Along the San Diego River leaves are turning bright yellow, then brown. It’s December.
A couple of mornings last week I was waiting for a bus at the Fashion Valley Transit Center. To pass the time, I walked the very short distance to the new Town and Country river park.
I gazed down at still water from the pedestrian bridge. Through willow leaves I saw carpets of green duckweed. Ducks were floating quietly on silver and gold reflections.
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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!
Horton Plaza, the innovative outdoor shopping mall that was once a downtown San Diego attraction, has been stripped and gutted! Its redevelopment continues!
Six months ago I noted that demolition of parts of the old shopping mall had begun. I posted those photos and some information concerning the project here.
Well, take a look now!
UPDATE!
Several months later I took these photos. The southwest corner of Horton Plaza has risen and now appears quite different!
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A large patriotic mural paying tribute to firefighting heroes is visible to those driving down Main Street in Barrio Logan. It can be observed on the side of the FIRE ETC firefighter supply store.
Titled “America’s Heroes of 9-11,” the mural was painted in 2011 by Pete Carolan, a retired Navy SEAL.
To learn more about Pete Carolan’s career and accomplishments, check out his website here. I see he has painted an outdoor mural at the UDT-SEAL Museum, and “his many works…appear in such places as The Pentagon, our Nation’s Capitol and The White House.”
Pete Carolan got his start early in life as a lifeguard in Huntington Beach, California, became a world champion outrigger canoe paddler, and would eventually become a Navy frogman. He was chosen to be swim team leader in the recovery of the Apollo-13 capsule when it finally splashed down in the South Pacific.
He was the one who painted “Freddie the Frog” on the Sea King helicopter that recovered the astronauts. You can see “Freddie the Frog” briefly in the Apollo 13 movie starring Tom Hanks!
Should you visit the USS Midway Museum, check out their SH-3 Sea King helicopter. It, too, has been painted with Pete Carolan’s “Freddie the Frog!”
(You might notice I took these photographs late in the afternoon. I had to cope with glare produced by reflecting sunlight, plus a few trees across Main Street were casting their long shadows upon the artwork.)
UPDATE!
Here’s a photo I took at a later time when the sun and shadows weren’t being problematic…
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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!
There’s a hidden garden in Balboa Park that almost nobody visits. It’s called the Administrative Courtyard.
The Administrative Courtyard is green, peaceful and very beautiful. There are fountains. There are arbors with vines and trees. To me, the most wonderful part of this courtyard garden are the gazebos at its corners. They give this special place personality. They are both cheerful and elegant, welcoming visitors with their bright tiled domes and nearby benches.
As I walked through and around the gazebos on a sunny winter’s day, I found many interesting contrasts of light and shadow for my camera.
If you’d like to find the hidden Administrative Courtyard, head to Balboa Park’s Inspiration Point, east of Park Boulevard, and walk behind the Developed Regional Parks Administration Building. That’s the handsome building that stands with its double towers atop a hill.
This corner of Balboa Park, including the Administration Building and nearby Veterans Museum (originally a military chapel), was once part of San Diego’s United States Naval Hospital, which was built in the early 1920s. When the hospital moved into Florida Canyon, Inspiration Point opened up its wonders to you and me.
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During my visit to Liberty Station in Point Loma yesterday I noted several works of public art that I hadn’t seen before.
The one I liked best is titled Tessellation #1. It’s a sculptural monolith with a bench for sitting in the shade of magnolia trees. This beautiful work of art, made of hand-cast tessellated concrete and wood timber, was created in September 2019 by local artist Jason X. Lane.
Tessellation #1 was installed in Liberty Station’s ARTS DISTRICT by the NTC Foundation in partnership with the Mingei International Museum in Balboa Park. You can find it on the west side of the Dick Laub NTC Command Center building. (It’s located across from some sheltered seats where people are encouraged to interact with each other–more intriguing art brought to Liberty Station by Mingei that I blogged about here.)
I particularly love how Tessellation #1 fits within its surroundings. It’s like some sort of ancient throne or monument, discovered unexpectedly among living trees. To me the entire effect is strangely pleasing.
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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!
Today is Christmas. Needing to breathe fresh air, I headed to Point Loma a little before noontime and enjoyed a walk through quiet Liberty Station.
A number of festive displays have been installed around both the North and South Promenades for the holidays. The outdoor exhibition is titled Salute the Season. Most of the artwork you see in my photos was created by artists whose studios occupy what used to be barracks of the old Naval Training Center San Diego.
Some of this artwork seems very loosely tied to the holiday season. But no matter. I enjoyed seeing the color, creativity and expression.
Merry Christmas!
Happy Holidays From Liberty Station, by artist Nina Montejano. Plywood, acrylic, metal, varnish spray. A Christmas tree with ornaments depicting Liberty Station’s history as a former Naval Training Center.
Thrown Into the Clay, by artist Leah Shaperow. Pottery and acrylic paint. A hike into the canyons and natural areas in San Diego.
Celebrate, by artist Leslie Pierce. Acrylic mixed media. Includes a stylized Twiggy in a Santa hat and a surfer on a sled!
Together We Are, by Outside the Lens. Photography. Students express their unique voice.
Christmoss Wonderland, by Hakkai Aquascape Design Gallery. Preserved moss, Tom Barr’s Manzanita Wood, dragon stone, black mountain Seiryu stone, spider woods, sand, elephant skin stone, pebbles.
Bird on a Branch, Mingei International Museum, Jeremiah Maloney. Plywood, epoxy, LED lights, maple. Inspired by the quote: “It is one of the virtues of beauty that it has this power: to make one forget one’s self and so put an end to strife.”
Armistice – A Reflection on Peace, by artist Colleen Veltz. Tactile acrylic painting on plywood, wreath of olive leaves, plywood box pedestal benches.
Ornamental, by artist Amber Schnitzius. Stoneware clay, glaze. The colors of the holiday season, made out of many positive messages.
A Feminist Feast, by Women’s Museum of California, Duane McGregor. Computer graphics, mixed media. On a large banquet menu are feminist takes on traditional holiday dishes.
Peace Wreath, by artist June Rubin. Outdoor latex paint and metallic gold latex paint on wood. A wish for peace.
The Wishing Box, by artist Steffi Dotson. Plywood and glass. A small token of joy and hope for all who encounter it. There is light at the end of the cycle of darkness.
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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!
Would you like to read two very short stories about Christmas?
Both works of fiction might touch your heart.
The first short story is titled A Wise Man. It concerns how we all can become jaded over the years, and how one seemingly ordinary moment can renew our appreciation of life’s preciousness and beauty. Read it here.
The second short story is titled An Encounter With Santa Claus. It’s about the spirit of Christmas. About unselfishness, not rampant materialism. Read it here.
See that tiny, tiny dot in the night sky directly above the photographer’s knuckles? People are calling it the Christmas Star. Astronomers call it a great conjunction, when the two largest planets in our solar system–Jupiter and Saturn– appear very close together to eyes viewing from Earth.
Today is December 21, 2020, the Winter Solstice. I took this photograph with my little camera from the Cabrillo Bridge in Balboa Park shortly after dark. That’s downtown San Diego you see on the left.
The last time Jupiter and Saturn were in conjunction this closely (and could be seen in most of the Northern Hemisphere) was the year 1226. You’ll have to wait sixty years to see it again. I suppose I won’t be around.
I’ve read and heard conjecture that the biblical Magi were guided to Bethlehem by the conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn on the year of Christ’s birth. Some believers claim the timing would have been about right.
Can you make out that miniscule dot? Is that the same “star” the Wise Men saw?
Another good question might be: Is a light from far away what the wise see?
Jupiter and Saturn will continue their orbits around the sun, as will the Earth, long after you and I and every worldly thing we have done and hold dear has vanished, turned to dust, to be swirled by an unseen finger, transformed into something else.
Great conjunctions will continue hundreds, thousands, millions of years into the future. A billion years from this moment–give or take a century–there will be another Christmas Star.
Over the years I’ve photographed several works of public art located in front of San Diego fire stations. This weekend I saw another example. A very cool sculpture stands near the entrance of San Diego Fire-Rescue Department Station 29 in San Ysidro!
Firefighters Sculpture is the title of this piece, which was created by Jeri Deneen in 2005. The artist is part of Deneen Powell Atelier, a nationally recognized, award-winning San Diego landscape design firm that has undertaken major projects locally and across the nation. Their work can be enjoyed at the United States Botanic Garden and United States National Arboretum, not to mention inside the San Diego Zoo and the Safari Park.
According to the San Diego Civic Art Collection web page here, Firefighters Sculpture is “formed from a two-dimensional, trapezoidal panel of weathered, Cor-ten steel perforated with laser-cut figures rendered in a graphic “stencil” style. The sculpture depicts three firemen kneeling in profile as they work together to hold a fire hose. The nozzle of the hose spouts “water” which is represented by a vertical glass shard, translucent during the day and illuminated from within at night…“
To see more public art at San Diego fire stations, click here and here and here!
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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!
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