The Master Gardener Association of San Diego County had their very popular Fall Plant Sale today in Balboa Park!
A small army of smiling Master Gardeners took over the Casa del Prado, both Room 101 and the two courtyard patios. The public could check out thousands of plants for sale, plus an art and crafts marketplace, educational booths and several master gardener speakers.
Plant purchases today would help fund many worthy projects around San Diego, including community gardens, public education and school gardens. Very cool!
I took these photos and have included some captions with a little more information!
Plants and more plants, and beautiful pots, crafts and more!Kids could learn how to plant seeds.Educational displays concerning plants and gardens could be found at many tables.A smile!The Master Gardener Association of San Diego County has a program for public education with the University of California Cooperative Extension.A Guide for School Gardens.Two-time Paralympian Stephen Cantu teaches Friendly Inclusive Gardening. He designs wheelchair accessible gardens. Watch his video here.Visitors to the Master Gardener Plant Show could check out this Compost Demo.Rita Perwich presents KISS In Your Rose Garden–Keep It Simple and Sane.Some bugs are nasty, some are helpful!Mother Earth among many colorful butterflies!So many plants for sale in Room 101.A long line of happy customers!
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The 2024 San Diego Heart & Stroke Walk was held this morning in Balboa Park. Participants raised over one million dollars this year, supporting the American Heart Association and its many important programs!
I visited the event and took these inspiring photographs. Teams walking through the park and past the finish line were being encouraged by students from San Diego State University. There was a fun dog costume contest, a photo booth, roses for participants, a community board showing who walkers walk for, a small farmers market, and more. Heart disease and stroke survivors could ring a bell to celebrate life!
The American Heart Association supports medical research and educational programs. Projects, according to their website, include:
Up-to-the-minute research into doctors’ hands so they can better prevent and treat heart disease among patients. Groundbreaking pediatric heart and stroke research that is key to saving babies’ lives. Providing life-saving information that can save a life – like how to eat better, how to recognize the warning signs of heart attack, and how to talk to a doctor about critical health choices.
If you’d like to support the American Heart Association with a donation, or if you’d like to participate in a future walk, click here!
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Thanks for visiting Cool San Diego Sights!
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.
Extraordinary photographs by preeminent mid-20th century photographer Garry Winogrand are currently on display at the San Diego Museum of Art in Balboa Park.
Images of people in the act of being very human line the walls of the museum’s free-to-the-public Galleries 14 and 15. The exhibition is titled Garry Winogrand: Man of the Crowd.
Yes, there are photographs of celebrities and social activism, but images of ordinary people on the street are perhaps more interesting. Moments captured spontaneously in different settings show unexpected contrasts, humor, pathos, and quirks of human nature. These often surprising photos reveal truths about life and living.
Nowadays, in our brave new world of social media and smartphones, most photos seem taken to gain self-centered attention. It’s refreshing to view extraordinary photographs that are dedicated to investigating this captivating world that is all around us.
I took my own photos from a video in the exhibition, where Garry Winogrand provides his thoughts on photography. (That explains the subtitles.)
Garry Winogrand: Man of the Crowd will be on view through January 12, 2025. The free exhibition can be accessed through a door next to Panama 66 that leads to museum restrooms. Look for the following sign:
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Thanks for visiting Cool San Diego Sights!
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.
It’s like a volcano erupting with the deepest blue! That was my first impression of two large monochromatic blue drawings at the Timken Museum of Art. They are part of this summer’s exhibition In Blue Time by the Timken’s most recent Artist-in-Residence Tatiana Ortiz-Rubio.
Tatiana Ortiz-Rubio is originally from Mexico. While living in Mexico City, she became fascinated by that city’s many murals.
Her large works of art are certainly eye-catching. Perhaps you remember her gigantic COVID mural on the side of the tall Bread and Salt building in Logan Heights, easily seen when driving back to San Diego over the Coronado Bridge. I posted photos of that mural back in 2021 here.
Much of Tatiana’s work has a cloud-like appearance–cloudy and nebulous, like memory. She has stated, per the museum website: “Memory is written once, then rewritten, manipulated, reinvented and recreated. Each time we reach for a memory it becomes something else. Forgetting is the distance from our past, the nebulous blue horizon of a memory standing at the edge allowing us to continuously reshape who we are.“
In the Timken’s temporary Exhibition Gallery, you’ll also find a recent large-scale drawing, created in collaboration with musical composer Stefan Cwik and inspired by the concept of time. It’s in my final photograph.
There are more of her works to see, too, plus you can add to the blueness! A community mural that anyone can help create awaits those who feel inspired. It’s entirely in blue!
In Blue Time is only on view for another two and a half weeks, through September 29, 2024.
The Timken Museum of Art in Balboa Park is free and full of masterpieces by old masters. Nowhere else in San Diego will you find a painting by Rembrandt!
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Thanks for visiting Cool San Diego Sights!
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.
As I entered Balboa Park for a late Sunday morning stroll, I noticed tents and a stage coming down on the grass near Sixth Avenue. I then spoke to smiling people who had worked to organize the event.
When I was told about the Walk in Remembrance With Hope, I wanted to help in a small way with my blog.
The walk was a memorable way to celebrate the lives of loved ones lost to suicide & to raise awareness about suicide prevention. Funds raised stay in San Diego County for suicide outreach & prevention and survivor support services.
If you’d like to read more about the organization, find comfort, or help spread human compassion, please visit the Survivors of Suicide Loss San Diego website by clicking here.
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Thanks for visiting Cool San Diego Sights!
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.
Sunspots on the surface of the sun were clearly visible today in San Diego! A sense of wonder filled me when I viewed the distant phenomenon from Balboa Park.
Today the Fleet Science Center had Sunspotter Solar Telescopes, solar binoculars and other instruments related to astronomy outside and ready for use.
I had stumbled upon a special event at the Fleet Science Center. They were hosting the NASA Community College Symposium, which would feature a planetarium show, educational talks, panels, and a variety of space-themed activities.
A recent graduate of SDSU’s Astronomy master’s program operated the solar telescope, and I tried to capture the tiny dark sunspots with my camera. (For my final photo, the image contrast was radically increased, bringing out the spots.)
What appear to be small spots on the sun’s surface can be up to 100,000 miles in diameter! The sun itself is about 93 million miles from where you stand!
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Thanks for visiting Cool San Diego Sights!
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.
Take a look at this amazing chalk art! It was created in San Diego’s Balboa Park about a week ago. Still in good condition, the artwork can be found directly in front of the Timken Museum of Art.
The chalk art replicates Equestrian Portrait of Prince Tommaso of Savoy-Carignan, a fantastic painting by Kehinde Wiley.
Until recently, Wiley’s painting could be viewed inside one of Timken’s galleries. It was displayed among major works by old masters. Wiley’s painting is inspired by Flemish artist Anthony van Dyck’s equestrian portrait from 1634-35 depicting Italian military commander.
The chalk art was created by Erick Toussaint (@sidewalk_chalk_dad). You might remember his other work in front of the Timken in past years.
I’ll soon be blogging about the Timken’s newest exhibition, In Blue Time, so stay tuned!
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Thanks for visiting Cool San Diego Sights!
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.
Newly planted trees can be spotted in the southwest corner of Balboa Park near Marston Point. By sheer coincidence I spotted them today.
In the late morning I walked from downtown San Diego up to Balboa Park, intending to see if any progress has been made on The Haunted Trail. The “trail” is a very spooky, outdoor, after dark attraction that pops up in time for Halloween.
But look what I discovered! What an interesting contrast! Many young green trees are growing among scary props, including a beat-up car and broken-down old shack.
I asked someone who was preparing other ghoulish props for The Haunted Trail, and he believes the trees were planted earlier this year. I don’t recall seeing them before!
How scary might this “forest” be after dark?
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Thanks for visiting Cool San Diego Sights!
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.
The Women’s Museum of California has made its home inside the San Diego History Center in Balboa Park. Visitors who walk into the history center can now view a museum exhibit concerning the struggle by women to obtain the right to vote in the United States.
Votes For Women: A Portrait of Persistence follows the efforts of suffragists to amend the U.S. Constitution and change state election laws by lobbying in their community and in the halls of Congress. As one display explains, the suffragists wrote articles, circulated petitions, gave speeches, organized marches, and were sometimes imprisoned for their protests. Over time these tactics won support for woman suffrage that led to the ratification of the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution in 1920.
Visitors will learn how the fight for women’s right to vote lasted more than 80 years. Even after the ratification of the 19th Amendment, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 was required to eliminate the suppression of voting by women.
In addition to many interesting posters, there are garments on display that suffragists might have worn, including a bloomer costume, named for writer and women’s rights advocate Amelia Bloomer.
Kids can also enjoy fun activities. There’s a San Diego History Center image scavenger hunt and the opportunity to take selfies with a suffragist sash and protest signs!
After you check out the Votes For Woman exhibit, take a stroll around the rest of the San Diego History Center. There’s a lot of history to see!
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Thanks for visiting Cool San Diego Sights!
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.
Would you like to own a genuine historical artifact from Balboa Park that dates back to just before 1915, when the park debuted for the Panama-California Exposition? You can!
The original light bulb sockets have all been replaced on the façade of the Spreckels Organ Pavilion building and colonnades. If you’ve been to a concert after dark, you know the beautiful lights that add magic to the night.
The Spreckels Organ Pavilion was one of only four structures in Balboa Park meant to remain permanently after the 1915 exposition. Well, these decorative sockets and their hidden wiring deteriorated after a century of use and constant exposure to outdoor elements.
I learned today that for a twenty dollar donation, one socket (with light bulb) will be yours! Simply attend a two o’clock free Sunday organ concert and look for them on tables as you enter the pavilion.
Get them while they last and own a genuine piece of San Diego history! And you’ll help support the Spreckels Organ Society, too!
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Thanks for visiting Cool San Diego Sights!
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.
Cool San Diego Sights! 