Tag: art

City Heights celebrates Unity in the Community!

Something extraordinary happened today. Members of the City Heights community came together to celebrate the completion of monumental public art. A ceremonial ribbon cutting was performed for one of San Diego’s most amazing murals!

Unity in the Community is a 270 foot long mural painted along a wall at the south end of Teralta Neighborhood Park. The mural has been six years in the making. I’ve posted several past blogs as I’ve observed the artwork’s creation.

Have you driven on I-15 where it passes underground in east San Diego? If so, you’ve driven under Teralta Park and this fantastic mural.

Today’s celebration not only brought together members of the City Heights community, but many organizations and city leaders who’ve played an important role in the planning, approval, funding and making of this mural. I couldn’t possibly name everybody, and I haven’t closely followed the complicated process, but you can learn all about the mural’s history at this dedicated website.

Three local artists have played big roles in creating Unity in the Community. I once blogged about Sake, who produced the initial rendering and the first stage of the painted art. (I met him here.)

More recently, the mural was completed by artist Karl Gindelberger aka GMONIK, and Melody De Los Cobos, artistic director of Love City Heights. Both were present for today’s ceremony and ribbon cutting.

Several speeches told of how, with the work of many, a once neglected and crime-ridden park has been reclaimed and revitalized. We all celebrated how this mural, with its many positive images, will build pride and a sense of ownership in the community. How this mural conveys diversity, harmony and acceptance. How this mural will become a backdrop for future community events, such as a proposed Taste of City Heights!

Everyone in attendance today could plainly see how, in the coming years, this wonderful mural will positively impact many lives.

If you want to see the entire Unity in the Community mural, I took lots of photographs last month and posted them here.

Walking along one section of the long, amazing community mural.

GMONIK, one of the mural artists, posed for a photo!

People talked and enjoyed the moment before the ceremony would begin.

A fun photo with a skateboarding dog!

Thanks is given to the many community leaders and parties responsible for the completion of the inspiring mural.

Gratitude to those who boldly forge ahead and make our world better.

Cutting the ribbon. Finally passing the finish line!

A bright vision realized.

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I post new blogs pretty often. If you like discovering new things, bookmark coolsandiegosights.com and swing on by occasionally!

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Japanese ink painting (sumi-e) weekend exhibition!

The 20th Annual Art Exhibition of Friends of Sumi-e can be enjoyed this weekend in Balboa Park. If you’re in San Diego and love Japanese ink painting or are merely curious, make sure to head over to the Casa del Prado tomorrow, Sunday, from 11 am to 4 pm.

Over the years I’ve enjoyed several of these fine exhibitions. It never ceases to amaze me how trained artists, with a few careful strokes of a brush, can create such profound beauty.

At the art exhibition, you’ll also be able to listen to Japanese flute, observe a live tea ceremony and meet some of the the artists! As you learn more about sumi-e, you can watch as your name is painted elegantly in Japanese!

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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!

Fantastic fish on a building in Skyline!

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!

The Chrome Lady robot of San Diego!

Walking along El Cajon Boulevard after my visit to the Rolando Street Fair last weekend, I noticed a very cool mural painted on the side of a tattoo parlor. I had discovered The Chrome Lady!

The silvery female robot indicated I’d arrived at The Chrome Lady Tattoo.

I asked one of the tattoo artists if he knew who painted the robot, but he wasn’t sure. I didn’t see a signature on the mural.

If you’re ever near the intersection of El Cajon Boulevard and 62nd Street, look for it!

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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!

Woodies park in Carlsbad’s art alley!

Venture into Carlsbad’s art alley and you’ll find several woodies parked along one wall!

These cool classic vehicles with wood side panels are lined up opposite the Alley Art Wall, which you can learn about here. The woodies are pictured with surfboards at the beach.

You can find the alley near Village Kabob, at the intersection of Grand Avenue and Tyler Street.

The art panels are signed C. Serna, 2016.

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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!

Creating a huge bronze mural for Balboa Park!

A couple of incredible projects are now underway that will improve and beautify the Palisades area of Balboa Park.

One project I wrote about yesterday. Two life-size grizzly bear sculptures and two flagpoles will be added to the roof of the San Diego Automotive Museum. You can read that blog post here.

The second project concerns the historical building directly across Pan American Plaza: today’s Municipal Gymnasium. This building was originally built for the 1935-1936 California Pacific International Exposition in Balboa Park and was called the Palace of Electricity and Varied Industries.

Back in 1935, a large themed mural greeted visitors above the entrance to the Palace of Electricity and Varied Industries. It was a bas-relief designed by Arturo Eneim, carved out of layers of wallboard. It’s long gone.

But that mural is coming back! And it will be made of cold cast bronze!

In late 2021 I visited the San Diego studio of Bellagio Precast where the 12′ x 20′ cold cast bronze fiber glass reinforced concrete mural is being created. You can see interesting photos from that visit, plus renderings and more description, by clicking here. And here.

I visited the same studio again a couple days ago and observed how the enormous mural is coming together, piece by piece!

Architectural plans for the Palace of Electricity and Varied Industries mural are spread near a small model at Bellagio Precast in San Diego.

A small model of the cast bronze mural, which includes industrial imagery, an electrical generator, and three human figures.

Here’s the mold used for the small model’s creation. You can see how the images are reversed.

The design for the electrical generator element that will be included in the large, finished mural.

And here is the generator! Just one element of many that will be pieced together to create a mold for the massive cast bronze mural.

More elements to be incorporated into the Palace of Electricity and Varied Industries mural include huge gears!

This monumental project is being undertaken by the Balboa Park Committee of 100.

I’ve learned the fantastic mural should be completed and installed above the entrance to the Municipal Gymnasium building around September this year!

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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!

Ukrainian Easter eggs in Balboa Park!

Pysanky are traditional Ukrainian decorated eggs. They are made for the celebration of Easter.

Today pysanky were being crafted in Balboa Park courtesy of the House of Ukraine!

Visitors to the Hall of Nations at the International Cottages could see how beautiful an intricate pysanka egg can be. The colorful designs are created through the use of carefully applied beeswax and the wax-resist process.

Kids could color some designs on paper, too.

There were other traditional Ukrainian crafts on display at several tables, including often armless Motanka dolls. Motanka dolls are like talismans, said to grant wishes, such as guarding the family or a happy, prosperous marriage.

At one table, I learned how an organization called Healing Scalpel is helping to provide medical supplies and services to people devastated by the war in Ukraine.

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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!

Grizzly bears ready for Balboa Park rooftop!

Two huge golden grizzly bears have come to life in San Diego, and are ready to stand on a Balboa Park rooftop!

Yesterday the two amazing sculptures were previewed. I took photographs!

The life-size bronze bears–each weighing about 400 pounds–will soon be placed atop the roof of the 1935 California State Building, which today is home of the San Diego Automotive Museum. The sculptures will stand on the front corners of the building, as bears once did almost a century ago, back when the building debuted for the 1935-1936 California Pacific International Exposition.

Artists Mike and Kevin Matson of Bellagio Precast have been busy working on these new bear sculptures at their San Diego studio. Perhaps you remember my blog post from late 2021 with photos of one partially cold cast bronze bear.

The two huge bears are now one hundred percent finished and ready for transportation to Balboa Park! Once the roof of the San Diego Automotive Museum is structurally prepared for the heavy sculptures, they will be lifted by crane up to their respective corners. All of this should occur in April. Watch for it!

As I mentioned, the original 1935 bears were only temporary (likely made of plaster-like material) and disappeared long ago. A few old photographs show them atop the California State Building. Here’s one:

In the above enlarged photograph, you might also glimpse a flagpole over the building’s front entrance. Two flagpoles are also returning to the historic California State Building! Brackets for them have already been created:

The new bears and flagpoles are part of an ongoing effort by the Balboa Park Committee of 100 to restore the Palisades area of Balboa Park to something more like its original 1935 appearance. The organization has been working to preserve Balboa Park’s historic architecture, gardens and public spaces since 1967.

The Committee of 100’s initial undertaking in the Palisades was the reproduction of historical murals above the entrance to this same building. Perhaps you’ve seen those beautiful tile murals. If you haven’t, click here.

The California State Building’s new life-size bears have been years in the making. At yesterday’s event we were shown small working models that preceded the finished sculptures. Kevin Matson held them up for examination:

So how exactly were life-size cold cast bronze bears made?

Each of the finished bear sculptures has a Glass Fiber Reinforced Concrete skin that is about 3/8″ to 1/2” thick. Two sculpture halves are joined together with a stainless steel frame inside. Each bear’s volume is then filled with a high density urethane foam.

How awesome are these golden grizzlies? Take a look!

The Balboa Park Committee of 100 is engaged in another fantastic project! They are recreating a large historical mural that will be placed above the entrance of the Municipal Gymnasium building. It, too, will be breathtaking!

I’ll be blogging about that shortly!

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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!

Nature’s Light sculpture by the San Dieguito River.

A very beautiful sculpture stands by the San Dieguito River. I discovered it as I walked near the San Dieguito Lagoon along the Coast to Crest Trail.

The rock and tile sculpture is titled Nature’s Light. It was created in 2018 by artists Rude Calderón and Roberto Delgado as a tribute to the founders of the San Dieguito River Park, whose bright vision became a reality.

If you’d like to see this public art for yourself, you can find it about a quarter mile east of the San Dieguito River Park Lagoon Ranger Station, which is located in Del Mar off of San Andres Drive and Via de la Valle .

Enjoy these photos and imagine nature’s surrounding majesty.

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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!

San Diego Memories at the Civic Center.

A large colorful mural greets people walking into Civic Center Plaza from A Street in downtown San Diego. The mural is titled What Do You Want to Remember About Our City?

This public art, commissioned in 2020 by the City of San Diego, was created by local artist MR (Melinda) Barnadas with input from members of the community. Near the center of the mural is a list of unique San Diego Memories contributed by many.

I saw the mural for the first time today. I hadn’t walked this way in a while…

What do you want to remember about San Diego…

Someone walks down the outdoor passageway that leads south from A Street into Civic Center Plaza. They pass by a large list of San Diego memories.

People dancing here in the Civic Center… a city bus… the sea… seeing a play as a little girl… fishing off the docks… surfing… Horton Plaza…

…submarines… Hillcrest… the trolley… Chicano Park… becoming a citizen… getting ice cream with a friend… lowriders in National City…

…Barrio Logan… Balboa Park… an outpouring of solidarity… Charles Lewis III Memorial Park… seeing John Lewis at Oak Park Library… the San Diego Zoo… OB Pier…

…watching planes in Point Loma… dancing in North Park… Old Town… trips to Tijuana… the world’s best tacos… seeing whales and dolphins… palm trees… the lighthouse at Cabrillo…

What Do You Want to Remember About Our City? By artist MR (Melinda) Barnadas.

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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!