If you’ve driven past the Bonita Museum & Cultural Center recently, you may have noticed something new catching the light. The museum’s exterior has been transformed into a living, color-shifting canvas, and the artist behind it is someone many of us in the South Bay already know.
Michael Leaf, a third-generation San Diegan who calls Chula Vista home, just completed the most ambitious project of his career. The piece, called “Chameleon IT,” wraps the museum building in roughly 2,000 square feet of hand-cut aluminum panels. The metal is finished with multiple layers of specialty paint that shift in color and intensity depending on the angle and quality of the light hitting it. On a sunny afternoon, you might see deep ocean blue. As the sun moves, that same panel can shift to a lighter, almost silvery hue.
It’s a fitting concept for a building that sits so close to the water. The shifting blues are meant to echo the way light plays across San Diego’s bays and coastline, tying the museum’s exterior to the surrounding natural environment.
A Long Time Coming
This wasn’t a quick weekend project. The idea for Chameleon IT was first floated several years ago, and it took more than three and a half years of planning, design, and fabrication before the panels went up. Leaf spent roughly six months building the pieces in his South Bay workshop, a stretch of focused, steady work that he’s described as unusual for him. He’s typically the kind of artist who’s out and about, measuring spaces and visiting sites. This project kept him in one place for months at a time, which turned out to be its own kind of challenge.
Leaf has talked about rainwater as one of his favorite materials to work with. He’d collect it in large containers and let it interact with steel, watching the metal oxidize and rust on its own. Other times, he’d mix it with soil and watch the patterns that formed. He’s said he can’t claim credit for the complexity nature creates, only for knowing how to bring those elements into a space and let them do their work.
Once the panels were ready, the installation itself moved fast. The entire building wrap went up in about eight days. The finished piece was revealed and illuminated for the first time on May 16, with a public event that ran into the evening.
More than One Piece
Chameleon IT isn’t the only new artwork on the museum grounds. Three additional sculptures by Leaf now sit just outside the building, and together they’re meant to be the start of something bigger: a sculpture garden that organizers hope will become a true cultural destination for South County, in the spirit of the Stuart Collection at UC San Diego.
Those three pieces include “Inner Strength,” a large-scale steel sculpture spanning more than 20 feet, a set of oversized steel chairs called “Communication” designed to encourage people to sit and linger, and “Lead with Your HeART,” a smaller piece that kicks off what’s planned as an ongoing international series. Of the three, Leaf has named “Inner Strength” as his favorite of his career, calling it the strongest emotional statement he’s ever built.
A Community Effort
Getting a project like this off the ground took more than one person’s vision. The museum’s board began discussing a sculpture garden years ago, with no clear plan for how to make it happen. A board member’s personal connection to Leaf eventually turned that loose idea into a real proposal, and from there the project grew into a genuine community effort. Funding came from a mix of the artist’s own contributions, county seed money, and matching donations from the community.
Museum leadership has talked about wanting the artwork to mirror what happens inside the building, with the idea that the exterior should feel just as alive and changing as the exhibits and programming inside. It’s an ambitious goal, and not every reaction to such a bold visual change has been positive. Public art projects rarely please everyone, and museum representatives have acknowledged that some in the community needed time to warm up to such a dramatic shift to a familiar building. That kind of conversation, though, is part of what public art is supposed to spark.
See It for Yourself at the Bonita Museum
If you want to see Chameleon IT and the rest of the sculpture garden in person, the artwork is outdoors and accessible any time, day or night. The museum is also hosting an indoor exhibit of Leaf’s other work through June 27, so it’s worth planning a visit while both are on display.
For those of us who’ve spent years in this community, it’s worth taking a moment to appreciate what’s happening here. A local artist, with deep roots in the South Bay, just created one of the most distinctive public art installations the region has seen in a long time, right in our own backyard. Be sure to also follow the Bonita Museum on Instagram for more updates on local artists.
