It looks like a huge, three-dimensional blue squiggle, doesn’t it?
This twisty sculpture, by artist Ken Kelleher, is called Hand Drawn Sculpture. It’s located at the new Research and Development District (RaDD) complex on downtown San Diego’s waterfront.
Among RaDD’s five buildings, one can glimpse all sorts of public art: both sculptures and murals. I took some photos of the art that wasn’t fenced off during construction earlier this year, but I knew next to nothing about any of it.
Well, plaques have appeared near some artworks that are currently accessible to the public. Interesting information is provided about both art and artist.
I took these photographs this morning.
The abstract Hand Drawn Sculpture, according to its plaque, was created in 2023. It blurs the lines between two and three-dimensional art forms by merging the fluid, gestural lines of drawing with the tangible presence of sculpture…
Pretend the blue lines have no depth and were drawn on flat paper. Seen from different angles, the sculpture assumes different forms.
What do you see?
Very cool!
Look for more photos and descriptions of public art at RaDD in future blog posts!
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Very beautiful artwork can be seen just outside the entrance of the La Jolla Community Center. Tile panels on either side of the front door and tile work on a nearby bench depict La Jolla’s stunning coastal scenery.
I took these photographs during a walk a couple weekends ago when the center happened to be closed. I’m very curious who the artist might be.
I believe the work was done back in 2012–part of a larger building renovation. If you know more about this wonderful art outside the community center’s entrance, please leave a comment below!
Enjoy these photos, which I edited slightly using increased contrast and sharpness to bring out the colors and details.
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Thanks for visiting Cool San Diego Sights!
I post new blogs pretty often. If you like discovering new things, bookmark coolsandiegosights.com and swing on by occasionally!
I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or X.
Two very cool new murals were recently painted at the Grossmont Transit Center in La Mesa. One mural, titled Float On, faces the trolley tracks, and the other, titled Succession, can be found on the opposite side of the same wall, facing nearby bus stops.
Visitors to the Oceanside Museum of Art might have their view of the world suddenly disrupted! Nearly fifty paintings by Southern California artists challenge the way we view familiar things. The exhibition is titled More Disruption: Representational Art in Flux.
Flux is defined as the action or process of flowing. Flowing implies change, movement. These paintings are full of dynamism, drawing the viewer in with bold strokes and color, exciting curiosity with abstraction that can be strangely fluid.
The surprising art reveals unexpected contrasts and inner mystery. In the age of social media, where images flash by on a phone with the flick of a finger, these paintings might cause one to stand for a minute and consider.
The pieces chosen for display were selected from over 1,700 entries. As one sign explains: The concept for this juried exhibition was to present outstanding paintings by Southern California artists that showed signs of being disrupted, either formally or thematically. Disruption, in this framework, means that the forces of contemporary life and existence somehow altered or affected the way the work was created and challenged the norms of representation…
A very friendly museum docent struck up a conversation with me and shared some of her favorite pieces. She was amazed that one of the pieces, exuding youthful hipness, was painted by an 80-year-old artist. But that’s the limitless potential of human creativity!
By disrupting familiar things, reshaping what we know, our minds and hands can bring to existence anything that we imagine. We can change this old world–enlarge it–even make life more meaningful.
More Disruption: Representational Art in Flux will be on view at the Oceanside Museum of Art through September 15, 2024.
I can tell you this art is certainly not dull! My photographs provide a few examples.
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Thanks for visiting Cool San Diego Sights!
I post new blogs pretty often. If you like discovering new things, bookmark coolsandiegosights.com and swing on by occasionally!
I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or X.
Take a look at this interesting outdoor art installation in San Ysidro! It’s part of an exhibition titled MIRAGE: el orden de los factores y los riesgos de la ilusión.
The unusual tower-like structure stands in an open space next to San Ysidro’s Cultural Corridor, a short walk behind The Front Arte y Cultura community cultural center. It’s the same space where San Ysidro celebrates Día de los Muertos every year.
The Mexican born visual artist behind the exhibition is Marcos Ramírez Erre. The rest of his MIRAGE can be viewed inside The Front, which happened to be closed when I walked by last weekend.
What do the different levels of this peculiar “tower” represent? (I wouldn’t mind lounging near the top under those shades!)
As the web page describing the installation explains: the art explores the geopolitical and symbolic landscape of the Mexico-U.S. border, characterized by architectural, masculine, industrial, monumental, and anti-monumental elements.
It seems to me the open structure, with its ladders, huge cylinders and different platforms, would be a fine stage for an outdoor theatrical performance!
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Thanks for visiting Cool San Diego Sights!
I post new blogs pretty often. If you like discovering new things, bookmark coolsandiegosights.com and swing on by occasionally!
I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or X.
A kinetic metal sculpture in Bankers Hill turns with the wind. It’s titled Four Seasons.
The abstract public art, created by San Diego based artist Amos Robinson in 2007, stands in front of the office building at 1855 First Avenue.
Four Seasons slowly revolved as I paused near it a few weeks ago. (I was walking down the sidewalk back toward downtown after touring the very cool Hawthorne Historic Inn.)
Another unexpected discovery!
And look what I spied outside one corner of the same office building… An apple!
(Appears that someone has large, very strong teeth!)
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Thanks for visiting Cool San Diego Sights!
I post new blogs pretty often. If you like discovering new things, bookmark coolsandiegosights.com and swing on by occasionally!
I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or X (formerly known as Twitter)!
An extraordinary sculpture by renowned artist James Hubbell can be enjoyed near the center of downtown El Cajon. His interpretation of mythical flying horse Pegasus stands in the succulent and cactus garden at the Olaf Wieghorst Museum!
I took a tour of the museum today, viewing the fine art of internationally recognized painter of western scenes Olaf Wieghorst, who lived for a time in El Cajon.
As we strolled through the museum’s lush garden, I was surprised to see this wonderful sculpture by James Hubbell, another beloved artist. Hubbell’s studio is located in the nearby mountains.
If you love outstanding art (or the Old West or amazing gardens) you must pay a visit to the free Olaf Wieghorst Museum. I’ll be blogging much more about this surprising museum in the next few days!
The sculpture Pegasus near the rustic home of Old West artist Olaf Wieghorst. His house can toured at the Olaf Wieghorst Museum.Pegasus, by James Hubbell, was a gift of the East County Chapter of the Fine Arts Society of San Diego.An abstract bronze Pegasus flies gracefully in downtown El Cajon.
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Thanks for visiting Cool San Diego Sights!
I post new blogs pretty often. If you like discovering new things, bookmark coolsandiegosights.com and swing on by occasionally!
I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or X (formerly known as Twitter)!
This wonderful mural depicting life, sunshine and landmarks in Oceanside can be found at the SALT Apartments at 311 N. Cleveland Street. It was created by well-known abstract artist Lee Calderon.
I see the Oceanside Pier, a surfer, the harbor lighthouse, and Mission San Luis Rey. And many bright, vibrant colors!
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Thanks for visiting Cool San Diego Sights!
I post new blogs pretty often. If you like discovering new things, bookmark coolsandiegosights.com and swing on by occasionally!
I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or X (formerly known as Twitter)!
Georgia O’Keeffe. Henry Moore. What do these two famous modernist artists, who lived on two separate continents, have in common? Love of nature. And a singular exhibition now open at the San Diego Museum of Art!
I enjoyed a very special tour of O’Keeffe and Moore a few days ago and I’m still deeply moved while thinking about it.
I, like many people, have always loved the paintings of Georgia O’Keeffe. However I knew precious little about Henry Moore, apart from a curvaceous sculpture he created, Reclining Figure: Arch Leg, that stands in the sculpture garden at the San Diego Museum of Art.
When compared side by side, the abstract work of both artists is strikingly similar. Organic, sensuous, familiar, elemental, inspired by forms found in nature. It’s no surprise that their art seems to be distilled from flowers, landscapes, bones and clouds. Because both artists loved nature and closely studied these things.
Both Georgia O’Keeffe and Henry Moore collected bones, driftwood and smooth river stones. Their studios resembled work areas at a natural history museum. In one gallery at the San Diego Museum of Art, recreations of the two artist studios are displayed for visitors to enjoy.
I was surprised to learn that O’Keeffe created sculptures, and that Henry Moore, the sculptor, also painted. The exhibition contains over a hundred pieces between the two artists.
Here is some of O’Keefe’s beautiful work:
The White Flower (White Trumpet Flower), Georgia O’Keeffe, 1932. Oil on canvas. “I have painted what each flower is to me and I have painted it big enough so that others would see what I see.”Red Hill and White Shell, Georgia O’Keeffe, 1938. Oil on canvas. A moon snail shell from the Atlantic shore in the New Mexico desert.Ram’s Head, Blue Morning Glory, Georgia O’Keeffe, 1938. Oil on canvas. Juxtaposition of skull with a flower.
Museum visitors admire Georgia O’Keeffe’s recreated studio which was located at Ghost Ranch in New Mexico:
Abstraction, Georgia O’Keefe, 1946. White lacquered bronze. Inspired by spiral of ram horns.
And here’s Moore at work, and a recreation of a studio in rural Hertfordshire:
Moore Working on the Elmwood Reclining Figure 1959-64. Photographer unknown.Recreation of Henry Moore’s Bourne Maquette Studio, which was named for a stream near the old farmhouse where he lived and worked.
A few of Moore’s sculptures, some of which are models for even larger pieces:
Working Model for Seated Woman, Henry Moore, 1980. Plaster with surface color. Enlarged from a small maquette created in 1956.Mother and Child, Henry Moore, 1978. Stalactite. Inspired by two seashells. (You don’t often see a sculpted piece of stalactite!)Working Model for Oval with Points, Henry Moore, 1968-69. Bronze. Inspired by the interior of an elephant skull.
This truly extraordinary exhibit is made possible by the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum and Henry Moore Foundation. It will be on view at the San Diego Museum of Art in Balboa Park until August 27, 2023.
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Thanks for visiting Cool San Diego Sights!
I post new blogs pretty often. If you like discovering new things, bookmark coolsandiegosights.com and swing on by occasionally!
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!
Driving through San Diego’s Skyline neighborhood, have you noticed an enormous, fantastic fish?
I’ve seen this amazing fish mural the past few years while riding the Orange Line trolley. I finally walked over to the corner of Imperial Avenue and 69th Street to have a closer look and take photos.
The abstract fish is by San Diego artist Maxx Moses. You’ve probably seen his wildly creative murals around the city and at several trolley stations. Often cultural, technological, and organic imagery are fused together to create eye-popping art.
You can see other examples of distinctive Maxx Moses work by clicking here.
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Thanks for visiting Cool San Diego Sights!
I post new blogs pretty often. If you like discovering new things, bookmark coolsandiegosights.com and swing on by occasionally!
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!
Cool San Diego Sights! 