A new exhibition has opened this month at downtown San Diego’s outdoor Courthouse Gallery!
The theme this time is Artist’s Choice. Entries were accepted from around Southern California.
There are abstracts, portraits and landscapes, but I gravitated toward painted scenes of places in and around San Diego.
If you’d like to experience some great art, walk down Broadway beside the Edward J. Schwartz Courthouse and peer through the windows from the sidewalk.
Ode to Mission Trails, Elizabeth Washburn.Sunny Day in North Park, San Diego, Olga Freedman.California Tower, Norma Herrera.Torrey Pines Del Mar, Terry Orletsky.Ramona Road, Katie Karosich.
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I frequently walk down Ninth Avenue past Modern Times Coffee in San Diego’s East Village. Whenever I do, I have to turn my head and glance inside.
Why?
Because the unusual coffee shop contains dinosaurs, clowns, a dragon and other wild, crazy sights!
The Modern Times Coffee website describes what patrons encounter as retro-future decor. Whatever you might call the outlandish assemblage, it’s a lot of fun!
Where else can you find Ronald McDonald sitting happily under a flying pterodactyl and disco ball?
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The late 19th century was a transformative time in San Diego. The arrival of the transcontinental railroad and a wave of real estate speculation sparked great changes to the character of downtown. Those who walk through the Gaslamp Quarter can see many historic old buildings that were built in the 1880s.
One of those historic buildings is the Hubbell Building, located at 813-823 Fifth Avenue. Its construction began in 1886 and was completed in 1887.
Yesterday, while walking through the Gaslamp Quarter, I realized that, after almost 13 years of blogging about San Diego, I’ve never taken photos of the Hubbell Building.
So here we go…
A plaque near the front door reads:
The Hubbell Building, 1886
The Hubbell Building is a three-story brick building constructed in the Victorian style. The lower floor has been used mainly for retail, particularly clothing stores. Some of the more notable shops were The Arcade, specializing in ladies’ fancy goods, City of Paris Clothing, and George Marston’s Gentleman’s Furnishings. Marston’s was very successful in San Diego, and operated here until it moved into its own building next door. The upper floors were leased to the Grand Army of the Republic from 1904 to 1926.
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Earlier this year, a new exhibit opened at the USS Midway Museum that remembers a certain group of POWs from the Vietnam War.
Captive Warriors: The Story of the Midway 11 includes painful personal experiences from wartime captivity. It’s a difficult exhibit not only to view, but possibly to locate. To find it, walk the aircraft carrier’s flight deck until you see a sign for AFT READY ROOMS/POW TOUR, then head down some stairs. After proceeding through several Ready Rooms, you’ll arrive.
My photographs provide an idea of what you’ll encounter. You’ll see images of the eleven USS Midway aviators who were captured during the Vietnam War, brutally beaten and imprisoned. Facing isolation and starvation in prisons like the infamous Hanoi Hilton, they endured unimaginably inhumane conditions.
You’ll learn how prisoners learned to communicate with one another by tapping code on the prison walls, how advocates in the United States including Sybil Stockdale worked to secure POW provisions in the Paris Peace Accords, and how the eleven prisoners from the USS Midway eventually returned home.
One part of the exhibit makes the horror feel very real. Visitors gaze into dark, cave-like cells to view suffering, solitary prisoners of war.
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The Hard Deck bar from the movie Top Gun: Maverick is being recreated in San Diego at the USS Midway aircraft carrier museum!
Once completed, museum visitors will be able to enjoy a bar filled with props actually used in filming the blockbuster Tom Cruise movie Top Gun: Maverick!
The temporary Hard Deck bar movie set that was constructed on a beach was directly inspired by the real-life I Bar military officers’ club located nearby on Naval Air Station North Island. Those original props are coming to the Midway!
The Hard Deck bar is being built on the aircraft carrier’s sponson, next to elevator number 3. What, you might ask is a sponson? It’s a structural projection that extends outward from the sides of a carrier’s hull or flight deck.
I learned from a super friendly museum docent that the Hard Deck bar is being built so that it’s relatively unobtrusive when seen from outside the USS Midway, to conserve the historical appearance of the aircraft carrier.
Very cool!
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Crew members of Gutsy Lady were on the deck of their fishing boat gutting fish this morning for the Saturday Tuna Harbor Dockside Market!
They were cleaning their fresh catch to be sold to anyone in San Diego who enjoys a healthy, tasty meal.
Gutsy Lady’s captain told me they are based in San Diego, after having made Honolulu their home. They sell fish to restaurants and dockside buyers. Every part of their catch is eagerly bought, fish heads and all!
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Well over a thousand volunteers came out this morning to clean up San Diego Bay. Operation Clean Sweep was well underway when I walked down to the water!
I saw families between Grape and Laurel Street on the boardwalk and among the shoreline rocks filling bags with litter. I was told 14 tons of garbage was removed from San Diego Bay during the clean up event last year!
Operation Clean Sweep is made possible by volunteers, local businesses and the Port of San Diego.
Thank you for protecting the environment and keeping San Diego beautiful!
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Who in and around San Diego hasn’t heard of the artist James Hubbell? Between his architecturally fantastic Ilan-Lael residence and studios in Santa Ysabel, to his many works of public art around the city (many of which I’ve photographed), the beloved artist has earned a special place in the heart of San Diegans.
Did you know James had a brother named Bert who was also an artist?
During my recent visit to the museum, I noticed the art of these brothers is similar in certain ways. The construction of pieces is very organic, elemental. The works seem to have been extracted from or designed by the living Earth itself. While James lived and worked in Southern California, for over fifty years Bert lived in Kokubunji, Japan near sacred Mt. Fuji.
Their art’s earthy quality seems natural and familiar–perhaps that’s why it feels so spiritual.
According to the exhibition webpage, Bert…was profoundly shaped by Japanese culture, Shinto, Animism, and Native American art. Self-described as a “primitive artist,” he worked across mediums but most prolifically in ceramic sculpture. His fantastical creatures—reminiscent of yōkai—externalize inner fears and anxieties as a means of transformation and healing… Bert, who never sold his art, left behind an estimated 28,000 individual ceramic figures as well as paintings, drawings and found object assemblages.
The exhibition, which continues through September 6, 2026, provides an interesting contrast between the work of the two brothers. In places their pieces are placed side by side. In one gallery room a wall contains the work of James, and the opposite wall contains pieces created by Bert.
One gets the impression Bert could have reached the level of renown achieved by his brother. It seems, however, that he created art just for the personal joy and satisfaction of creating art.
Like any art, you need to experience it in person. A few photographs to entice you into visiting the Oceanside Museum of Art:
The art on the left and the bottom are by artist Bert Hubbell. The pieces are displayed in contract to the watercolor on the right, by brother James Hubbell.More work by artist Bert Hubbell, including Forks and Spoon and Sunburst, circa 1963. Ceramic.Photograph of Bert Hubbell, date unknown.Ceramic by Bert Hubbell atop Wood Pedestal by James Hubbell.Bert’s Mountain of Sculpture, Bert Hubbell, 1961-1963. Various ceramics.
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Instant and Eternal (Sun with passing aircraft), by photographer Zhang Yanguang. Huli District, Xiamen, Fujian, China, 4 January 2025.
In the basement of the Fleet Science Center, a place few visitors go, there’s an incredible exhibition of astrophotography titled ZWO Astronomy Photographer of the Year.
Astronomy Photographer of the Year is a global competition that, in 2025, received almost 6000 entries from 68 countries. The Fleet’s exhibition includes all of the prizewinning photographs. There are photos of starry skies over Earthly landscapes and photos of celestial objects very distant from our tiny planet.
I’ve always loved astronomy and cosmology. Looking up at the night sky gives one a feeling of overwhelming wonder. The beauty, the complexity, the sheer enormity of this universe can hardly be grasped with our very limited eyes.
These photos convey that same wonder. A few examples…
Veil of Stars (NGC 6960 Veil Nebula), by photographer Zixiong Jin. Marathon Sky Park, Brewster County, Texas, USA, 28 November 2024.The Moon With Saturn, by photographer Shamiqh Gajdhar, aged 13. Jeddah, Makkah Province, Saudi Arabia, 14 October 2024.Electric Threads of the Lightning Spaghetti Nebula, by photographer Shaoyu Zhang. Deep Sky Chile Observatory, Camino del Observatorio, Rio Hurtado, Chile and Xiangcheng, Garze Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Sichuan, China 21, 24-25 December 2024, 3-5, 15-15, 19-31 January, 1-6 and 10-19 February 2025.The Ridge, by photographer Tom Rae. Aoraki/Mount Cook National Park, Mackenzie District, New Zealand, 8 April 2024.
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