Tag: art

Carving stone and the Blue Granite Shift.

Fascinating public art can be found at the California Center for the Arts, Escondido, in the outdoor space between the Concert Hall and the Museum. Scattered among trees and shadows are the stones of the 200-foot Blue Granite Shift, created by artist Mathieu Gregoire in 1995.

At the north end of the installation lie natural, uncarved stones. As you proceed south, the stones are subjected to human action, until they finally become sculpted and polished into smooth geometric forms.

When you walk back and forth through Blue Granite Shift, it’s like moving forward and backward through time, observing how complex natural forms that slowly evolved over eons are abruptly transformed by human ideas and cutting, reducing tools of creativity.

Every stone, touched or untouched by human hand, is part of the larger world, where all things, including the viewer, exist under one sun in a clock-like cycle of shifting shadows.

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The many cheerful colors of Little Italy!

I was walking around the Little Italy neighborhood in downtown San Diego when it occurred to me why I love this place so much.

It’s so cheerfully colorful!

Even on an overcast “June gloom” morning!

In the past I’ve shared photos of many of these Little Italy buildings, piazzas, murals and other artwork.

Today I’ll simply provide a taste of what it’s like to ramble about while smiling…

These are certainly colorful--they have personality!
These sculpted logs are quite colorful–because they have personality!

If you want to learn more about this unusual Mona Lisa mural beside a freeway on-ramp, and about the local students who created it, click 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!

Artist paints big, fun mural in City Heights!

Sandra Escobar paints a cool mural on the side of Super Cocina in City Heights.
Sandra Escobar paints a cool mural on the side of Super Cocina in City Heights.

This afternoon Sandra R. Escobar, a multi-award winning artist from Orange County, finished painting a large, very colorful mural in City Heights. I arrived as she was applying the final touches to her canvas–a portion of the east side of Super Cocina!

Check it out!

Her work has a unique style of its own, as you can see at the artist’s website here. Sandra Escobar is also a digital artist, and I learned this fun mural, with its crazy jumble of eyes and noses and other facial features, was designed digitally in advance.

The title of the mural is 6 Feet Apart. It’s the largest mural she’s painted yet!

The new mural appears between two others that were previously painted on the east side of Super Cocina.
The new mural appears between two others that were previously painted on the east side of Super Cocina.
Finishing another very cool mural on University Avenue in City Heights!
Finishing a very cool mural on University Avenue in City Heights!

UPDATE!

I received some photos from Love City Heights of the mural being created…

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Photo courtesy Love City Heights.
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Photo courtesy Love City 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!

Creativity and optimism in City Heights!

This afternoon I walked down University Avenue between I-805 and I-15. I’d learned a new mural is being painted in the City Heights’ outdoor “drive-through” art gallery!

Award-winning artist Sandra Escobar is painting a new mural on the wall of Super Cocina this weekend, and when I arrived the design had been sketched on a base of white paint. As I watched her helper working on the wall, the artist told me that tomorrow she’ll be applying color. I promised to swing by to check the new mural out!

Meanwhile, during my walk I discovered even more creativity along the sidewalk. Love City Heights has been working to add color and a sense of optimism to the community, and artwork now appears almost everywhere one turns. Even some boarded up windows have come alive!

I photographed several works of art that I hadn’t seen on past walks…

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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!

Beautiful fish mosaics at Piazza Pescatore.

I first blogged about Little Italy’s modest Piazza Pescatore two years ago. At the time it was relatively new. You can revisit those few photographs here.

This morning I was walking past Piazza Pescatore when my eyes were arrested by beautiful fish mosaics beneath the rim of two wide planters, and along an ascending curve of the fountain. I don’t believe all of these mosaics yet existed that first time I visited.

As I knelt to look more closely, I felt I was peering into a slice of ocean alive with bright fish.

The mosaic artist is Kim Emerson.

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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!

Star Streams at the Center for the Arts.

As you approach the front entrance of the Museum at California Center for the Arts, Escondido, you might think you’re flying through the coronas of two fiery stars. Looking down, you see beautiful Star Streams beneath your feet!

Star Streams/THRESHOLD TESSELATION is the name of some very cool artwork that was installed in front of the Museum in 2017.

The 128-square foot LithoMosaic was created by artists Robin Brailsford, Wick Alexander and Doris Bittar. It’s the first of a series titled COLD CALL/ Museum as Muse, which involves the creation of LithoMosaic plaza public artwork for six museums across the United States.

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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!

Mosaics on wall by Silver Strand nature trail.

Check out this cool mosaic art at Silver Strand State Beach!

The artwork covers one side of a low wall near a California State Parks bench, where two paths in the northeast section of the park intersect. In my photos you can see a nature trail made of wood planks heading off through scrubby coastal habitat toward San Diego Bay.

To appreciate this unusual mosaic you need to view it up close. Bits of broken tiles, sea shells and other objects have been arranged into triangles. The triangles frame clay forms of native wildlife and people. In places the mosaics have broken off. The entire wall has become weathered in such a way that the organic artwork appears even more earthy.

Try as I might, I’m unable to discover any information about this public art.

Leave a comment if you know anything!

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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!

Kids learn while having fun with pop culture!

What’s the best way for kids to learn?

By having fun!

The very cool Comic-Con Museum@Home web page continues to grow and grow! It’s now bursting with fun activities for kids–educational activities that relate to the popular culture!

Not only are there oodles of downloadable, printable Fun Books, which are jam-packed with word puzzles, mazes, instructions on how to draw comic art, and fantastic coloring pages (including some by prolific San Diego muralist Gloria Muriel), but now you can watch lots of cool videos, too!

A brand new series of videos this summer will be showing kids how to create superheroes and other pop culture characters out of folded cardboard! The tutorials are by Connor and Bauer Lee. You might remember seeing their fantastic creations during December Nights here!

The first cardboard character kids can create by following a YouTube video is Wall-E!

The Comic-Con Museum has also partnered with Balboa Park’s Fleet Science Center for a series called Pop Culture Science. Celebrating the anniversary of the popular character Sherlock Holmes, there’s a video about how TV crime shows accurately or imaginatively portray real forensic science. Additional activities include how to detect fingerprints and write with invisible ink!

Learning is always best when it’s fun!

Check out the Comic-Con Museum web page with all of these great activities by clicking here!

Bow wow? Meow? Ciao!

I love this new street art in Little Italy!

Painted on a utility box are a dog and a cat, both thinking Ciao!

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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!

Pumping sewage and Emerson’s mutable cloud.

What words would you expect to read on the side of a sewage pumping station?

Caution? Beware of spill? In case of vile stink, call an emergency phone number immediately?

Pump Station #4 in Point Loma is different. You can find it at the corner of Carleton Street and Shafter Street, near the entrance to Shelter Island. Large words on the small pump station might cause those walking by to stop and wonder. Nature is a mutable cloud which is always and never the same.

It’s a quote by transcendentalist Ralph Waldo Emerson.

If you think about it, sewage is simply another part of nature. And it’s a sort of mutable cloud, always and never the same. It’s a liquidy cloud that’s kept safely unseen and unsmelled.

This very unusual public art was created by Marcos Ramirez and Teddy Cruz. The otherwise ugly cinder block pump station was painted blue and made interesting with an adjacent sculpture of beams, and the steel lattice on two sides containing Emerson’s strangely appropriate philosophical quote.

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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!