Kamaal Martin

When speaking with Kamaal Martin, it’s easy to understand why he came close to becoming the mayor of Lemon Grove. Well, not that close. He did, however, place third out of four candidates this past November and garnered over 20 percent of the vote. That’s a respectable showing for a political outsider with little funding and little name recognition. With his congenial demeanor and an infectious charm, one begins to think it’s only a matter of time before Martin holds office.

“As you can tell, I’ve had my hands in a lot of things,” says Martin, who has worked all sorts of jobs over the years, from taxi driver and firefighter to car salesman and college professor. “But I’ve always seen a common or current thread that’s linked and united all these things. How can I take my passions, skill sets and experiences, mix them all up in a pot and make something new? That, in a nutshell, is what Art Power Equity represents.”

Martin admits that had he been elected, he never would have founded Art Power Equity, an organization that aims to support local artists in underrepresented neighborhoods. Still, it’s easy to see that art has always been important to him. One of the objectives on Martin’s mayoral campaign website was to create a digital registry to match local artists with local businesses who wanted murals on their storefronts. “I started looking into what other small, broke cities have done to turn their situation around, and arts and culture always inevitably played a huge part in that — the opportunities that the arts present as a driver of community development,” says Martin, who still works on the boards of several nonprofits focusing on urban agriculture, health, racial equity and community wealth building.

Martin says he’d been kicking around the idea of Art Power Equity in his head for years. He first toyed with the idea of opening a gallery a couple of years ago. Last year, during his mayoral run and at the height of the COVID-19 crisis, he says the experience opened his eyes further to the inequities when it came to the arts in places like East County and southeastern San Diego.

“Those organizations and elements are conspicuously absent from too many of these communities,” says Martin. “That is why in the middle of our name is ‘power.’ What does power mean? One of the things it could mean is moving the agenda to coalesce a group of people and build community. It can mean access — there’s too much gatekeeping that goes on in the art world.”

Another aspect of that “power” element of the organization’s name is healing what Martin calls “art wounds.” The way he sees it, many artists, especially young ones, get dissuaded because someone at some point told them that their art wasn’t good. His hope is that Art Power Equity will serve as inspiration to keep their creative drive alive, be it through community actions or simply from attending an exhibition.

“If you’re in North Park, there’s no shortage of artists, galleries or cultural venues, but if you’re in Lemon Grove, Spring Valley or southeastern San Diego, those spaces aren’t here,” Martin says. “What’s more, for all the arts spaces that there are in San Diego, incredibly few of them have Black or Indigenous people involved in any way.”

Martin looks at his collective experiences in multiple sectors and professions as a means to help others. In the case of Art Power Equity, he admits he may not have the same level of experience as a full-time gallery curator or even an artist that has worked on their craft for decades. What he does

Age: 42

Birthplace: Mount Vernon, N.Y.

Fun fact: Martin once worked as a district director for then-state Assembly Member Shirley Weber, who recently replaced U.S. Sen. Alex Padilla as California’s secretary of state.

Social media: instagram.com/ art_power_equity have, however, are connections and an altruistic drive to work with others toward a more equitable arts community.

“People around town in the art world kind of know me as a big supporter of the arts, but nobody knows me as someone who curates exhibitions because I just curated my first one last month,” says Martin, referring to “Blessed to Be Here,” a recently closed showcase of L.a.-based artist Jermaine Adeshola Williams at the Pop-up Art Gallery at Market Creek Plaza in southeastern San Diego.

“The way I saw it, artists are great at creating, but a lot of them have a hard time with the business practice of art. In addition, you start talking to them about grants and proposals and their eyes begin to glaze over, but that stuff is easy for me.”

Still, Martin doesn’t overlook what he calls the “danger that accompanies the advent of art as a harbinger of gentrification and displacement.” He says that it’s one of the primary focuses in his work with nonprofits and wants to bring that same sort of outlook to Art Power Equity.

“An art space should be community-led and reflective of the people in the community,” Martin says, pointing to the Pop-up Gallery space as an example of a space that is reflective of the neighborhood. “I’m sitting in the gallery right now across the corner from the Food 4 Less, and some people are like, ‘Oh, you have a gallery next to a Food 4 Less,’ and I’m like, ‘You’re goddamn right we do, and it’s a beautiful thing.’ ”

Martin grew up in Hawaii but considers himself an “official San Diegan” now that he’s lived here for over 15 years. He attended the University of Oregon, where he played football, but says he eventually gravitated toward history and arts administration.

“I felt for a long time that I wanted to be some kind of museum curator,” says Martin. “I loved museums, and I loved art obviously, but my professional path took another track.”

After attending graduate school at Oregon, he sojourned in San Francisco and in Europe before moving to San Diego in 2005 with his then wife. Around 2008, his wife ended up getting a position in a state Assembly primary race, and Martin says he would often tag along to campaign events to volunteer. When the campaign ended, he was offered a position for the general election campaign.

This led to a position working as a campaign coordinator for multiple state Assembly members and eventually as district director for then Assembly Member Shirley Weber. After working for the Airport Authority and teaching political science at Mesa College, he got a position at the California Charter School Association. He ran for Lemon Grove City Council in 2018 and for mayor in 2020.

“All of these pieces — art, government, politics, community — I just found that there were a lot of conversations and spaces where the issues I felt were pressing, and the conversations I wanted to be a part of, weren’t being had,” Martin says.

Martin wants to continue and even facilitate these conversations with Art Power Equity. While the organization is still relatively new, he first wants to focus on the curatorial aspects of the organization before branching out into advisory and management services.

“In a way, the idea of Art Power Equity has been germinating ever since I moved to San Diego,” Martin says. “Even before politics, everything I’ve done has played a significant role in the things I’m trying to accomplish now. … I’m feeling more and more is that the best way to make my dreams come true is to make someone else’s dreams come true.”