Make art or make a difference. I saw those words this morning as I walked past the window of James Watts’ downtown art studio.
Several faces were also peering from the window.
I was fortunate to meet this renowned local artist and explore his absolutely incredible studio a couple years ago.
If you’d like to have a peek inside James Watts’ creative wonderland, you can revisit my old blog post by clicking 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!
I learned yesterday during a Pacific Beach mural walk that there are exciting plans to restore San Diego’s most iconic downtown mural!
Artist Kathleen King, co-creator of the America’s Finest City mural in 1989, informed our group that the historic mural’s restoration will be done in conjunction with SANDAG’s San Diego Forward “5 Big Moves” initiative.
As I understand it, the America’s Finest City mural will be a centerpiece for the planned Fifth Avenue trolley station Mobility Hub!
Very cool!
The iconic America’s Finest City mural in downtown San Diego.
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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!
One of many great works of art a group learns about during a guided mural walk in Pacific Beach.
Today I was lucky to go on a really cool guided mural walk in Pacific Beach! The tour was led by Leslie Dufour of beautifulPB, which is a volunteer organization formed by PB residents and businesses who are working to create a sustainably beautiful Pacific Beach. You can learn more about beautifulPB by visiting their website here.
During the walk, I learned that the folks of beautifulPB have a PB Murals program, and they’re looking to add even more public art to their already colorful community.
The murals we saw today were all fantastic, and there were many that I hadn’t seen during my various Pacific Beach walks over the years. We even got to meet one the artists, Kathleen King. She painted an iconic PB mural that you will see in my upcoming photographs, plus the landmark America’s Finest City mural in downtown San Diego!
Today’s amazing tour began in a small courtyard area behind Randall’s Sandals on Garnet Avenue, where we learned from Leslie Dufour about the history of murals, particularly their early 20th century renaissance in Mexico led by artists Diego Rivera, José Clemente Orozco and David Alfaro Siqueiros. That movement continues to influence muralists today.
After the fascinating presentation our group embarked on a looping walk of perhaps a mile or less. Future walks featuring additional murals are planned!
Thank you to Yerba Mate Bar & Empanadas, where we paused to enjoy some vegan treats that were really delicious! They intend to turn their outdoor courtyard space into a Pacific Beach arts center. Very cool!
Okay, let’s see some photos! Read the captions!
Our group heads through the beautifully painted walkway of Randall’s Sandals, where the long mural opens up for all to see.We learn about the history of murals beside the work of muralist Jared Blake Lazar.Mural by @MatthewMillington depicts a very colorful Quetzalcoatl, the feathered serpent diety of ancient Mesoamerican people.A mermaid mural by @LovePaperPaint (Katie Gaines) is inspired by the traditional La Sirena image in Mexican Lotería.This female superhero mural was painted by artist MDMN (John Moody) during a past San Diego Comic-Con.Our group meets prolific artist Kathleen King, whose 1988 mural was painted from a 1943 photo of Garnet Avenue, looking west toward Crystal Pier.Nearby plaque explains this mural depicts the corner of Cass Street and Garnet Avenue as it was in 1943.The historic brick building in this iconic PB mural still stands on the street corner.And here is that building!John Lennon with a daisy in his eye. A cool mural on the side of Five Guys that was painted in 2006 by Steve Gorrow, Creative Director of Insight Clothing.Left side of fantastic shark mural at Even Keel Tattoo, by artists Nate Banuelos and Kyle Walker.Right side of the same mural, which contains romantic, sea-themed elements.Learning about one of Pacific Beach’s many beautiful, creative murals during a guided walk!
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Look what I spotted this evening as I walked through Seaport Village!
A cool sculpture titled Positivitree!
The tree-like thing appeared very peculiar from the distance–almost like fish bones–but as I got nearer I saw all sorts of objects including trashy plastic items had been recycled by the artist to create happy, colorful fish and other marine life! This super creative art features a positive environmental message!
According to a nearby sign, Positivitree was created by Rodney McCoubrey with the Surfrider Foundation San Diego Chapter.
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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!
Another super cool exhibition opened this evening in Balboa Park at the future home of the Comic-Con Museum!
Sense of Wonder: The Art of WonderCon Anaheim features a gallery full of original artwork used for the covers of WonderCon program books. Many top comic artists have created these covers over the years, and visitors this evening were admiring sketches, thumbnails and finished pieces by the likes of Jim Lee, Dan Jurgens, and many others.
Before everyone filtered into the gallery, the 2020 WonderCon program book cover by artist Jen Bartel, winner in 2019 of an Eisner Award, was revealed: a stunning rendition of Wonder Woman with her golden Lasso of Truth! There was applause all around!
This great exhibition will be open to public on select dates through May 31, 2020. If you’re in San Diego and love either WonderCon or Comic-Con, or if you have kids who love superheroes–particularly DC characters like Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman–don’t miss it!
Follow the Comic-Con Museum’s Facebook page here for more info!
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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!
Sculpture of two people holding hands on sidewalk.
Yesterday, as I walked past the National City Public Library, I paused to look at some fun art on the sidewalk. Then I noticed a wise quote in many languages printed on a monumental wall at the building’s front entrance.
In many languages: I always imagined that Paradise will be a kind of Library. Jorge Luis BorgesFun street art near the library.
Las Aventuras de Dehdohz en Casa.Read.Many faces.
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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!
One of my walks today was an easy loop through National City, which included a stretch of the Mile of Cars.
I ventured up National City Boulevard, north of Mile of Cars Way, wondering what I might discover. I knew I’d pass many car dealerships and parking lots filled with thousands of vehicles. But would I see any street art?
The few examples of art that I found were colorful and very cool!
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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!
Today I took two short walks in the South Bay. One of my modest adventures was near the Imperial Beach Pier.
I noticed that on Seacoast Drive, across from the pier, Bibbey’s gift shop now has two very cool murals, one painted on the south wall and one on the north. Both are super creative and contain all sorts of abstract characters, including kooky surfers, a mermaid, and what appear to be faceless underwater ball players!
That mural with elements from pop culture that I blogged about almost six years ago here seems to be long gone. Only the shark remains at the building’s southwest corner–an updated and rather fierce version!
UPDATE!
About a year later I walked past Bibbey’s again and took more photos…
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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!
More, 2019, by Sheena Rae Dowling. Luminous sculpture in a darkened space depicts the scan of a healthy brain with normal rhythmic functions.
Art and science have much in common. Both explore deep mysteries and seek essential truths. Both often take paths that are complex. Both produce results that are often surprising.
A new exhibition at the San Diego Art Institute in Balboa Park explores the intersection of art and science. Illumination, 21st Century Interactions With Art and Science and Technology features thought-provoking pieces by 26 artists, many of whom were inspired by personal interactions with local scientists and technologists. Themes explored include Global Health and Discovery, Climate Change and Sustainability, and Technology and the Touch Screen.
Many of the pieces concern biology and biotechnology. That isn’t surprising. San Diego is a world center of biotech research. Many of the scientists who’ve inspired this artwork are making breakthrough discoveries at local institutions, like UC San Diego and the Salk Institute for Biological Studies.
If you want to be stimulated, step through the door of the San Diego Art Institute. Bop about this exhibition like a particle undergoing Brownian motion or a dawning Artificial Intelligence. You’ll encounter illuminating artwork that really opens your eyes and mind.
Don’t be left in the dark! Illumination turns off after May 3, 2020.
Illumination, 21st Century Interactions With Art and Science and Technology, lights up the San Diego Art Institute in Balboa Park.Moving through a gallery full of strangeness. Complex mysteries and unseen realities surround and penetrate us all.Nucleus 1, 2019, by Anne Mudge. Artistic wire representation of folded strands of DNA, which in reality are about 6.5 feet long and packed inside a cell’s microscopic nucleus.Leap of Faith, 2019, by Becky Robbins. Art, like science, begins with an idea that leads to questions. Links between considered elements appear. Some connections are obvious, others are vague.building, 2019, by Beliz Iristay. Deaf adults without a linguistic foundation early in life have altered neural structure, with long-term effects on mastery of complex grammar.Chromosome 22, 2020, by Cy Kuckenbaker. The artwork includes a book-like printout of some 10,000 pages of a data sequence in the smallest of 23 human chromosomes.Shining Palimpsest, by Young Joon Kwak. I, you, she, he, they, we, it–words that are tangled, twisted, sometimes uncertain. Who we are and how we are viewed depends on perspective.
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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!
Cool San Diego Sights! 