“As a former ceramicist, he has a fine eye and deep appreciation for craft. “Cheech approaches collecting with the same intensity and professionalism that he brings to acting, music and advocacy,” Davies noted. He regards Marin as “the first and most significant collector of Chicano art” and is a member of the advisory committee of “the Cheech” and a donor to the new museum. “It was a time when recognition of minority art was shamefully slow,” said San Diego Museum of Contemporary Art Director Emeritus Hugh Davies via email from London.

The Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego was the first anywhere to show works from Marin’s collection, which in turn led - in 2001 - to his 13-city “Chicano Visions: American Painters on the Verge” exhibit.

The seeds for what will become “the Cheech,” as Marin refers to the museum that will house his art, were planted here nearly 20 years ago. “I’m really excited,” said Marin, who will turn 72 on Friday and performs a sold-out show with Chong Saturday at Pala Casino Spa & Resort. Jerry Brown includes $9.7 million for Marin’s museum. The $139 billion California state budget signed June 27 by outgoing Gov. The Cheech Marin Center for Chicano Art, Culture and Industry, scheduled to open in 2020 in Riverside, will feature 700 of the paintings, sculptures and drawings he’s collected.

He will soon have a permanent home for his collection. Yet, as he demonstrated in a recent phone interview from Los Angeles, the insightful Marin is earnest, articulate, and devoted to broadening the public’s appreciation of the Chicano art he has been collecting for the past four decades. That may be why, at the age of 71, Marin’s public persona is still largely that of a perpetually stoned proto-slacker from East L.A.

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