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View PDF | Community Project Special Recognition
May 07, 2006
Local dubbed ‘tool queen’ and ‘unofficial safety officer’ among Del Mar artist/volunteers
Comedic actor Tim Allen’s Tool Time character on the “Home Improvement” TV sitcom doesn’t have a thing on Kristy McCabe.
Del Mar's 64-year-old artist/volunteer has been dubbed the “Tool Queen.” A lifelong California gal, McCabe received her designation from Betsy Schulz during their time together working on the Del Mar Library mixed-media mosaic wall project and right on through to the Coastal Rail Trail Arches on the border of Del Mar and Solana Beach.
McCabe, who actually turns 64 June 12, said with a hearty laugh that she received the nickname,
“Because I have lots of tools!”
Schulz also designated McCabe the “unofficial safety officer,” said that “safety is her thing.”
“I fell off the roof a couple of years ago,” McCabe admitted. “Yes, the ladder slipped out (from under me).
“So when she (Betsy) gets to climbing on the ladder, I get after her. I told her, “I’ve been there, done that. You don’t want to do that.”
McCabe was born and raised in Lompoc. She worked in the Grossmont High School District for 30 years where she taught physical education, coached and “ended up in the art department teaching three dimensional design in art” at Monte Vista High School in Spring Valley.
It was too hot in El Cajon, so McCabe moved to Del Mar where she’s lived since the early I970s.
She chose Del Mar, she said, because “I like being close to the beach, (and) the small-community atmosphere.”
From the wall in Del Mar to the arches in Solana Beach, McCabe enjoys participating in Schulz's community art projects.
“I met Betsy when they were working on the wall in Del Mar,” she recalled. “My neighbor knew Betsy and I happened to be out in front one day. I volunteered to work on the wall and I’ve been helping her out on things ever since.”
When the arches project was coming into focus, McCabe said, “Betsy called me and asked, ‘Hey, you want to help do another project?’ and I said, ‘sure!’ And so I did. . .
“I helped make and glaze some of the pottery pieces and I’ve gone almost every time they put things on the columns,” she said.
Before folks put all the pretty things on the arches’ columns earlier this year, someone had to do the dirty work.
“Pouring the concrete into the original foundation was the hardest part,” McCabe said. “We had a couple of guys there with cement mixers; they mixed everything and then we poured it into buckets and poured it into the foundation.
“We had to do it all by hand — bucket by bucket by bucket,” she said. “It was hard work.”
But well worth the effort McCabe said, because, “Having all the people go by and say, ‘Hey, this is great!’ gives her a great deal of satisfaction.
About participating in community art, McCabe said, “Anybody that goes by one of these projects, if you just start talking to the people that are working there, they're always looking for volunteers.”
