This morning, as I walked through downtown to catch the trolley, I observed something near my feet.
I saw litter. I saw a raised fist. I saw the large words: ALL YOU NEED IS LOVE.
May the latter message–the one that promotes love–prevail.
Category: Uncategorized
Cool photo memories from June 2015.
To say the least, the year 2020 has been eventful. The coronavirus pandemic, economic disruption, an election year, widespread protests and even riots. During such times, it’s easy to understand we are all living inside history.
The events of five years ago are also part of human history, even if those days in retrospect seem less troubled, less chaotic.
Well, the world continues to turn and it’s time once again to revisit a few Cool San Diego Sights memories. These are from June 2015.
The big centennial of Balboa Park was underway, of course, and Comic-Con was fast approaching . . . plus there were many other happy celebrations of life in San Diego.
To revisit memories from five years ago, click the following links:
Philippine American Celebration in Balboa Park!
Young and old dream at Centennial Railway Garden.
Photos of San Diego library’s Art of Comic-Con exhibit!
Artists paint live Flamenco dancing in Spanish Village!
Painting the 1915 Centennial Mural in Balboa Park.
Fun photos of Make Music Day San Diego!
Cool photos of fun, funky Ocean Beach Street Fair!
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The sun rises again over San Diego.
The reliable sun rose again this morning. It cast its warm light over San Diego.
The sun promised to eventually climb above downtown skyscrapers.
Breathing in fresh air, moving between long shadows and seeping sunlight, I aimed my camera eastward and took a few photographs as I walked along the Embarcadero.
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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!
Ladies Who Paint and a wall on F Street.
Last year amazing local artists who together go by the name Ladies Who Paint created two more murals on a wall on F Street, just east of 14th Street. Their artwork is part of the Ladies Who Paint Mural Walk in East Village. Last weekend I finally got around to taking photos!
These two murals were created on a blank space of wall left of the blue “HI hello HOLA” mural that I photographed here.
Other cool Ladies Who Paint murals that I’ve photographed can be seen here, 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!
After the riot, the bright green of Spring.
This morning, during my walk to work, I witnessed a strange contrast.
I began by walking through downtown, heading down the length of the Gaslamp Quarter. I saw a few broken windows, many boarded up businesses, much graffiti.
After a crowd of thousands gathered downtown on Sunday, peacefully protesting the death of George Floyd while in the custody of Minneapolis police officers, a few hundred rioters brought chaos to our city after dark. These people moved at random down streets and around corners, vandalizing businesses and looting. A peaceful and quite powerful protest had been hijacked by a relative few and made ugly.
Later this morning, as I neared work, I walked a short distance along the San Diego River. The sun was up, illuminating the bright green growths of Spring.
A thought-provoking morning experience.
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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!
The answer to hate, violence and anger.
In this old world, there seems to be no shortage of hate, violence and anger.
In my experience, there’s only one answer to all that is negative.
Love.
A positive, unselfish love for one another.
During my walks around San Diego, I’ve photographed many words and images that express a simple idea: We should love one another.
And why not?
Life is short for every one of us.
Only love in our hearts gives us true fulfillment.
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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!
The Cosmic Flight of a world-famous muralist.
A mural titled Cosmic Flight decorates the east side of Golden Hill Liquor at the corner of 28th Street and B Street. The mural was painted in 1978 by Mario “Torero” Acevedo, whose work can be seen all around San Diego. Over the decades Cosmic Flight has been touched up, altered due to graffiti, then restored. As you can see in the above photo, it has been vandalized again.
Mario Torero is the son of renowned Peruvian artist Guillermo Acevedo who immigrated to San Diego in 1960. The life of a Bohemian was already in Mario’s blood as he and a few others local artists strove to develop a creative community in San Diego decades ago. In 1980 he opened the Sol Arts Gallery in Golden Hill across the street from the Cosmic Flight mural, the corner where Starbucks is today.
Mario Torero frequently uses cosmic imagery and expressive faces in his colorful compositions. His themes typically revolve around the civil rights movement and Chicano activism. He has been instrumental in the founding of important cultural centers in San Diego, including Chicano Park and the Centro Cultural de la Raza. A prolific and important creator of activist art, he has achieved international fame.
I walked past Cosmic Flight yesterday and was struck by the mural’s grouping of faces, which are filled with subtle emotion, including quiet pride and confidence. That’s the powerful element I like most in Mario Torero’s artwork. The humanity.
Over the years I’ve photographed a variety of other murals by Mario Torero around town.
Good examples include Cosmic Train of Wisdom in University Heights, a mural depicting civil rights leaders on Imperial Avenue, the Que Viva Barrio Logan mural, and a couple of murals I spotted during a long walk through Sherman Heights.
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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!
Fossils exposed in Hillcrest on University Avenue!
Perceptive people who walk along University Avenue in Hillcrest, between First Avenue and Park Boulevard, might see dozens of fossils “exposed” in the sidewalk.
These small, stone-sculpted plant and animal fossils are part of San Diego’s largest public art installation, which stretches about a mile long!
Fossils Exposed, created by San Diego artist Doron Rosenthal in 1998, consists of 150 granite markers set in the sidewalks along either side of University Avenue.
Doron Rosenthal has always been inspired by the unique beauty of desert landscapes. After spending some time in Pietra Santa, Italy, working with and learning from some of the world’s greatest sculptors, Doron Rosenthal returned to Southern California and taught stone cutting at the San Diego Art Institute. He continues to produce art today.
According to the artist’s website, “FOSSILS EXPOSED involves the creation and installation of 150 circular 4.5 inch granite markers. Each represent the artist’s interpretive carvings of local and regional fossilized plant and animal life, which are sandblasted into granite…. The imagery is inspired by the fossil collections from the San Diego Museum of Natural History. Each marker is different, representing various plant and animal species covered over by modern day urban development. The project would encourage awareness of the levels of life that struggled to exist within the area–some in the past, some in the present…”
To learn more, visit Doron Rosenthal’s website here.
I walked along University Avenue this morning and photographed just a fraction of the many Fossils Exposed.
To my eyes, it appears that over the years these man-made fossils have become even more fossil-like. They’ve aged along with the slowly weathering sidewalks and surroundings.
Unfortunately, it also appears much of the fossil artwork is now missing. Sections of sidewalk have been replaced over time, and I could locate no markers along a few stretches of University Avenue. I suspect that when old sections of concrete sidewalk were removed, certain fossils vanished, and ended up buried under layers of rubble and Earth. Where most true fossils are found.
If that’s the case, what a shame.
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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!
Wildlife arrives at San Diego River Discovery Center!
Native birds and wildlife arrived today at the San Diego River Discovery Center! Or, to be more precise, banners featuring images of river critters were hung today on a construction fence that surrounds the future nature center!
Did you know something cool is being built next to the San Diego River in Mission Valley?
The San Diego River Discovery Center at Grant Park is going to be where people of all ages gather to experience and learn about the natural environment along the San Diego River!
I blogged about this project in the past here. They’ve made progress since then, as you can see in one upcoming photo.
If you want to learn about the future nature center and how you might help make this dream a reality, visit the San Diego River Discovery Center website 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!
Help others! Join virtual Red Shoe Day online!
The 11th Annual Red Shoe Day is almost here! But this year it will be different. Because of the coronavirus pandemic, the gathering of donations for Ronald McDonald House in San Diego will be entirely online!
Instead of plunking your spare change into a big red Ronald McDonald shoe held by a volunteer at a busy intersection, there’s going to be a virtual Red Shoe Day on June 4, 2020 that everyone can safely take part in and share online with others!
Ronald McDonald House Charities of San Diego, according to their mission statement: provides a “home-away-from-home” for families with children being treated for serious, often life-threatening conditions at local hospitals.
Put yourself in the shoes of a family with a seriously ill child and imagine how important this would be. You could spend much more time with your child as they undergo super scary medical treatment at a big, scary hospital. Read more about what Ronald McDonald House Charities does here.
And here is what you can do!
Click here and join this year’s virtual Red Shoe Day!
Recruit friends, coworkers and family members! Form a winning team!
Look at all the smiling volunteers I photographed in past years, before the coronavirus pandemic…
Click here to join Red Shoe Day and make a huge difference in people’s lives!
You’ll feel good, too!
Cool San Diego Sights! 