Tag: artwork

Regional artists inspire at Oceanside Museum of Art.

Want to be inspired? Head up to the Oceanside Museum of Art!

The museum’s 2022 Artist Alliance Biennial will probably take your breath away, with its many works of outstanding art. The pieces were all created by regional artists; of about 900 entries juried, only 61 were accepted. The exhibit will continue through May 1, 2022.

As I moved through the gallery yesterday, I thought about human potential and began to feel little overwhelmed.

There’s no end to the creativity that can issue from human contemplation and imagination. Our potential is truly infinite.

But life is so very short.

It occurred to me that in one passing life, eyes can see very little–an infinitesimal fraction of the entire world and all the incredible art ever made, and that will ever or could ever be made.

Oh, to see it all, go everywhere, do everything . . .

The minutes I spent at the Oceanside Museum of Art were very sweet.

At the Heart of Life’s Journey, 2021, Cathy Carey. Oil on linen.
Ascent in Yellow, 2021, Fiona Phillips. Oil and copper leaf.
Marionette Puppet #4, 2020, Linda Phillips. Oil on canvas.
Laguna Boys, 2022, Kimberleigh Wood. Oil on 2.5″ wood boxed panel.
El Gallo Rojo, 2021, Frank Vining. Epoxy fiberglass and sculpting epoxy.
Free as a Bird, 2021, Sue DeWulf. Low fire ceramic sculptural assemblage.
Coming Up Roses, 2020, Roberta Dyer. Mixed media on canvas.
Park Under a Golden Night, 2021, Duke Windsor. Acrylic and applied imitation gold leaf.
There Goes Mom, 2020, Lisa Bebi. Acrylic and mixed media on canvas.
Sick King, 2015, Kenda Francis. Mixed acrylic media on canvas.

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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!

Van Gogh paints sunflowers in Oceanside!

Famous painter Vincent Van Gogh is frequently encountered in Oceanside, at the south end of Artist Alley. He’s filling a canvas with sunflowers.

I saw him today, and his painting appears almost finished!

The last time I took photos in Artist Alley, which I posted here, Van Gogh was nowhere to be seen.

The fun artwork, which unfortunately has been vandalized, is signed Snyder.

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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!

New art arrives at 47th Street trolley station!

The 47th Street station of the San Diego Trolley has newly painted public art! A mural along a low wall beside one platform is the work of San Diego artist Maxx Moses.

I stepped off the Orange Line today and took photographs of the cool new artwork!

According to this article, the long mural you are looking at is titled Seamless. Its theme is human connectivity through transit. I see that differently colored patterns combine and link to one another.

I’m not sure whether this artwork is completed. I’ll swing by during a future city adventure to see what might develop.

You can experience more art by Maxx Moses at three other San Diego Trolley stations, here and here and 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!

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Excalibur rises sharply in downtown San Diego!

A black sculpture rises skyward at the entrance to the Edward J. Schwartz Federal Building in downtown San Diego. Composed of triangular steel forms, the sculpture and its sharp edges pierce the space around it. The monumental public artwork is titled Excalibur.

Excalibur was created in 1976 by Beverly Stoll Pepper, whose pieces have been exhibited and collected by major museums around the world. Beverly Pepper passed away two years ago, but her unique artistic vision continues to enrich our lives.

I walked around Excalibur recently and took these photographs. It was interesting how joined triangles, observed from different angles, produce very different images. It’s like how the larger world, composed of basic elemental structures, achieves its complexity.

The sharp, jutting steel seems to have emerged from underground. And doesn’t the sculpture look almost like folded origami?

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Another colorful mosaic wall in National City!

Colorful mosaic art can be found all around Kimball Park in National City. I spotted this wall covered with cheerful mosaics during one of my recent adventures in the South Bay.

The low wall, on the north side of Kimball Park, is filled with bright, beautiful trees and houses and animals and musical notes. The designs are fashioned from tiles, bits of ceramic and glass. I believe it was another project of A Reason To Survive (ARTS) whose building rises just a few steps to the north.

The lighting wasn’t ideal with alternating bright sunlight and shadow, and the artwork appeared dulled by time and weather, so I’ve altered my photographs slightly, in an attempt to make the colors more vibrant.

You can check out several other amazing mosaics in the immediate area by clicking here or here or 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!

Memory Traces: art inspired by La Jolla history.

There’s a fascinating exhibition now showing at the La Jolla Historical Society’s Wisteria Cottage Gallery. San Diego artists, after viewing artifacts in the La Jolla Historical Society’s archives, have created pieces that are inspired and informed by the past. The exhibition is titled Memory Traces: Artists Transform the Archive.

I visited the gallery inside the historic Wisteria Cottage yesterday. It’s free to the public and worth the time if you’re curious about local history or the creative process–or philosophy.

According to the La Jolla Historical Society’s description here: The exhibition draws its title from a 1925 essay by Sigmund Freud, in which he explored the way remembrance functions . . . The exhibition proposes that the archives’ contemporary value may, in fact, lie in its malleability . . . for critique, for expanding understandings of experience and of history, for transformation, and the creation of new narratives…

As I walked about looking at the pieces, I could see how this world we live in is a continuum, where past, present and future are entangled and inseparable, not unlike all the moments in our own lives.

I took photos of two examples of the artwork…

Historical photo of Spanish artist Eduardo Chillida’s sculpture Our Father’s House, installed in La Jolla Village in 1989 as part of an outdoor art exhibition. A study for a larger work later installed in Guernica, Spain, honoring lives lost during the Spanish Civil War.
their father’s house, by artist Joe Yorty, 2022. A wood replica with photos and newspaper clippings concerning the building, movement and destruction of local buildings. An homage to past lives, including the artist’s own father.
Cloth banner with words Matinee Today that was once used at La Jolla’s historic Granada Theatre.
Matinee Today, by artist Allison Wiese, 2021. Photos of material from the past being used in present life in many different ways. The past persists. Nothing ever truly goes away.

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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 huge wall of flowers in North Park!

Have you seen that huge wall of colorful flowers in North Park?

I glimpsed the artwork in passing a few days ago, so this morning I got a better look!

The mural, by Hanna of @HannasMurals, was painted last year on the parking lot wall at Dave’s Flower Box. It’s hard to miss these gigantic blooms near the intersection of Texas Street and El Cajon Boulevard.

Check it out!

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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!

Fun trashcan tile art at J Street Viewpoint!

Check out this fun artwork on trashcans at the J Street Viewpoint in Encinitas!

I saw this public art during my last walk in Encinitas.

While enjoying the J Street Viewpoint park that overlooks the ocean, I also photographed a plaque remembering John Denver, which you can see here, and an extraordinary sculpture titled Humanity, which you can see here.

I don’t know anything about these trashcans. It appears the tiles were painted by community members, including lots of kids. If you know anything, please leave a comment!

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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!

Connecting with beautiful Humanity in Encinitas.

There’s an extraordinary bronze sculpture in Encinitas at a place that overlooks the wide blue Pacific Ocean. It’s titled Humanity.

Head west on J Street until you can go no farther, then up the steps to the J Street Viewpoint. Keep your eyes open.

The beautiful sculpture was created in 2013 by Del Mar artist Maidy Morhous. It was installed in the park in 2018. The sculpture was commissioned by local filmmaker Sue Vicory of Heartland Films, whose film “One” explores human connectivity.

You can read more about this artwork’s inspiration here.

Humanity is part of the Encinitas Public Art Collection.

Look at these photos. Touch them with your eyes.

One touch forever connects us with Humanity.

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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!

Bright, colorful butterflies fill National City parks!

Giant butterflies take flight in the blue sky above three National City parks!

Should you visit Butterfly Park, Kimball Park or Las Palmas Park, you’re certain to spot many large butterfly wings! The colorful sculptures were created in 2015 by families throughout the National City community.

Every butterfly is composed of two pieces of cut aluminum, and the separate sides of each butterfly are uniquely decorated with different colors of reflective vinyl tape. I’ve been told that car headlights shining on the butterflies at night reveal bright bursts of life!

The project, led by local artist Roberto Salas, is called Butterfly Path. Its creation was made possible through a commission from the San Diego Museum of Art’s “Open Spaces” program, supported by a grant from the James Irvine Foundation.

The first time I spotted some of these butterflies–last year at Kimball Park–I didn’t know a thing about them. Comments made by readers provided great information. Revisit that old blog post here.

Since then I’ve seen more of the beautiful sculptures, and have learned more about them, particularly during an amazing tour of Butterfly Park, which you can read about by clicking here.

These artistic butterflies symbolize an ongoing metamorphosis in National City. The transformation is to an even more proud, healthy and environmentally friendly community that shines with greater and greater beauty.

Here are just some of the butterflies you might encounter, in no particular order…

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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!