SAN DIEGO ARTS WATCH : UCSD CRAFTS CENTER BLOOMS

What began in 1972 as a commuter lounge in a shady grove on the UC San Diego campus has blossomed into a unique local arts operation--the UCSD Crafts Center, which houses a full-service workshop in such crafts as ceramics, photography and quilt making, as well as the Grove Gallery, site of some noteworthy craft exhibitions.

Most recently, the gallery hosted a well-received exhibit of works by regional glass artists, and beginning Tuesday it will present “Faces and Spirits/African Art,” a show consisting largely of African tribal masks from the collection of San Diegan Jim Geisler, a retired Navy officer who has made Africa the focus of his collector’s passion.

“In 1972, this wasn’t much more than a group of sheds, but at that time there was already quite a bit of interest in crafts,” said crafts center director Ron Carlson. “Once somebody donated a potter’s wheel and a kiln to the university, somehow the commuter lounge was where they wound up. It helped us form an alliance with the ceramics club, the photo club, and soon we had turned into a cluster crafts center that was the forerunner of any student center on campus.”

Carlson pointed out that the crafts center boasts an enrollment of 6% to 8% of the student population--”just about the best in the state”--and that its expenses and administrative costs are covered by student fees. The center has no official link with UCSD’s prestigious visual arts department and is officially viewed as a center for “recreational activity.”

But Carlson said that “given the science leanings of the university, there’s a certain hunger for recreational crafts. And since the art department doesn’t offer studio disciplines in clay or fiber work, we feel we’re really supplementing the programs in the visual arts.”

As for the Grove Gallery, built in 1983, it gets some funding from the university’s Chancellor’s Fund, and also serves as the retail outlet for crafts center and imported products. “We wanted to give students a chance to buy something more aesthetically exhilarating than a Teddy bear from the bookstore,” Carlson said.

Indeed, recent Grove shows of art by the likes of Oakland ceramics master Mayer Shacter and Los Angeles’ Otto and Viveca Heino have put it squarely on the San Diego gallery map. Upcoming Grove shows include an Oriental art exhibition and ceramic works by the San Diego Potter’s Guild. “All that really gives our students something to aspire to,” Carlson said.

ATHERTON: It should be noted that maestro David Atherton is stepping down from the podium of the San Diego Symphony this week--but only long enough to take his place at the piano in Mozart’s Concerto for Three Pianos and Orchestra, K. 242. Thursday at the Civic Theatre, he will join duo pianists Anthony and Joseph Paratore in the Mozart after conducting them and the symphony in Francis Poulenc’s neoclassical Concerto for Two Pianos and Orchestra. This marks Atherton’s local keyboard debut. He assumed his post as the symphony’s music director and principal conductor in 1980.

PLAYHOUSE: The La Jolla Playhouse is anticipating a big third season, which opens in June with a revived version of the Stephen Sondheim musical “Merrily We Roll Along.” This week, the playhouse named seven new board members, including prominent developer Jack Naiman, attorneys Milton Fredman and Robert Caplan, law professor George Gafford, travel consultant Joan Jacobs, Dr. Charles S. Campbell of Scripps Memorial Hospital and Dr. Richard Ulevitch of Scripps Clinic.

Meanwhile, last year’s playhouse original, “Big River,” the ambitious musical based on “Huckleberry Finn,” is set for an April 25 Broadway opening at the Eugene O’Neill Theatre. Directed by playhouse artistic director Des McAnuff with music by Roger Miller, “Big River” will roll on Broadway with several new songs, and Rene Auberjonois among the new cast.

ARTBEATS: Cary Grant may be the ultimate octogenarian, and San Diegans’ heartstrings are zinging to the news that he will conclude this year’s Balboa Lecture series with a May 9 “Conversation with Cary Grant” at the Spreckels Theater. Tickets go on sale Monday to San Diego Museum of Art members and Balboa Lecture Series subscribers (call the museum for information), with remaining tickets ($19.50, $17.50, $15.50) to be sold to the public beginning April 17 exclusively through Ticketmaster outlets at local May Company stores . . .

The San Diego Arts Foundation has received a major Dance Touring Initiative Grant for sponsoring the April 24-28 residency of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre at the Spreckels Theater. The $28,500 award to the foundation represents 25% of the $120,000 that is distributed statewide through the grant, administered by the California Arts Council. This means that for the second year in a row, the Arts Foundation has received the largest chunk of the grant of any presenter in the state.