Tag: artists

Bay to Park Paseo arriving in San Diego!

An epic art project along Park Boulevard has begun to take form in downtown San Diego!

The Bay to Park Paseo is a planned 1.7 mile walking experience that will connect San Diego Bay to Balboa Park. The massive, temporary art installation is being created by local artists and designers, to celebrate the selection of San Diego/Tijuana as World Design Capital 2024!

Today I noticed one section of the Bay to Park Paseo being installed just south of the City College trolley station. Local artist Armando De La Torre (@guavasufi) was putting up images on a construction fence on the east side of Park Boulevard.

You can see how the entire Bay to Park Paseo will appear here.

That big old trolley and other images I discovered are part of the Zone 8 artwork, which will express the block’s mobility and walkability throughout time… Four 20 feet wide panels will include a mixture of photos, drawings and text in a 3D shadowbox format. They will depict the evolution of San Diego, from small settlement to metropolis.

The artist Armando De La Torre was born in Tijuana, Mexico and lives in Chula Vista. Among his other accomplishments, he teaches homeless kids art at Father Joe’s Villages!

The urban designer for this particular section of the Bay to Park Paseo is native San Diegan Howard Blackson.

The property behind the fence, owned by Kilroy Realty, is the site of a future tech hub.

Stay tuned as I follow this exciting project!

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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 (formerly known as Twitter)!

Two murals: National City and Be Kind.

There are two large, colorful murals painted on the former location of PROJX2PRINT in National City.

On the north side of the building are the words National City. Palm trees rise under a sky filled with sunset colors.

A second cool mural on the south wall of the building encourages us to Be Kind. The art is part of #ACallForKindness.

Both murals were created by @KIDWISEMAN and can be viewed on Highland Avenue south of 16th Street.

Check it out!

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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)!

Champagne bubbles fly in Hillcrest!

Enormous champagne bubbles are flying up the wall of a Hillcrest liquor store!

Bubbles Market & Spirits had this huge mural created last year by San Diego artist Jeremy “Jermz” (@jm47art). Here’s his Instagram page.

It’s a bubbly work of art that definitely attracts the attention of passersby! I thought you might enjoy seeing it, too!

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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)!

Dean, Rosie, Nat and Sinatra appear in National City!

Four legendary singers are coming to National City. Dean Martin, Rosie Hamlin, Nat King Cole and Frank Sinatra are gradually materializing outside Cafe La Maze Streakhouse!

Check out this amazing spray paint mural that is being created by Paul Jimenez and Signe Ditona of Ground Floor Murals!

Most people know Dean Martin, Nat King Cole and Frank Sinatra. But do you recognize the name Rosie Hamlin?

Rosalie “Rosie” Hamlin was lead singer of Rosie and the Originals. The musical group’s 1960 hit single Angel Baby is now considered an oldies standard. Versions of the song has been recorded by numerous famous artists, including John Lennon and Linda Ronstadt.

Rosie Hamlin wrote Angel Baby while attending Sweetwater High School in National City!

Very cool!

Curious about all the squiggles and tiny figures in the mural? Ground Floor Murals begins painting their artwork this unique way.

Next time I walk by it, I’ll take photos of the completed mural and post them as an update.

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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)!

Art at Wellness Garden in Southeast San Diego.

A beautiful new Wellness Garden opened last year in Southeast San Diego!

The sunny, park-like space, filled with colorful art, is located outside the new Southeastern Live Well Center in Valencia Park. The garden can be freely accessed by anyone via a pathway on the south side of the large health and social services facility.

A plaque near the pathway indicates that the garden’s public art was created by Jean Cornwell Wheat. It’s titled Spirit of the Community featuring Bird Song. Additional information is provided:

Commissioned; painted and mosaic embellished totems; concrete, poured resin, lime stones.

Artist Statement: These totems represent the community cultures of African American, Mexican/Chicano, Latin American, Filipino, Polynesian, and Asian. The final meditation totem is the artist’s personal statement of peace, love and unity. The centerpiece, Bird Song, represents the Kumeyaay Nation’s symbol of the oak tree. Images on the four sides symbolize earth, air, fire, and water.

Across the Market Street from the Southeastern Live Well Center, at the Malcolm X Branch Library and Performing Arts Center, a beautiful mosaic was created by the same artist. You can see it 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 X (formerly known as Twitter)!

Stepping Beyond at the Southeastern Live Well Center!

The Southeastern Live Well Center opened last year in Valencia Park, an urban community in Southeast San Diego. The impressive facility, which provides a wide range of health and social services, features diverse works of art, both inside and outside.

Take a look at the inspiring bronze sculpture that stands at the front entrance of the Southeastern Live Well Center. Stepping Beyond is dated 2023.

The artist Manuelita Brown’s statement is on a plaque at the base of the sculpture. Her words include: This sculpture signifies a human being pressing beyond current circumstances, leaving one space toward another while moving an obstacle out of the way… Eight medallions representing the flora of cultural identities in the community adorn the banner to represent our diversity and commonality.

You can see more very fine sculptures by local artist Manuelita Brown by clicking here and here and here and here!

(I walked around the perimeter of this large San Diego County facility last weekend and discovered a Wellness Garden filled with very colorful artwork. I’ll blog 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 X (formerly known as Twitter)!

New dreams, same Normal Heights corner!

Dreams live in Normal Heights on the corner of Felton Street and Adams Avenue. These dreams are given life by artists.

But dreams are fleeting. They eventually fade; new dreams appear.

I photographed different dreamlike street art on this San Diego corner almost seven years ago. The group of electrical boxes has been decorated for as long as I can remember. Some of the past artwork was nightmarish. See those old photos here.

New, happier dreams have been painted since then.

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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)!

Creating clouds full of energy in San Diego!

Inspired artist James Watts works in downtown San Diego. His studio is a fantasyland jammed wall to wall with amazing creativity. I like to swing on by occasionally to see what he’s up to!

Having finished his whittled fingers and toes project, James is now sewing together one hundred pillow-like clouds. Not ordinary clouds, mind you, but ones that gather and radiate orgone life energy like a battery!

James, whose creativity has no limit, intends to use the finished clouds to form a portal–an art installation on a wall where people can experience heavenly orgone energy. The carefully handsewn clouds are made of canvas, filled with steel wool and cotton, and painted in twenty shades of blue. It’s the same canvas the artist used for his fantastic Jekyll and Hyde project.

James explained that artists are like alchemists. They transform otherwise ordinary materials into things of immense value. Of course, he’s exactly right.

His unique visual art stirs up complex, subtle ideas. His surprising art inspires those who gaze upon it with an open heart and mind.

James Watts has also painted clouds–like ancient wisdom–on scrolls!

Check out his whittled fingers and toes, the cool project that preceded his clouds…

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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)!

Padres baseball windglyphs return to San Diego!

Three colorful banners that celebrate the early history of the San Diego Padres returned in late October to Lane Field Park! I’ve noticed them flying near the corner of Harbor Drive and Broadway during recent Embarcadero walks.

Thanks to the nearby InterContinental Hotel, these windglyphs, depicting Pacific Coast League (PCL) San Diego Padres baseball players Ted Williams and Eddie Erautt, have replaced the originals that eventually became weather-beaten after debuting in 2017. The windglyphs are titled Spirits of the West Wind. They were designed by local artist Lisa Schirmer.

If you’d like to learn more about the inspiration behind these beautiful windglyphs, and see photographs taken the day the originals were first raised, click 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 X (formerly known as Twitter)!

Superheroes, supervillains lurk in Balboa Park!

The world of Batman features crazy, mad characters. So it’s not surprising that superheroes Batman, Batgirl and the supervillain Mad Hatter are lurking in one of Balboa Park’s most crazily creative corners: the San Diego Sculptors Guild courtyard in Spanish Village!

Batman and Batgirl together form a bench on which anybody can sit. Snap a selfie with two legendary heroes! The artwork, titled Bats United, was built by artist Kim Ogburn.

Across the courtyard of sculptures, a Mad Hatter chair invites fans of DC Comics supervillains. It’s the Mad Hatter Chatterchair!

Are you an Alice in Wonderland fan? Perhaps this Mad Hatter isn’t part of Batman’s rogues gallery, but merely mad. The chair might make the perfect accessory for a Mad Tea Party!

Both fun seats are for sale outside Studio 36, home of the San Diego Sculptors Guild!

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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)!