Tag: balboa park

Daguerreotypes in San Diego on World Photography Day!

Today is World Photography Day. I didn’t realize that until I met a photographer in Balboa Park, aiming an interesting camera at the Spreckels Organ Pavilion.

What sort of camera is that? I asked. Anton told me he was using a daguerreotype camera. He was utilizing photographic technology that was revolutionary and popular in the mid-1800s!

Daguerreotype was the first publicly available photographic process, producing the black and white images you’ve probably seen in historical exhibits or documentaries.

Anton was using a silver plate and briefly described the process, all of which was far over my head. Here’s the Wikipedia page concerning daguerrotype photography.

If you’d like to check out Anton’s fascinating The Photo Palace blog, here it is. His site features a variety of cool photographs he has taken.

Anton explains in his blog: Working with analog photographic methods, with concentration on daguerreotype and wet plate collodion methods, Photo Palace offers original art, commissions on location and in studio, as well as workshops, magic lantern shows, and other interactive programs.

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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.

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Free poetry parties, workshops in Balboa Park!

Poetry lovers! All sorts of activities await you in San Diego’s wonderful Balboa Park!

Free to the public and open to anyone at least 18 years old, these Balboa Park Poetic Programs celebrate creativity and the power of the written and spoken word. The three ongoing programs are: Poetry Party, Otherwise Improvise, and Poetic Legacy.

Poetry Party is a fun event held on the first Friday of every month from 3 to 5 pm in Balboa Park’s Santa Fe Room, at 2150 Pan American Road West (across from the International Cottages). The description on one flyer: Read your favorite poetry, listen, or make the scene. Be bold, adventurous, and experience the power of the spoken word.

Otherwise Improvise is held on the 1st and 3rd Wednesdays of every month from 2:30 to 5 pm in the Balboa Park Senior Lounge (located in the Casa Del Prado). Be creative! Have even more fun!

Poetic Legacy is a workshop that involves readings and discussions of contemporary and historic poets. Taking prompts from featured poets, participants are then encouraged to write their own poems. This program takes place on the last Friday of every month, from 3 to 5 pm in the Balboa Park Senior Lounge.

The next Poetic Legacy workshop will be held August 29th and will feature poet Naomi Shibab Ney, recipient of numerous honors and awards for her work. In 2019 the Poetry Foundation designated her the Young People’s Poet Laureate for 2019–21.

Want more information concerning the Balboa Park Poetic Programs? Email SLemire@sandiego.gov.

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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.

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Exhibit will find San Diego’s Lost Neighborhoods.

A new exhibition is coming to the San Diego History Center in Balboa Park. It’s called San Diego’s Lost Neighborhoods.

The exhibit is now being installed in the museum, and will have its Opening Reception on September 25, 2025. The new exhibit is being produced in collaboration with the San Diego African American Museum of Fine Art.

San Diego’s Lost Neighborhoods will concern communities in the city that have been substantially changed due to freeway construction, development and other causes. Over the years, these changes have forced some long-time residents and businesses to move.

Yesterday I peeked into the San Diego History Center gallery that will contain the displays.

Time sweeps us all along, and people who have the means like to reshape their world. Change happens for better, or for worse. That’s history.

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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.

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Song and butterflies in the Zoro Garden.

Did you miss the Zoro Garden Theater Festival today? No worries! The festival continues tomorrow, Sunday, August 17, from 2 pm to 5 pm. The free cultural event, produced by the City of San Diego, takes place at the Zoro Garden in Balboa Park.

The program today began with three powerful singers. They each sang about the journey of life.

Of struggle. Uncertainty. Freedom. Happiness.

I and others in the audience sat in the sunken stone grotto–what today is called the Zoro Butterfly Garden–and listened while butterflies flitted above and around us.

The butterflies seemed to move with the singing. I saw as many as six Monarchs at one time, dancing before us in the pleasant breeze, in the San Diego sunshine.

Later on there would be poetry readings and a play. I was told some of these same performers will return on Sunday.

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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.

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Guam Artist Collective displays their creativity!

The Guam Artist Collective exhibited some of their work today in San Diego. The public could meet four of the collective’s artists in Balboa Park’s Hall of Nations during the House of Chamorros Hafa Adai Festival!

The Guam Artist Collective seeks to recruit more members in San Diego and beyond. The Guam Artist Collective showcases the vibrant talents of 10 passionate Guam-based artists, celebrating the island’s unique artistic culture.

If you’re curious to learn more about the Guam Artist Collective, here’s their Instagram page.

I also found two pages concerning the group and their 19Forgotten exhibition, where you can see some fine examples of their work. Here and here.

Neeko David had his great art posters on display.
Zard Apuya Art fills this table.
Magnets are used by Kenneth Paulino Jr. of Kottura Innovations to create animated videos concerning Chamorro legends.
Jenna Aguon Makaka-Bali Tres, a tattoo artist, shows some of her artwork in Balboa Park’s Hall of Nations.

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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.

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The joyful Hafa Adai Festival in Balboa Park!

“Hafa adai” is a warm, friendly hello in the Chamorro language. It was also the name of a festival held today in San Diego!

The Hafa Adai Festival took place on the lawn of Balboa Park’s International Cottages. It was a joyful celebration filled with dance, food, crafts and culture, organized by the House of Chamorros.

The Chamorro people are indigenous to the Mariana Islands. Many with Chamorro ancestry live in Guam and the Northern Marianas. And more than a few live here in San Diego, too!

The House of Chamorros program today included an Opening Ceremony (complete with National Anthems and a beautifully sung traditional blessing), the Imahen Taotao Tano Dancers, and much more. I departed after the latter performance–too much else to do in the park!

I did take these photographs which I hope you’ll enjoy. One couldn’t stop smiling at this joyful event!

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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.

Feel free to share!

Listening Project embraces our common humanity.

During my walk through Balboa Park today, I came upon a quietly smiling gentleman in a lawn chair with a poster in front of him. I had stumbled upon the Listening Project.

Joshua was very welcoming as I asked him about his Listening Project. He said his only intention was to listen to people if they decide to engage. He’ll listen politely to absolutely anything you might say.

Joshua believes everybody needs to be heard, and that listening is a gift we give to other people. Our listening lets people know that they matter.

Our listening also helps us to grow as human beings.

Actually hearing and considering the thoughts of other people, I have to agree, is an essential part of being thoughtful ourselves–no matter what that other person might say. Nobody is exactly alike. We are all fallible, complex and have our own unique life experiences.

In these days of social media, which seems to reward division, deceit, name calling and unabashed rudeness, polite, thoughtful one-on-one listening seems more important than ever.

Sadly, it also seems we human beings can be a bit self-absorbed. Sometimes when we converse we are more concerned about what we will say, rather than what the other person is saying. We talk over each other. I can be guilty of this, myself.

Joshua listens confidentially and doesn’t judge. As his website explains: The idea for the Listening Project first came to me around three years ago. The idea was very simple: set up a couple of chairs in public places and offer people the opportunity to speak uninterrupted about anything they wished for five or ten minutes, with the promise that if they did so I would really listen.

Does he have some ulterior motive or hidden agenda? Merely this: I believe that through listening and connecting we can: shed fears or anxieties we hold about reaching out to ‘strangers’; cast off the stereotypes we live with; build bridges across the boundaries that we have created and which divide us; reduce the loneliness that many of us feel; and gain insight into what it might take to create broader ‘communities’ in our lives.

Yes, Joshua is out of the ordinary. In a very, very good way!

He wouldn’t mind if others followed in his footsteps, but he’s very humble about his “experiment” and wishes only that people choose their own path.

Are you curious about the Listening Project? I urge you to check out its website here!

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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.

Feel free to share!

Lowriders depart, so that Ferraris can arrive!

Half a dozen lowriders exhibited at the San Diego Automotive Museum have begun their departure. The exhibition was called Low and Slow: A Celebration of Lowriders. But now room on the museum’s floor is being made for fast, shiny Ferraris!

The new exhibit, opening on August 30th, 2025, will concern the evolution of Ferraris–from street to track. I learned sports cars to be displayed include a Ferrari 360, 550, 430, 308 and more!

I love how the San Diego Automotive Museum frequently changes vehicles in their 17,000 square foot exhibit space. Every time I visit, I find something new!

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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.

Feel free to share!

Upcoming activities for seniors in San Diego!

When I poked my nose into Balboa Park’s Senior Lounge the other day, I learned that all sorts of great activities are coming up in San Diego for seniors!

The first event I learned about was the AgeWell Services’ 2025 Intergenerational Senior Prom. It’s not a high school prom. It’s a formal or semiformal attire event for all ages, which includes foxtrot and west coast swing dance lessons, lunch, a raffle, and of course, dancing! A glam room will allow participants to have their hair and nails done. The ticket price for all of it is a mere 5 dollars! You can call 619-235-1191 for more information.

Also underway right now is the San Diego Senior Games. Seniors can compete in a wide variety of sports, including basketball, badminton, golf, soccer, table tennis and much more! You can register here. The games take place in August and September.

I also learned the AgeWell Services Craft Sale at Balboa Park is coming up on November 15th and 16th. Are you crafty? Sell the crafts you’ve made by hand at this annual sale that takes place at the Casa del Prado. Find out more by calling 619-525-8247.

You can find additional information about these activities and many more by reading the Fall issue of the AgeWell Newsletter by clicking here.

The pages of the Fall Newsletter are full of offerings for seniors in San Diego, from dances, to trips, to educational opportunities, to social events… Click the above link and check it out!

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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.

Feel free to share!

Creating the beloved Luanniverse!

When I was a kid, one of the best things about Sunday morning was opening up the newspaper to find the funny pages. Lying there on the carpet, going through the comic strips, was like falling through two-dimensional doors into so many magical universes.

I must admit that as a boy I often skipped over the comic strip Luann. But now I have a new appreciation for the Luanniverse, because yesterday I enjoyed an exhibit at San Diego’s Comic-Con Museum: Growing Up Luann.

I hadn’t realized Luann’s universe was so vast and complex. Luann herself, and the strip’s large cast of characters, experience evolving relationships, lifelike troubles and humorous situations that stimulate in the reader a range of emotions. But Luann’s essential happiness is never far away.

The award-winning strip was launched in 1985 and continues to this very day. That’s forty years of living. Fortunately, time in Luann’s universe unfolds very slowly!

What interests me most about the comic strip is its evolution–both the art and Luann’s story. By reading the displays, one can follow the creative process undertaken by Luann’s creator, writer and artist Greg Evans.

Visitors to the exhibit learn how fleshing out a beloved character and her universe took years of dreaming, experimentation and work. And how the effort has resulted in worldwide popularity and the National Cartoonist Society’s ultimate award, a Reuben.

Are you fascinated by the creative process? Do you love art? Do you love Luann?

Pay this exhibit a visit!

A bit of what you’ll discover…

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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.

Feel free to share!