Tag: artwork

Heart and art on National Dog Day!

Today is National Dog Day!

What a perfect time open your heart and adopt a furry friend. Or provide a little help to your local animal shelter.

In San Diego, you might consider a visit to the San Diego Humane Society or Helen Woodward Animal Center. Adopt a rescue animal, donate or even volunteer. Click the above links!

In celebration of National Dog Day, please enjoy this collection of fun photographs.

I’ve captured all sorts of dog-themed art during my random walks around the city. Whenever I spot murals or street art featuring cute canines, my camera is on it!

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This blog now features thousands of photos around San Diego! Are you curious? There’s lots of cool stuff to check out!

Here’s the Cool San Diego Sights main page, where you can read the most current blog posts.  If you’re using a phone or small mobile device, click those three parallel lines up at the top–that opens up my website’s sidebar, where you’ll see the most popular posts, a search box, and more!

To enjoy future posts, you can also “like” Cool San Diego Sights on Facebook or follow me on Twitter.

Murals fill Escondido alley with art!

Numerous amazing murals now fill an alley in downtown Escondido. The multi-phase project is called Esco Alley Art, and I had to check it out last weekend!

Artists have painted all sorts of colorful images, which are displayed in an alley just south of Grand Avenue and east of Maple Street. Some of the murals depict Escondido attractions, such as Cruisin’ Grand and the San Diego Zoo Safari Park. This expanding outdoor gallery is presented by the Escondido Art Association and the Escondido Downtown Business Association.

Phase II of the project was unveiled a little over a week ago. The vision is to keep adding more art, eventually expanding the outdoor gallery into other alleys!

Learn all about Esco Alley Art on its website here. You can see each mural and read about the artists, many of whom live in Escondido.

I walked along the alley admiring the diverse artwork while snapping these 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!

Fun art at the Ramona Pony Baseball Fields.

I arrived at the Ramona Country Fair about half an hour before it opened on Sunday, so I continued walking beyond the fairground and explored the nearby Ramona Pony Baseball Fields.

As I wandered among various structures next to the ball fields, I discovered this fun artwork depicting baseball players in action.

At first glance the art might seem simple or generic, but upon closer inspection each small work has really great personality!

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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!

Mystery art at the County Administration Building!

I’m sure somebody out there knows the story behind the above art. Even after extensive searches on the internet, it’s a mystery to me!

Two identical artworks are mounted on the north and south side of San Diego’s 1938 County Administration Building. Whenever I walk near the building, I look up at these medallion-like discs and try to figure out what is depicted.

This morning I finally took zoom photos. Now that I can scrutinize the design up close, I’m still baffled. The anchor suggests the design has a maritime theme.

If I had to guess, the art combines a 1930’s era flying boat splashing down on nearby San Diego Bay with the sail of a Chinese junk. The latter type of fishing boat was commonly seen on the bay in the early days of San Diego.

Or I might be completely wrong!

The best source I can find that describes the County Administration Building’s external ornamentation is a San Diego County government publication titled Bridging the Centuries: The Jewel on the Bay. Read it here. Check out page 20. Everything on the building’s exterior is described . . . all except this mystery artwork!

It appears to me this colorful disc might have some sort of mechanical action. Why is there a lever of some type projecting from the sun? Does the plane tilt upward as if taking off?

Please leave a comment if you are knowledgeable. I’m sure many are curious!

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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 creativity of new graffiti in Flash Alley!

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!

Art purchased by the city from artists during COVID-19.

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!

Tape Art at the Japanese Friendship Garden!

I didn’t know tape art was a “thing” until I happened to walk into the Exhibit Hall at the Japanese Friendship Garden this weekend. And what I discovered blew me away!

This unique exhibition, simply titled Tape Art, has been on display for some time now, so shame on me, as a JFG member, for not knowing about it!

The artist is Chiho Harazaki. She utilizes adhesive tape that is cut into fine shapes to create artwork that is detailed and quite amazing. I photographed a few of her pieces so you can get an idea of what you’ll see when you pay a visit.

Some of the works on display depict daily life in Japan. Some appear like colorful Hanafuda, a style of Japanese playing cards. A few of her works, including a piece that is quite large and striking, concern the horror of Hiroshima at the end of World War II, and make an appeal to the viewer for peace.

Should you visit Balboa Park before July 25, 2021, step into the Japanese Friendship Garden. That’s when the exhibition Tape Art concludes.

Then, after viewing this art, be sure to walk down into the Lower Garden. It’s one of the most beautiful places in San Diego.

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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!

Beautiful flowers throughout Little Italy!

I took these flower photographs last Friday morning in Little Italy.

I found blooms in sidewalk planters, leaning against painted restaurant walls, and adding color near outdoor dining tables. I saw them in front of homes and shops, and inside windows. And I came upon some fun floral artwork, too!

I’m tardy posting these photos because I’ve been a bit under the weather. But these flowers have been patiently waiting.

A life lesson, maybe.

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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 mural on Seacoast in Imperial Beach.

Last year a colorful new mural was painted in Imperial Beach on Seacoast Drive, several blocks north of the pier, just south of Daisy Avenue. It decorates a stone wall next to three small eateries.

The female face and mandala-like designs around it were created by San Diego artists Gloria Muriel and Beth Emmerich.

I saw this mural for the first time during my Saturday walk near the beach. It seems our local muralists have been busy creating new outdoor art during the long COVID-19 pandemic. (Just yesterday I posted images of a new LOVE mural in San Ysidro here.)

I have many more new street art photos from around San Diego coming up. Stay tuned!

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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 big LOVE mural in San Ysidro!

In late 2020 artists Carly Ealey and Christopher Konecki painted this huge LOVE mural in San Ysidro. You can see it on a wall as you exit southbound I-805 at East San Ysidro Boulevard, a short distance before you reach the Mexican border. The mural is a Border Public Art Committee project.

If you think this spray paint art is amazing, you might enjoy checking out another cool mural this artist team created in San Diego’s East Village a few years ago here!

You gotta love it!

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This blog now features thousands of photos around San Diego! Are you curious? There’s lots of cool stuff to check out!

Here’s the Cool San Diego Sights main page, where you can read the most current blog posts.  If you’re using a phone or small mobile device, click those three parallel lines up at the top–that opens up my website’s sidebar, where you’ll see the most popular posts, a search box, and more!

To enjoy future posts, you can also “like” Cool San Diego Sights on Facebook or follow me on Twitter.