The winter solstice occurred early this morning. The days will now begin to grow longer. Christmas is nearly here.
On the beach by the Hotel del Coronado, Bill Pavlacka, The Sandcastle Man, created a unique sand sculpture today that pays tribute to the 2024 winter solstice!
His fun sand sculpture, and another that rises a few steps away, also celebrate the holiday season! Season’s Greetings!
This is the 17th year that The Sandcastle Man has been making sand sculptures in Coronado. Whenever I walk along the ocean side of the Del, I always look for his latest creation!
Some photographs…
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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.
In 2022, the Native and Indigenous Healing Garden debuted at San Diego State University, to one side of the Communication Building. The circular garden, which also serves as an outdoor classroom, is filled with healing herbs that can be freely harvested. Life grows in sunshine around a central stone fountain.
The plants in the garden represent various indigenous cultures: the Kumeyaay, the Aztecs, the Mixtecs and Zapotecs, and other indigenous people in California and Mesoamerica.
Painted beside the garden on one side of the Communication Building, visitors will also find a large, very beautiful mural.
This website provides details about the 30’ x 60’ mural: Designed by students as part of an Arts Alive SDSU project by History Professor Paula DeVos and Art Professor Eva Struble, the artwork includes various plants, animals, and designs with deep ties to Native Indigenous culture throughout California and Mesoamerica.
If I lived near SDSU, I know I’d walk by frequently, simply to sit on the shady bench you see in my photographs. One feels drawn to this healing garden, the smell of sage and other life springing from the earth, and the quiet beauty of the place.
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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.
Jewels of the Season has returned to the Timken Museum of Art in Balboa Park. The elegant lobby of the museum is decorated with over a thousand of jewel-like ornaments, creating perhaps the finest, most dazzling indoor Christmas display in San Diego!
Take a look at these photos. I’ll let you judge for yourself.
These one-of-a-kind ornaments were hand crafted by artists Florence Hord and Elizabeth Schlappi over the course of decades. Many of these precious works of art include colorfully embroidered and sequined patches that feature the San Diego Zoo, the Padres, the Star of India and other local attractions.
Visitors might stand in the museum lobby and simply stare with astonishment at the richly decorated Christmas tree, or the ceiling from which many ornaments hang like glittering stars.
Jewels of the Season can be freely enjoyed during the Timken‘s open hours until December 29, 2024. If you love Christmas, it’s a can’t miss for the entire family!
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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.
Have you visited the downtown studio of San Diego artist James Watts (@jewattso)? The experience will blow your mind!
I’m personally inspired by James Watts. Like a perpetual motion machine, he happily creates, creates and creates. His studio is so jam-packed with creative genius that you don’t know in which direction to turn your eyes.
That’s going to be more true than ever, because he’s now in the middle of a new project. He’s creating 100 Paintings!
James showed me his work yesterday when I happened to walk by the open door of his magical studio. He has finished 18 of the 100 paintings so far.
His paintings are in groups of five; each group includes a still life, a nude, a portrait, a cityscape, and a symbolic or literary painting. He intentionally emulates the styles of different famous painters.
Gazing about his studio, you’ll notice that many works of art–paintings and sculptures–depict characters from classic novels, history or mythology. When he was a kid, James loved to sit in the library and read comic books and magazines. Today, as an accomplished visual artist, he brings the written word to life in new, fantastic ways.
For some reason, James reminds me of science fiction and fantasy author Ray Bradbury. His energetic love of life. His love of everything–from pop culture to the classics. His smile and enthusiasm.
Up next is a painting showing James Watts’ studio. Do you recognize it? Look for the art-filled windows (and his cats) in downtown San Diego on 7th Avenue between C Street and Broadway.
A couple of photos of new paintings inside the studio…
The next photo shows a painting inspired by Franz Kafka’s The Metamorphosis! (Lying next to it is a lamppost just outside the studio.)
James loves to use wood and other materials for his myriad projects. The next photo shows wood block finger puppets painted with images from the Epic of Gilgamesh!
Endless wonders fill the downtown studio of San Diego artist James Watts!
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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.
If you love whimsical, inventive works of art, head over to Spanish Village Art Center in Balboa Park. The walls of Gallery 21 are now bursting with happily tipsy, distorted watercolor paintings known as Skinny Art. Skinny Art is the specialty of San Diego artist Mark Smith!
Buildings, rooftops and landscapes tilt every which way in Mark’s delightfully elongated images. While his perspectives might be dizzy and uncertain, his sharp watercolors are minutely detailed–he paints over pencils. One might say his unique art is kind of realistic, kind of surreal.
Mark also creates totem-like sculptures containing old objects from years past. When I viewed these skinny sculptures I felt a sweet rush of nostalgia. You must see them with your own eyes! Then perhaps bring some great artwork home–all the pieces in Gallery 21 are available for purchase.
Mark is a super cool guy who loves to talk with those visiting the gallery. I really enjoyed my visit a few days ago!
You need to step into Gallery 21 by December 16, 2024, which is the final day of this very cool exhibition.
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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 big, very fun mural is now being painted on a long wall in Chula Vista! The artwork, which appears to be almost competed, can be seen by San Diego trolley Blue Line passengers along the tracks north of the E Street station.
The mural is part of the ongoing MTS Color the Corridor project. The design is by prolific Southern California artist Michelle Ruby (aka Mr B Baby). With a colorful Mexican flavor, the mural contains doll-like characters that one often finds in her artwork. You’ve likely seen her murals all over San Diego.
The painted wall is in the trolley right-of-way and cannot be approached on foot. I took these photos through the slightly dirty window of a moving trolley this morning. They show small but notable parts of the long mural. I had to enhance the images to make them less blurry…
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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.
Those walking through or waiting for a bus at the Boulevard Transit Plaza in City Heights might feel inclined to pause for a moment. This landmark bus station on El Cajon Boulevard over Interstate 15 features colorful public art and a collection of historical photographs.
The large transit plaza is split in two, divided by El Cajon Boulevard. Opposite sides serve east and west bound buses. Stairs and elevators also descend to Interstate 15 below where passengers can catch Route 235 rapid buses.
Public art and photographs are found on both sides of the split plaza. On either end of each platform, a post is decorated with colorful mosaics and dedicated to an adjacent community. The four communities served by the Boulevard Transit Center are Normal Heights, Kensington, Corridor and Teralta West.
I recently got off a Route 215 rapid bus at this stop to walk around the plaza. The artwork I’ve photographed here was installed in the past year or two–if you know more about the project, please leave a comment!
(There’s additional public art on the freeway level platforms–both here and at the nearby City Heights Transit Center–that I’ll document at some future time.)
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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.
I took these photographs this morning while it was still dark. They show new public artwork in downtown San Diego. My camera was placed up against the construction fence surrounding the not-yet-opened Progress Park (at the corner of Broadway and Harbor Drive) at the new RaDD complex.
This very cool sculpture, which is illuminated in the night, is titled Shhh Pavilion: The Hopekeeper.
Yes, that’s an interesting name! Even more interesting is the fact that the sculpture’s geometric structure utilizes Voronoi tessellation.
Huh? What?
Learn more about this sculpture, Voronoi tessellation and this new public park coming to San Diego’s waterfront by visiting a past blog post by clicking here!
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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.
Cool San Diego Sights! 