Have you noticed a super colorful shipping container in City Heights? In a corner of the lot east of I-15, north of University Avenue? I found out its purpose yesterday!
The San Diego County Bicycle Coalition, working with Love City Heights, has created this cool little bike workshop, where they have a bicycle mechanic apprenticeship program. Donated bikes are repaired and given away to residents of the community!
I learned the shipping container was painted for free by muralist Erick Delarosa, who believes in showing love for others. That’s why he signs his work ShoLove! Learn more about him and his other work 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!
The first annual (hopefully) North Park Book Fair was held today!
Book lovers, authors, poets, artists, and everyone and anyone who loves reading, writing and creativity showed up for the two block long festival!
As you can see from the upcoming photos, North Park Way between 29th Street and Ray Street was absolutely alive!
At first I just wandered past the booths, trying to absorb it all, amazed by everything that I saw. Then I figured I’d blog about the event and began to record smiles!
Read the photo captions to learn more about what I discovered…
Not only was there live painting, local authors and small presses, but one could enjoy poetry readings, storytelling for kids, and perusing thousands of books for sale! And food, too!When I reported the street was packed, I wasn’t kidding!A friendly North Park Main Street volunteer smiles for a pic. Thanks for the great event!The San Diego Public Library had tables full of used books for sale.Friends of the San Diego Public Library smile! I’ve purchased oodles of used books at the Central Library over the years.I almost bought this book about San Diego. I have too much to read, already.Kids could draw fun comic panels at the Little Fish Comic Book Studio booth.Keithan Jones of KID Comics smiles. Look at all the cool independent comic book art he created!He did this great Wonder Woman sketch!I listened for a while as poets presented their words to the gathered crowd.Live poetry at the North Park Book Fair! This animated poet received big applause!A smile from an Accidental Aliens writer!Smiles from two Accidental Aliens artists!Beatrice Zamora wrote award-winning children’s book The Spirit of Chicano Park. She’ll be dancing at the big Danza event at Chicano Park tomorrow!Book, books, books everywhere!Armando Elizarraras created some very cool artwork based on portraits of famous authors. Check out his tattooed Edgar Allan Poe with The Tell-Tale Heart!MORE. LESS. etc. Three sequential books by artist, author and poet Ted Washington! Can poems include mathematical formulas?The folks of Write Out Loud were at the North Park Book Fair, presenting this fun, fishy Kamishibai street theatre story!Book fair goers could indicate with chalk the place where they most like to read…In bed, on the toilet, by the pool, at the beach, with a cat . . . or anyplace!The smile of superhero creator @boypoetic!Tamra L. Dempsey took photographs for the beautiful book A Journey Through Literary America! It includes literary passages by famous authors.One smile and one semi-smile. It’s all good. Keep on creating!Cynthia Diamond wrote all these Wyrd Love books. I remembered seeing her years ago at a big Liberty Station book event!Douglas W. Mengers wrote a book about San Diego Trolleys. I learned some interesting history when we chatted.This book contains lots of old images of rail transportation in San Diego.Lots to see and do at the North Park Book Fair!
There’s a special alley in Normal Heights that’s an outdoor gallery for many of San Diego’s most creative and known graffiti artists. It’s called Flash Alley. The alley is a few steps north of El Cajon Boulevard and City Heights, just east of 34th Street.
In my last blog post I shared photos of a very cool Junior Seau mural. It was painted a couple months ago at the south end of the alley.
After taking those photos, I walked north along Flash Alley and aimed my camera at lots of amazing, super colorful spray paint art. It all was painted in the last year or so.
I last visited Flash Alley in May 2020, and as you can see by comparing those old images here, all the current artwork is new. I recognized several artist signatures, including Sake, Persue and the Tortilla Crew.
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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 El Cajon Boulevard between 34th and 35th Street in the past couple months, you might have seen this incredible huge mural celebrating San Diego Chargers superstar linebacker Junior Seau!
The mural was painted in early May by the artists of Ground Floor Murals. (Two days ago I posted photos of their new Manny Machado mural in Chula Vista here.)
Junior Seau is one of San Diego’s most beloved sports heroes, an NFL football legend whose life ended tragically nine years ago. It’s hard for me to believe that almost a decade has passed already.
Ground Floor Murals is composed of Paul Jimenez and Signe Ditona, a couple who began painting murals in earnest during the COVID-19 pandemic. They now have many cool murals all around the city! Read their story at their website here.
Their awesome tribute to Junior Seau is located at the border of Normal Heights and City Heights.
If you’re wondering about the graffiti directly beneath the Junior Seau mural, that’s part of extensive new art that was spray painted in the past year or two along Flash Alley. Yesterday I also photographed the fantastic urban artwork along the long alley and I’ll be posting those pics shortly!
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Another super cool San Diego Padres mural debuted recently! This one, created last month in Chula Vista, depicts MLB baseball superstar Manny Machado with the bold words: SKY’S THE LIMIT.
I’ve already photographed a couple other Padres murals painted by Ground Floor Murals, which you can see here and here.
This awesome Manny Machado mural reflects the third baseman’s intensity and team leadership, and both his offensive and defensive prowess. The artwork was illuminated early in the morning when I walked past it.
The mural is located in Chula Vista on Third Avenue, a short distance south of E Street, on the side of the historic Vogue movie theater building.
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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!
During the COVID-19 pandemic, local artists were supported through a special initiative undertaken by the City of San Diego. The city purchased almost 100 works of art for the Civic Art Collection. The initiative was funded by a generous art lover and philanthropist.
An exhibition of this acquired artwork, titled SD PRACTICE, can now be viewed at the San Diego Art Institute in Balboa Park, and at Bread & Salt in Logan Heights.
I visited the San Diego Art Institute on Sunday to view their pieces. I noticed some of the artists are widely known, including Hugo Crosthwaite and Mario Torero.
Contemporary art is often provocative: subversive, angry, skeptical, iconoclastic. But many of the pieces I saw conveyed mostly a feeling of loneliness. Which I suppose isn’t surprising. They were created during a pandemic–a time of forced social isolation.
One canvas shows an elderly woman alone at a table set with dinner and cold smartphones. Other works–often with political messages–show people trapped alone behind borders or squares or lattices of drawn lines, or wearing masks, or concealed beneath sheets, or in shadow.
One artist’s tintypes were created with random people on the street. The artist and strangers pose together as if they are family. But the tintypes are very dim like faded dreams. And the momentary “families” weren’t real.
In one piece, an isolating smartphone has been dropped to one side, and two people lean into each other for simple human warmth.
As I walked through the gallery, one plastic chair made to appear gleaming and precious seemed inviting. But it was only one chair.
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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!
A small but wonderful Creation Station can be enjoyed in front of the Timken Museum of Art in Balboa Park this summer!
While the world-class art museum undergoes its renovation, people walking along the construction fence in the Plaza de Panama can linger at the Creation Station and be inspired!
This afternoon I paused for a bit to watch Erick Toussaint (@sidewalk_chalk_dad) work on amazing chalk art that recreates a piece in the Timken’s collection. Then I looked at the fun chalk drawings by kids and families that passed by earlier this beautiful Sunday!
Erick will be recreating some of the fine art museum’s great masterpieces every other weekend through August. Check out the museum’s page concerning the Creation Station here. On the other weekends, family’s will help design a huge outdoor mural!
Today Erick was working on reproducing Nicolas de Largillière’s elegant Portrait of Marguerite de Sève, Wife of Barthélemy-Jean-Claude Pupil, 1729. His work on the gold frame alone is stunning! As you can see, I took photos at various stages of progress during the afternoon.
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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!
Whenever I’ve driven down Nimitz Boulevard south of West Point Loma Boulevard I’ve wondered about a kinetic sculpture that rises from the street’s median.
Yesterday morning I headed to Point Loma for a better look.
The shining sculpture, titled Taiji, was created by Encinitas artist Jeffery Laudenslager. Like a silent living thing, the public art moves and changes its shape in even the slightest breeze.
Taiji was placed on the median by the Point Loma Association in 2017. Learn more about the association and their work to beautify Point Loma here.
According to the artist, Taiji is based on the Yin and Yang principle. You might say all of his kinetic pieces display a certain symmetry, considering how perfectly balanced they are.
You can see two more Jeffery Laudenslager pieces that I’ve photographed around San Diego here and here.
(It was early Saturday morning and traffic was extremely light. I was super careful that no cars were coming when I momentarily crossed the usually busy street to take a few 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!
A lively, very colorful event is going on this weekend in Barrio Logan!
Along Logan Avenue, southeast of Chicano Park, the neighborhood and local businesses are celebrating the iconic, enormously popular Mexican painter Frida Kahlo. The festive celebration is called Viva La Frida!
Early this afternoon, after enjoying the nearby Chicano Park Vive! lowrider event, I continued walking along Logan Avenue to check out Viva La Frida!
The sidewalks were full of people experiencing the colors, tastes, sounds and smells of the several blocks long festival. There was music, and lowriders, and families, and friendship, and plenty of tasty Mexican food, and lots of art on display, and vendors whose tables overflowed with Frida-themed wares. A traditional Día de los Muertos altar for Frida Kahlo honored the artist’s life.
I can only wonder what Frida would think if her spirit did indeed approach the altar and she was able to view this largely commercial event, and the endless variations of her self portraits everywhere people turn.
As I ambled along I noticed some new street murals on Logan Avenue that appear fairly new, and other street art that I’ve apparently missed during past walks. I’ll have to return in the near future, perhaps when the crowds enjoying the Viva La Frida celebration have departed and my camera has a better look.
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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!
Have you ever wondered about that mysterious shining sculpture in the traffic roundabout at the north end of Carlsbad? You know, where Carlsbad Boulevard meets State Street, just south of the Buena Vista Lagoon?
The fantastic sculpture is titled Coastal Helix. It was created by California artist Roger White Stoller in 2014. Learn more about him here.
As you drive past the silvery flame-like public artwork, watching for merging traffic, you can’t fully appreciate it.
During my walk up the Coast Highway last weekend in Carlsbad I approached Coastal Helix and took a variety of photos. You can see how small stories appear to be told in the metalwork. One sees birds, frogs, surfers, and many other lively elements all mixed together.
According to the artist’s description here: “A celebration of the Pacific Ocean and coastal lagoons, the stainless pattern incorporates abstracted imagery of local flora and fauna: a whale, pelican, heron, crab, bird-of-paradise, waves and many more elements can be discovered. Gateway to the city, it stands atop artisan boulders built by Boulderscape and designed to replicate the local sandstone cliffs…”
These coastal inhabitants all seem to have spiraled upward mysteriously from the rocks upon which the sculpture is perched.
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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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