This afternoon I headed to PB to check out a very cool mural at Pacific Beach Elementary School. (I’ll blog about that shortly!)
After having a good look at the mural, I kept my camera out for what might be considered a slightly weird walk. I headed west toward the Pacific Ocean and eventually found myself approaching the grassy park overlooking Law Street Beach. I then turned south and followed the oceanfront boardwalk down to Crystal Pier.
Exactly how weird was this walk?
A friendly guy with the welding company that owns this cool truck talked to me near a steel sculpture of a bison. It was in a work lot by the sidewalk. I forgot to snap a photo of the sculpture. Bummer.Who wants to take surf lessons? Make this the best summer ever!As I neared the Pacific Ocean, I found this peeling street art that seems to portray Neptune on a seahorse.Looking north toward the ocean off La Jolla from the grassy park at Law Street.After I took this photo, I rested on this bench for a little bit.In honor of our parents Bill and Jean Manion. Thanks for the sunsets and the dawns.Look at all the beach goers! I see Crystal Pier in the distance.Tons of surfing action and swimmers today at Pacific Beach.As I began south, I found another perfect bench overlooking the beach. A gull must think this guy has some food.The Pacific Beach boardwalk is part of the California Coastal Trail.Lots of bicyclists out on a warm summer Friday afternoon.I passed on a Chips Galore! ice cream sandwich this time.Wooden stairs down to the beach.Sign explains how marine protected areas stretching north from here–directly off La Jolla–safeguard our ocean’s beauty. (Click this photo and it will enlarge for easier reading.)I was very tempted to descend.Here come some inline skaters.A cool mural at Kono’s Coffee by @HannasMurals.La Playa Nudista? Never heard of it. Where’s that?Gone surfing.Stay weird.
Well, honestly, this particular walk didn’t seem that weird to me. But if sunshine, a beach full of sunbathers, distant surf, passing bicyclists, skaters and walkers, and an ice cream vendor with a tinkling bell on his cart are considered weird, I’ll take it!
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I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or Twitter!
This morning, as I walked through downtown along Kettner Boulevard, I had to pause for a few moments in front of the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego.
Right smack dab in front of my eyes was some of the most amazing contemporary art.
What I saw was fantastic, complex, perplexing, sublime. The artwork contained numberless potential meanings, contrasts, mysteries. And it was created by the thoughts, longings and creative hands of thousands.
As clouds moved and the sun rose and a truck turned in front of me, I realized it was living art. And dangerous.
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I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or Twitter!
Exquisitely beautiful art shines at the Nancy Lorenz-Moon Gold exhibition at the San Diego Museum of Art.
One terrible thing about the COVID-19 pandemic is the ongoing closure of so many great cultural institutions. Including museums.
One of my very favorite museums is the San Diego Museum of Art in Balboa Park. Not only does SDMA feature masterpieces by important artists from all around the world, but it draws major exhibitions to our city. (Plus, my museum docent friend provides awesome tours!)
I’ve blogged about events and exhibitions at SDMA many times over the years. Because I miss visiting the museum–and perhaps you do, too–I figured now would be a good time to revisit some memories. Click the upcoming links to take a look at past exhibitions that I personally really enjoyed!
If you want to visit the San Diego Museum of Art virtually while it’s temporarily closed, check out their online activities page by clicking here! You’ll find podcasts, a cool app that allows you to remotely view the galleries, videos of lectures and performances, creative ideas for artists and art students, a book club, and a whole lot more!
Child Holding Book, Los Angeles, 1983, Guy Crowder.
Bathing, Alfred Mitchell, oil on board, undated.The Native, oil on canvas, ca. 1936. Alfredo Ramos Martinez, Mexican, 1871-1946.Across this room soars Like a Bird. Laminated wood, 1984. Richard Deacon creates spacious wonders that tickle the mind and expand the spirit.
Fighting Buffalo, Arthur Putnam, 1900. Photo courtesy San Diego Museum of Art.Amazing early American quilts on display at the San Diego Museum of Art feature beautifully contrasted colors and abstract designs.Vincent Van Gogh, The Old Mill, 1888, courtesy the Albright-Knox Art Gallery.
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I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or Twitter!
I was pleased to discover some truly amazing public art inside Vista’s Civic Center Park last weekend. The small but beautiful park is situated adjacent to the Civic Center complex, and was very quiet on an early Sunday afternoon.
In addition to a fantastically strange and wonderful sculpture titled Wind Beams, I found four very fine bronze sculptures of children reading and at play!
I’ve tried to determine who created the bronze sculptures of children, but I can find nothing on the internet, and I could find no artist’s name on any plaque. If anyone knows the artist, leave a comment! The sculptures depict a small girl reading a book, a child riding a bike with arms outspread, kids and their friendly dog crossing a curved bridge or log, and two small children riding a large tortoise. The plaque that I photographed, which is mounted near the reading girl, explains these four bronze sculptures were dedicated in October 2012 as a tribute to retired Vista City Manager Rita L. Geldert.
The extremely cool Wind Beams sculpture was created by artist Robert Rochin. The year given is 2010. It’s an unbelievable thing made of four 10 feet long I-beams that move about in the slightest breeze. All I can say is these heavy steel beams must be well lubricated and perfectly balanced! Watching the beams move silently about like immense metal arms whirling in the sky is really strange, even surreal!
Wind Beams, by artist Robert Rochin, 2010.
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I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or Twitter!
You can easily explore Cool San Diego Sights by using the search box on my blog’s sidebar. Or click a tag! There are thousands upon thousands of photos for you to enjoy!
This coming Sunday, Cool San Diego Sights turns seven years old.
Seven years doing this? Unbelievable.
Starting a blog and watching it grow very, very slowly over many years has taught me an important lesson about life. Patience and perseverance might be the two most important keys to success.
While having fun and doing things that I love–walking and writing–I have spent literally thousands of hours working on Cool San Diego Sights. A good chunk of my life has been spent taking and selecting photos, cropping and adjusting them, doing research, being a detective, plotting out future blogs, making corrections, being obsessive/compulsive, providing updates, pulling out my hair (what’s left of it), periodically wondering if I should quit this sometimes tedious exercise…
And now, to my complete surprise, I find myself getting traffic from Google News, News Break, Chrome’s suggested articles, and a remarkable variety of major websites.
As a result of Cool San Diego Sights’ growing success, one of my other websites, Short Stories by Richard, is being visited by students from classrooms around the world. Most are reading my little story One Thousand Likes, which I’m told might be used in an upcoming twelfth grade textbook produced by one of the world’s most prestigious publishers.
Pinch me.
Is this real?
To think this thing started on a whim. I’ve always walked. I had an unused little camera. I created a simple, easy WordPress blog. I figured I’d post a photo and a few words once in a while.
So if you’re a blogger or writer out there in a ridiculously enormous world that contains billions of web pages, and you’ve begun to wonder if it’s really worth the effort–keep at it! Don’t give up! Do your best! Stay passionate! Write well, be truthful, be original, be creative, be smart, be curious, understand and appeal to your readers’ humanity, and remember to always maintain your sense of humor!
I was told these murals inside East Village’s cool Quartyard were painted this year.
Quartyard, an urban park, eatery and event venue in downtown San Diego’s East Village, is constantly changing. As months and years roll by, cool new murals keep appearing!
I wandered into Quartyard yesterday and saw a bunch of murals that were new to me. I learned most of these were painted this year. The artists are all local muralists–you’ve seen many examples of their work over the years on Cool San Diego Sights.
I took photos…
A look at the colorful Quartyard from across the intersection of Market Street and 13th Street.Creatively painted shipping container by picnic benches indicates Quartyard is Your City Block.Mural at Quartyard by Nicholas Danger.Mural at Quartyard by España Garcia Feucht.Mural at Quartyard by Brise Birdsong.The mural on the right with the two dogs was painted last week. You can find it behind Quartyard’s fenced dog run.Eyes on a container outside Quartyard painted by Carly Ealey.
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I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or Twitter!
You can easily explore Cool San Diego Sights by using the search box on my blog’s sidebar. Or click a tag! There are thousands upon thousands of photos for you to enjoy!
Face painted on temporary outdoor seating at Pokez Restaurant.
I went on a random zigzagging walk through East Village late this afternoon and found some artwork that I don’t believe I’ve already shared, even though some of the street art is obviously years old and faded.
I walked south from Broadway down Tenth Avenue, east on F Street, and south again along Park Boulevard to Market Street, where the last photo was taken. And there’s a good reason to be excited by that last photo!
I then proceeded to the Quartyard, where I photographed a bunch of cool new murals, but those will be in the next blog post!
Colorful parrot in window of Seven Seas Tattoo.East Village painted on a sidewalk electrical box.Cool street art face on F Street in San Diego’s East Village neighborhood.Your Fate is in Your Hands. Palmistry is illustrated at East Village Psychic Healing Center.This street art is really old and faded, so I increased the photo’s contrast.This mural is amazing but a couple of years old, by Gloria Muriel and Dave Persue. For some reason I’ve never taken a photo until today.
Another very cool (and colorful) mural by the same two artists was on the above wall years ago. See it here!
I only got a glimpse of the above mural, because a construction fence won’t let the public into a courtyard area between the big, soon-to-open downtown UC San Diego Extension building and its adjacent residential tower.
Does this mural’s style look familiar? It’s by world-renowned illustrator and muralist Rafael López! His studio is just down the street!
Once the public gets access, I’ll try to get good photos. Plus there appear to be other murals in that courtyard!
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I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or Twitter!
You can easily explore Cool San Diego Sights by using the search box on my blog’s sidebar. Or click a tag! There are thousands upon thousands of photos for you to enjoy!
A pole at south end of Rotary Lane in Vista expresses May Peace Prevail on Earth in many languages. By the World Peace Prayer Society, 2018.
During my adventure in Vista last weekend, I found myself walking down a path through an old linear park. The park is located next to Vista Village Drive, near its intersection with Main Street. A plaque at either end of the park told me I had entered Rotary Lane.
I soon caught sight of two works of art–one honoring peace and the other freedom–and a shining 60 feet long engraved black granite Military Memorial Wall.
I took these photographs. For those who are interested, the images and captions provide a little more information.
Rotary Lane. Established 1966.
Branches of the United States Armed Services on a black marble memorial wall. In honor of all those who serve and protect . . . past, present and future.Purple Heart City. In honor of U.S. Armed Services men and women killed or wounded in combat. Designated by Vista City Council, June 12, 2013.Partners who made the Military Memorial Wall possible.A small plaque opposite the wall reads: Memorial Wall – Dedicated 2015 – Vista Hi Noon Rotary Club.Sculpture of a patriotic red, white and blue bald eagle high atop a lamp post at Rotary Lane.Freedom’s Struggle, by artist Winifred Meiser, 2016.
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I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or Twitter!
You can easily explore Cool San Diego Sights by using the search box on my blog’s sidebar. Or click a tag! There are thousands upon thousands of photos for you to enjoy!
The California Tower in Balboa Park is lit purple and gold to celebrate the 100th Anniversary of the 19th Amendment.
This week the California Tower in Balboa Park will be lit purple and gold at night. It’s part of a nationwide celebration of the 100th Anniversary of the 19th Amendment of the United States Constitution, which guarantees women the right to vote.
The Forward Into Light campaign has asked that monuments across the nation be lit up to mark this important anniversary, which officially takes place tomorrow. The 19th Amendment was certified on August 26, 1920.
In addition to the California Tower, every night this week the San Diego Convention Center’s sails and the Old Point Loma Lighthouse at Cabrillo National Monument will be turned purple and gold.
This morning I walked from downtown up to Balboa Park to see the tower just before sunrise. The California Building’s elaborate facade was illuminated with soft purple light, and a golden Museum of Us was splashed upon the tower. The Museum of Us is the new name for the Museum of Man, which occupies the iconic building that was built for the 1915 Panama-California Exposition.
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I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or Twitter!
Public art that inspires reading can be found all across San Diego!
In the past I’ve photographed murals, sculptures, and even some beautiful glass panels that encourage reading. Often great books and authors are celebrated. Wisdom, knowledge, compassion and other timeless human values are shown to arise from reading. And, of course, there’s the simple enjoyment. Almost everyone loves to learn something interesting, or a good story!
After seeing artwork that promotes reading outside the Vista Library on Sunday, and posting photographs here, it occurred to me that I should link to more of this inspiring art!
I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or Twitter!
You can easily explore Cool San Diego Sights by using the search box on my blog’s sidebar. Or click a tag! There are thousands upon thousands of photos for you to enjoy!
Cool San Diego Sights! 