The Vet Center (2900 6th Ave.), part...

The Vet Center (2900 6th Ave.), part of the federal outreach program for veterans of the Vietnam War and their families, is holding its second annual art exhibition this Memorial Day weekend.

Nineteen artists, all Vietnam War veterans who reside in San Diego County, will be represented by 55 works in all mediums, including painting, sculpture and photography.

Most of the works exhibited this year are highly professional in character. Vet Center Director Bob Baker said: “This year we have more artists who are Vietnam vets than Vietnam vets who are artists. The emphasis is different. And there are fewer works about Vietnam.” One of those few is an accomplished village scene by Point Loma resident Chris Ownby.

Other professional artists represented include Salvatore Indiviglia, who covered the combat operations of the U.S. Navy and later the Marine Corps during the mid-1960s as an official U.S. Navy artist, and Indian artist David Whitehorse, whose works are collected internationally.

Baker expects as many as 3,000 viewers to visit the exhibition this year. There will be a reception for the artists from 7 to 9 p.m. Saturday at the center.

The Athenaeum Music and Arts Library (1008 Wall St., La Jolla) has a splendid exhibition of 32 small works by children, ranging from kindergarten through the sixth grade, at La Jolla Elementary School. The quality of this “Children’s Multi-Media Art Show,” organized by artist-in-residence Lenore Simon, a California Arts Council grantee, is exceptional.

Personal favorites are Mathew Feigen’s “Man Without a Golden Helmet” (a reference to what until recently was believed to be a portrait by Rembrandt), Micah Perlin’s jungle scene, Miles Pitcairn’s constructivist composition, Stacey Doyne’s action painting, Jasamen Sadeghian’s remarkable portrait of a woman with long earrings, and Megan Pitcairn’s “Cat by a Window.”

The exhibition continues through May 31.

The Art Collector (4151 Taylor St.) is exhibiting a group of new works by handmade paper artist Martha Chatelain, who is as much a master of color as she is of form. Most often she interrupts undulating horizontal passages with vertical groups of torn edges. She may also use embossing and geometrically cut forms.

“Dawn Vision” in tones of salmon exemplifies Chatelain at her most sensitive, “Prism IV” in tones of purple and red, at her most passionate. “Soft Moon Rising,” however, suffers from visual overload in terms of the busyness of forms.

Chatelain’s most restrained works, in which she exploits the peculiar plastic quality of paper, are her most effective.

The exhibition continues through May 31.

Department store design is one of the speediest conduits for the transmission of high visual arts culture to a popular audience. Nordstrom (University Towne Centre), well-known for its shoe departments, has an exhibition of “shoe art” in its mall window. Featured are three large, romanticized photo-realist paintings of shoes by San Diego artist Alexia Markarian in very accomplished air brush and paintbrush techniques.

The exhibition continues through June 2.

Artist Larry Beland, whose show at the San Diego Art Institute in Balboa Park was rained out a few months ago (problems with the ceiling), has been given a second chance with “Again, a Gain, After the Rain.” The works, most of which were made after the earlier contretemps, are true to Beland’s format of geometric forms moving across scumbled fields. Beland’s subtle, poetic works invite quiet contemplation.

The exhibition continues through June 1.