The San Diego County Orchid Society is hosting their summer Orchids in the Park show and sale in Balboa Park this weekend!
I was drawn to Room 101 in the Casa del Prado once I saw a sign pointing to the popular free event.
The show’s many tables were overflowing with orchids in many shapes, sizes and colors. Every flower was like a perfect jewel.
I found so many examples of nature’s beauty (tended by the caring hands of society members), that I had to capture a little bit of it with my camera…
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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 very beautiful tall ship has returned to San Diego. The Mystic Whaler is visiting the Maritime Museum of San Diego prior to a little shipyard work down in the South Bay.
I snapped photos of Mystic Whaler in January, as it was making its way up to the Channel Islands, where it now takes students on educational sailing excursions.
The 110-foot, 97-ton schooner was built in Florida in 1967, and once hosted cruises at its previous base in Connecticut. That explains the Mystic name.
I was excited to see this amazing tall ship again, and my camera promptly came out, of course!
Enjoy a few new 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!
The three Audible sand sculptures that are being carved along MLK Promenade for 2022 Comic-Con are nearly complete. And they are beyond amazing!
Check them out!
The artistry is right up there with that of world-class Sand Masters. You know, those internationally famous sand sculptors who’ve come to San Diego to compete many past summers, before the COVID-19 pandemic struck.
The extraordinary Comic-Con sculptures promote three of Audible’s original spoken word shows…
My favorite sand sculpture of the three promotes the Audible original Impact Winter.A second amazing sculpture promotes The Sandman. (Those figures are definitely sand!)And lastly, an intricate sand sculpture that promotes the Audible original Moriarty: The Devil’s Game. Looks to me like more sand carving will be done on this one before Comic-Con officially opens tomorrow!
If you’d like to view my coverage of Comic-Con so far, which includes hundreds of cool photographs, click 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!
In the past few weeks, three amazing new murals have been painted at California Center for the Arts, Escondido!
The colorful artwork was created in conjunction with the center’s new museum exhibit Street Legacy: SoCal Style Masters. I’ve already blogged about the exhibit here.
A large new mural covers the south wall of the museum. I was told it was painted last weekend. It’s by Kenny Scharf. The book In Absence of Myth concerning the artist’s life is available in the museum’s gift shop.
Two walls along the walkway that lead to the parking lot north of the museum have bold new murals, too!
I noticed the signatures of San Diego artists Carly Ealey and Christopher Konecki on the first mural, which depicts a mountain lion and the word UNTAMED…
On the opposite wall, a beautiful bird and flowers have been painted…
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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 beautiful mural was painted last month in City Heights that is full of hope. You can find it on the side of Corey’s Market Liquor at the corner of University Avenue and 36th Street.
Created by artists Melody Del Los Cobos (@chicanalilly) and Armand Montiel (@artbyarmand), this is the 30th mural of the ever-growing #theavenuemuralproject drive-through art gallery, which stretches along University Avenue between Interstates 805 and 15.
A whale in the vast lonely ocean gives life to a tree, and has its own lighthouse for direction. It is swimming into butterflies, a symbol of transformation. There is always hope and new life lurking there within one’s own self.
To the left of the whale mural is a small tree painted red, white and blue. It is the work of Skyler Montiel.
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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!
I took these photographs of the Linda Vista Library earlier this year. It’s about time I shared them!
Look at the fascinating architecture of this very unique building. Like many projects that were designed by local architect Rob Wellington Quigley, the geometry one encounters is unexpected and complex.
Eyes wandering over the varied exterior make delightful discoveries. Then you walk through the door into the light filled interior with its many angled beams and become even more amazed!
San Diego’s current Linda Vista Branch Library opened in 1987. When I took these photos, the green trees at the front entrance obscured some of the building. But the essential beauty of the design comes through.
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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!
In San Diego’s Gaslamp Quarter, near the south end of Fifth Avenue, you’ll find a very special garden. Located in the public plaza often referred to as Gaslamp Square, the tiny garden beautifies the front of the Tin Fish restaurant.
A plaque explains why the garden is special.
It states:
THIS TINY GARDEN IS DEDICATED TO THE MEMORY OF MICHAEL PATRICK BROWN, WHO LOVED LIFE AND TRIED TO MAKE THIS SPACE BEAUTIFUL. IT IS ALSO DEDICATED TO ALL VICTIMS OF PANCREATIC CANCER.
Those who find joy in the small garden are urged to go to the Pancreatic Cancer Action Network, which is here. One can donate in Mike’s name.
Michael operated the popular Tin Fish Gaslamp for many years. It’s a place where many happy memories have been made.
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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 34th San Diego International Organ Festival began this evening in Balboa Park.
It was the first festival concert of many to come this summer. They are free to the public on Monday evenings, beginning at 7:30 pm. See the full program here. Some of the world’s top organists will fill thousands of ears with dazzling sound from the incomparable Spreckels Organ.
But tonight, before San Diego Civic Organist Raul Prieto Ramírez began his magic, two people were brought to the pavilion stage for a special Thank You.
Past Spreckels Organ Society President Arlene Way and Civic Organist Emeritus Robert Plimpton spoke a few words–including doing good for the community and bringing happiness to people–then received applause.
I want to personally thank Robert Plimpton. He’s the one who “introduced” me to the Spreckels Organ. One day, I forget when, as a young man in Balboa Park, I sat down on one of those metal benches and listened. I hadn’t realized an organ could play so movingly, so exquisitely. Like poetry.
His energetic, elegant, precise play of the mighty Spreckels Organ made me a fan of the King of Instruments for life. Sitting on that bench, amazed, it might have been the first time I realized Balboa Park has a living heartbeat.
So, thank you to all who keep that heartbeat going.
And thank you Robert Plimpton.
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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!
These copper Batik Printing Blocks, combined like words on a page, seem to tell a beautiful story. A complex story about life.
You can find this huge “panel” of Indonesian tjaps at the Mingei International Museum in Balboa Park. The artwork has been installed on the second floor, near one of the doors that leads to the outdoor terrace overlooking the Plaza de Panama.
The copper blocks were used for wax resist textile printing. Each block, whose intricate design would be repeated on fabric, is combined with about 200 other unique blocks.
The cumulative effect is like a pile of golden Autumn leaves. Or shining memories collected like precious coins, spread on a table before one’s hands. Or a page ready set for a printing press.
It’s the story of a culture, created by many hands.
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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!
Oh my goodness! I stepped into the newly renovated Timken Museum of Art in Balboa Park today and my mouth dropped open. The first thing I noticed: all that brightly shining brass!
Had I stepped into a golden palace?
During the COVID-19 pandemic, when the Timken was closed to the public, not only was a new high tech air filtration added to the museum, but works of art were rearranged, gallery walls painted a pleasant slightly bluish off white (which works perfectly with the many painted masterpieces in gold frames), and all of the building’s brasswork was polished. I’m talking lots and lots of ornate brass, both inside the museum and out!
The building is now more light-filled and elegant than ever, but also less stodgy, more inviting. And it’s still free to view some of the very finest paintings on display in San Diego, including our city’s only Rembrandt.
I learned those two tapestries that used to hang in the central lobby were removed to preserve them, and that the Mercury sculpture has been moved into the outside garden. It’s visible in one my photographs.
The museum’s huge windows not only invite in ample light, beauty and life from the outside world, but the collection now extends itself into that outer world, as well!
I noticed two pieces recently added to the Timken’s world-class collection are now on display, including the fantastic Salomé, considered the most famous painting of artist Ella Ferris Pell.
You might enjoy reading something I posted four years ago, after an architectural tour of the Timken’s remarkable building. The sleek building is widely considered to be one of the finest examples of mid-century Southern California Modernism and the International Style in the nation. You can find that blog and see those photos 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!
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!
Cool San Diego Sights! 