There’s an extraordinary mural in Barrio Logan that’s tucked away in a place that’s easy to miss. It’s titled The Fish Cannery Women.
The artwork was created in 2010 by renowned muralist Mario Torero. You can find The Fish Cannery Women on Logan Avenue, on the northwest brick wall of Salud Tacos, a popular Mexican restaurant.
A description by the mural reads: “Dedicated to the thousands of multicultural women who worked in the fish canneries of Logan Heights from 1912 to 1985. Their spirit and hard work lives on. The lives of their children and our memory of them will never die.” Logan Avenue Business Association.
The Fish Cannery Women is a painted work that you might expect to see in a fine art museum. But all you have to do is walk down the sidewalk and peer beyond a couple of trees!
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Here are more photographs of fantastic art that I discovered during my recent adventure in Azalea Park.
This neighborhood on the south end of City Heights is full of surprises, with murals, sculptures and mosaics just about everywhere one turns!
If you’d like to see more public art in Azalea Park that I’ve already shared, you can click here or here or here or here.
Large mural at intersection of Poplar Street and Jamie’s Way by Gloria Muriel.Mural shows map of City Heights Urban Wilderness Trail.
If you’d like to see a detailed map of the City Heights Canyons Loop Trail, which connects four urban canyons, click here!
One of these days I’ll go hike it!
Natural beauty and wildlife one might see exploring the canyons of City Heights, including nearby Manzanita and Hollywood Canyons.Teach the Youth above graffiti and Mexican sweet bread, painted on the side of a bakery near the entrance to Azalea Park.I learned from local artist Jim Bliesner that these colorful palm trees on Poplar were originally located on University Avenue in City Heights.Murals on The Brown Building community center.Abstract mural with eyes by Isaias Crow.Mural on building’s southwest side by @SART95.A suspended leaf on a street corner. A common sight in Azalea Park, whose street names come from plants and trees.Amazing artwork on the fence of a very artistic resident of Azalea Park!Shipping containers by the playground at Azalea Community Park are covered with fantastic murals!Cool spray paint art by muralist Maxx Moses.A wall just east of the Azalea Park Water Conservation Garden has been decorated with beautiful murals. Gloria Muriel teamed with several other artists.Calla Ditos and Gloria Muriel, aka Glow.Amandalynn and Lady Mags together are known as Alynn-Mags.
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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!
There’s an outdoor sculpture garden in San Diego that very few know about. It’s called the Azalea Park Water Conservation Garden. You can find this special place in Azalea Park, a neighborhood in south City Heights, at the east end of Azalea Community Park.
Last weekend I was given a tour of the sculptures by local artist Jim Bliesner and members of the Azalea Park Mosaic League!
As you can see in my photos, all of the garden’s imaginative artwork is made of recycled materials. What I really loved is the pieces were all created by people who live in the neighborhood!
Come wander with me through this peaceful garden, down several dirt paths through native drought tolerant vegetation, and let’s see what we might discover…
A tall sculpture attracts those who are nearby. Curious eyes will discover something special.
PEACE BEACON
INSTALLED ON JUNE 12, 2016
IN HONOR OF THE VICTIMS OF THE SHOOTING THAT OCCURRED ON THIS DATE IN ORLANDO, FL.
Donated to the Azalea Park neighborhood, where people of all faiths, cultures, and ethnicities proudly live together as one community. May we shine as a beacon to the rest of the country.
Artist: Vicki Leon, 2016
Installation team: Vicki Leon, Bonnie Brooks, Jennifer Lindsey, Brent Lindsey, Aiya Lindsey, Aiden Lindsey. Title by Aiden Lindsey (10 years old).
City Heights artist Jim Bliesner stands by his fun sculpture Joy Ride. It’s made of colorfully painted car hoods!A dreamcatcher made of recycled metal objects.A bull made of old car mufflers.
“The Bull”
By Karim Carlock
Welded by Jose Orozco
I.W.U. Local 229
All the sculptures in the Azalea Park Water Conservation Garden are wonderful. Take a look at this!
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In November 2013 an incredible thing happened. Over a hundred volunteers from several neighborhoods in City Heights–Castle, Swan Canyon, Fairmount Village and Azalea Park–came together to transform a dangerous, trash-filled vacant lot into a beautiful community gathering place.
In a matter of only a few days, the Manzanita Gathering Place, which you can see in the following photographs, was born.
I was introduced to the Manzanita Gathering Place in the northeast corner of Azalea Park last weekend and was absolutely amazed. The tranquil, rustic, art-filled spot, overlooking Manzanita Canyon, made me feel as if I’d traveled faraway, to the top of a mountain crowned with ancient magic.
Four columns around a stone sitting area are covered with mosaics. About 1500 square feet of mosaic art! The columns represent the four elements: earth, air, water and fire. They also represent the hearts of the many hands that made them–community members from four adjoining urban neighborhoods.
I was told the Manzanita Gathering Place is the perfect place to watch a sunset. I did see the Ocean Discovery Institute across the canyon below. Students often walk from there into the canyon to learn about nature.
A collaboration of community organizers, government, artists, business owners, schools and diverse neighborhood residents, the Manzanita Gathering Place was a Pomegranate Project. According to the Pomegranate Center’s website, the organization helps “communities design and build art-filled gathering places. In sometimes as little as four months from first community meeting to completion of the gathering place, hundreds of volunteers would give thousands of hours planning, designing and building their park. Between 1990 and 2017, Pomegranate Center created some 60 such projects in multiple cities, states, and countries…”
The Manzanita Gathering Place design team consisted of Brennan Hubbell, Ilisa Goldman, Vicki Leon, and mentor Milenko Matanovic, founder of the Pomegranate Center. In 2015 this truly amazing project received a Merit Award from the American Society of Landscape Architects.
A very beautiful nearby mural was painted in 2018 by San Diego artists Gloria Muriel and Alexander Banach…
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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!
Some of the most extraordinary public art in San Diego can be found in Azalea Park, a neighborhood at the south end of City Heights. Walk or drive along the streets of Azalea Park and you’ll discover unexpected mosaics decorating the sides of trashcans and round sidewalk benches.
When you stop to look closely at these mosaics, it becomes evident that a great deal of effort, thought and artistry was involved in their making. The beautiful designs are truly stunning. Look at the coming photographs and see for yourself.
I was surprised to learn that all of these fantastic mosaics were created by a volunteer group of Azalea Park residents! The team of community beautifiers call themselves the Azalea Park Mosaic League!
Led by local artist Vicki Leon, members of the Azalea Park Mosaic League continue to make their neighborhood a more attractive and welcoming place.
A couple days ago I posted photos of their Art’s Popping Up mosaic sculpture on Poplar Street. If you haven’t seen that yet, click here!
Last weekend I had the opportunity to visit Vicki Leon’s art studio in Azalea Park. The following two photographs show beautiful lotus mosaics that will be installed in Little Saigon, and how she is helping friends and neighbors to create their own mosaic street address signs! Check our her website here.
Her work, and the volunteer efforts of the Azalea Park Mosaic League, can inspire us all to make our own neighborhoods more beautiful!
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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!
This afternoon a famous painting displayed in the Timken Museum of Art was turned to chalk! I witnessed part of the transformation myself, right in front of the museum in Balboa Park!
The Timken Museum’s summer weekend Creation Station event continued today. Part of the fun was a chalk art recreation of the 1557 painting Parable of the Sower, by Pieter Bruegel the Elder. Anybody walking through the Plaza de Panama could watch the chalk artist at work. If you want to compare the chalk art I photographed with the actual oil painting, click here!
The outdoor Creation Station’s amazing chalk art flows from the talented hands of @sidewalk_chalk_dad.
Unfortunately, I didn’t walk by after the artwork was completed. Use your imagination!
You can see another chalk art recreation of a painting in the Timken’s fine art collection by clicking here!
That smiling guy covered with chalk? The artist, of course!
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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!
That’s because Art’s Popping Up is the name of a welcoming mosaic sculpture in the median of Poplar Street, at the entrance to Azalea Park, a friendly community in south City Heights!
I enjoyed an inspiring tour around Azalea Park yesterday and will be blogging about lots of amazing artwork.
The bright mosaics on the four sides of Art’s Popping Up were created in 2018 by members of the community. The lead artist, Vicki Leon, has a nearby studio. A team of friends and neighbors, who go by the name Azalea Park Mosaic League, not only helped to create this fantastic sculpture, but with the help of Vicki Leon they’ve produced numerous mosaics throughout Azalea Park.
Several tiles on one side of Art’s Popping Up explain: “This mosaic celebrates art emerging from within our neighborhood. It follows the theme of the Pop Street mosaics on Poplar Street…Framed artworks pop out of an Art Nouveau background, a style of art inspired by the curved lines of plants and flowers, used here to reference Azalea Park’s botanical theme and natural canyons…The continuous rainbow of color is created from hand-cut stained glass and represents our unity and diversity…”
At the top of the tall sculpture are four words selected during meetings of community members. They are: Community, Diversity, Unity and Creativity.
I love how the rainbow of color seems to splash, curl and spurt upward along the four sides of Art’s Popping Up. The mosaic shines brilliantly in the San Diego sunshine as it greets residents going to and from their homes.
Two awesome members of the Azalea Park Mosaic League smile for a photograph of Art’s Popping Up!Azalea Park is bounded by Manzanita Canyon and Hollywood Canyon. Trails from residential streets provide easy access to nature. Images of hiking, plants and other natural elements that have been sandblasted on colorful ceramic tiles add meaning to the community mosaic.
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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!
Check out this cool new mural on the side of Matte Blvck Cuts & Shaves in North Park!
It was painted in 2021 by artist Clarione Gutierrez-Owens. He is also a live speed-painter who has performed at Downtown Disney, the San Diego Zoo, Legoland. Here’s his website.
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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!
If you’ve driven down Camino de la Reina past Westfield Mission Valley, you might have glimpsed this colorful mural painted outside the mall.
The mural resembles a blue and yellow inkblot made of flowers–you know, one of those Rorschach psychological tests where a symmetric shape, depending on your perception, might seem like either a face or a vase.
Well, this huge mural appears to me like an explosion of flowers!
A couple days ago I went to the Westfield Mission Valley shopping center to watch a movie, and to look for a series of murals that I had once read about. But this was the only one I happened to stumble upon.
It’s pretty cool, as you can see!
The artwork was created by Nick Napoletano, a widely known artist from Charlotte, North Carolina.
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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 arrived at the Danza event in Chicano Park about an hour early on Sunday, so I walked randomly around the Barrio Logan neighborhood, curious to see what I might find.
What I discovered was a lot of cool art!
Some of the murals appeared fairly new; other time-faded artwork I hadn’t observed or photographed during previous walks…
Colorful mural spray painted on side of Corner Studios Barrio Logan.La Tortuga painted on the FamilyHealth-Youth Counseling Center.The amazing front of Farallon Design in Barrio Logan.Tiles with shell designs.Ocean waves in one swelling sculptural mosaic.Colors fill a beautiful seashell.Skater girl on one side of a utility box.Devilish second side of the same box.One happy and one stubborn character painted on a third side.Amazing huge mural painted by San Diego artist Michelle Ruby, aka Mrbbaby, on wall of U-Stor-It Barrio Logan.Fun graphic by entrance to Barrio Cuts Barbershop by @paradigmartworks.Pig on a box.Mexican dancers painted on ¡SALUD TACOS! by ShoLove.Aztec figures brighten the restaurant’s black exterior, again by ShoLove.Barrio Logan building on Logan Avenue painted by graffiti artist Dave “Persue” Ross.BunnyKitty among other fun characters.I’ve seen this fearsome simian in other Persue artwork. Don’t know his name.Big eyes above the door of Hola Swim.All sorts of murals on either side of a construction site on Logan Avenue.Young smiling face on tiles at the Chicano Federation of San Diego County Barrio Logan Child Development Center.A second face at left side of front entrance. I think this art might be by Mario Torero.Very colorful spray painted fence by local Chicana artist Jessica Petrikowski.Painted silhouettes of cacti and bird of prey.Painted skeletons on boards appear to be by Mexican artist Mizar Martin (MZR MRTN).Feline eyes by Ground Floor Murals.Feline mouth by Ground Floor Murals.Trashcan in front of San Diego Fire-Rescue Department Station 7 painted with a firefighter skull!Family rides bike on a nearby electrical box.More street art with bright sunny abstract designs.Other side of the same box.Smiling mural in alley remembers a departed loved one.
UPDATE!
Here’s a couple more from a later walk…
By artist C. Castaneda, 2018.I believe this mural is by artist Sand One.
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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!
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