the festival has donated more than $1 million to the schools.

The festival this year featured 300 booths including more than 160 juried artists, a ticketed Wine & Beer Garden with 45 vendors, silent auction, lowrider cars, a Family Art Center and musical and other entertainers, along with pet adoptions, a food court and more.

“It was very well organized [and] attended,” Ahern said, adding she estimates more than 20,000 people perused the festival each day, including many from all over Southern California.

“Our silent auction killed it,” Ahern said, adding final numbers across all vendors are not yet in but “we’re going to be giving a nice chunk of change to the schools. … I’m hoping at least $50,000 per school.”

And with more artists, wine and food vendors and dozens more sponsors this year, “we’ve outdone ourselves,” she said. “We thank all the La Jollans for supporting this.”

Brianna Ahern, who founded and runs Innosurf, which makes custom 3-D walls for any application that “are essentially a piece of art,” attended the festival as an artist for the second year.

Her walls feature a continuous, non-repeating design and were displayed “as actual pieces of art,” she said. “It’s a pretty unique product.”

Brianna, who is also Sherry’s daughter and grew up in La Jolla attending La Jolla’s public schools through high school, takes pride in returning to her native community to support her former schools.

“There’s no better place than La Jolla,” she said. “What makes it more special is that [the festival is] supporting our community.”

This particular festival was a successful one for Innosurf, Brianna said, as she sold some pieces and generated appointments and interest for others.

“It’s a great event that I will continue to do,” she said. “It never disappoints, as an attendee or as an artist.”

“We feel really part of the community,” said Giacomo Pizzigoni, La Jolla resident and co-owner of the Ambrogio 15 Restaurant Group, which operates two locations in La Jolla and sponsored the festival for the first time this year.

“We feel really close to the La Jolla neighborhood,” he said. “I live … in Bird Rock … and we have a lot of clients that live in the area, so we really wanted to give back as much as possible.”

Ambrogio 15 served its natural wines in the wine and beer garden. “We loved it,” Pizzigoni said. “The crowd was great. We saw a lot of our regular clients; we got a chance to meet new, potential clients and talk with people, show them what we do.”

Next year’s La Jolla Art & Wine Festival is set for Oct 19-20. “It’s just a nice way to teach younger people … to be completely community-minded and to stay in your backyard when you can,” Sherry Ahern said.

Picture of Elisabeth Frausto

Elisabeth Frausto

Elisabeth Frausto has been reporting on and writing about La Jolla since 2019. With dozens of local and state journalism awards to her name, Elisabeth knows the industry as well as she knows her community. When she’s not covering all things 92037, you’ll find her with coffee in hand staring at the sea.
Picture of Elisabeth Frausto

Elisabeth Frausto

Elisabeth Frausto has been reporting on and writing about La Jolla since 2019. With dozens of local and state journalism awards to her name, Elisabeth knows the industry as well as she knows her community. When she’s not covering all things 92037, you’ll find her with coffee in hand staring at the sea.

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