This cool street art painted on a long wall is visible from Highland Avenue at the Vision Culture Foundation in National City. When I recently walked by they appeared to be closed. I paused to take these photographs from the sidewalk just outside their gate entrance.
Here’s the Vision Culture Foundation website. The organization focuses on creative arts, and their center strives to empower and uplift youth and the community. They are a safe space that nurtures goals and dreams.
Check it out!
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Taiko groups from all around San Diego (and beyond!) came together in Balboa Park today for an epic taiko community performance and jam session! It was incredible!
Taiko is high-energy drumming, Japanese style, where drummers together shake the world all around with booming uninhibited joy!
The event was called Taiko 4.0. It celebrated the 40th birthday of Diana, founder of Naruwan Taiko.
Over the years I’ve been fortunate to experience a number of Naruwan Taiko performances, but today was something extraordinary. Dozens of members were joined by taiko drummers from groups (I hope I’m not missing anyone) San Diego Taiko, Buddhist Temple of San Diego Taiko, Asayake Taiko (UC San Diego students), Makoto Taiko from Pasadena, and even Rocky Mountain Taiko from Utah!
I counted about 50 taiko drums, many of them quite large. Now imagine the thunder!
The House of China of Balboa Park’s International Cottages helped to make this epic event possible. As the joyful, rhythmic drumming began, people from around the park heard and converged. By the time I departed mid-afternoon, a good crowd had gathered.
I hope my still photographs of this amazing event transmit the absolute joy. Taiko, like nothing else, can make one feel fully alive.
Before the start, getting ready…
Here’s Diana!
A group photo!
An introduction…
Drummers take their places…
Here we go!
Between pieces of music, the drums would be carefully lifted and reconfigured…
Here we go again!
A dancing percussive procession surprise!
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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.
The Rady Shell at Jacobs Park was jammed with families as you can see from the following photographs. The community event was an early March preview of the 2025 Conrad Prebys 5th Anniversary Summer Season at this most amazing San Diego bayfront venue. If you’ve never had a chance to attend a concert at the Rady Shell, you are truly missing out.
When I came by, San Diego band Cassie B was up on the stage covering favorite songs from different decades and singing original compositions, too. I heard the music of Queen, Mariah Carey, Taylor Swift… Many in the audience were dancing, swaying, singing along!
During the big event other performers would include San Diego Symphony musicians and local band The Farmers. It was the perfect afternoon for an outdoor picnic!
Anyway, I was totally impressed by another San Diego Symphony production, as I always am. I couldn’t believe the massive crowd!
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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.
A joyful celebration of culture and history was enjoyed this afternoon in Southeast San Diego. The Friends of the Malcolm X Library: Living Art Experience honored Black History Month with dance, music, poetry, a fashion show, plus local artists and a live painting demonstration. Refreshments were included!
The community room at the Valencia Park/Malcolm X Branch Library was filled with energy as the free, family-friendly event got underway. Words from the stage expressed gratitude to our Creator, and the audience was encouraged to remember our ancestors and think of those who would follow us after we leave this world. Lift Every Voice rose from many voices.
A fun fan dance followed! It seems half the room participated!
I enjoyed looking at the art, crafts and clothing displayed at various tables. I took several photographs during this wonderful, very colorful event.
Reginald Green, an instructor for Veterans Art Project (VETART), had a table full of artwork. He works out of VETART’s ceramic and glass studio in Vista.
VETART provides a process-intensive arts encounter proven to help Veterans and Active Duty (some with post-traumatic stress, TBI, and MST) find their voice and work through the life-changing process of transitioning from military to civilian life.
Some more photos…
Christie’s Place was present. As their website states: Love Grows Here.
Christie’s Place is the only agency in San Diego whose mission is dedicated to serving women, children and families whose lives have been impacted by HIV/AIDS.
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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.
Do you live in San Diego? Are you a comic book artist who’d like to collaborate and grow with others who share your interests? There’s a cool organization you should check out!
The CASD Collective (Comicbook Artists of San Diego) is a group of people who’ve come together to build a local community of comic book artists to foster artistic growth and to showcase their artwork.
That’s cartoonist and writer Lyssette Williams smiling in the above photo, and some of her artwork below!
Members of CASD Collective attend cons, pop culture festivals and San Diego events promoting each others’ work. I remember seeing them at the North Park Book Fair, Fangaea Con, and at a Free Comic Book Day event in Kearny Mesa a couple years ago!
A historical plaque can be found in front of the Carlsbad by the Sea Retirement Community. I noticed it during my last walk up Carlsbad Boulevard.
Here’s a photo:
The plaque reads:
CARLSBAD BY THE SEA RETIREMENT COMMUNITY
Dedicated June 20, 1998
In 1881, Captain John A. Frazier, a homesteader, purchased 127 acres of oceanfront land for $1200. While drilling for drinking water in 1884, Frazier tapped into an underground mineral spring. He built a 510 foot welltower and began promoting the water’s healing properties to passing travelers on the Southern California Railroad. The site became known as “Frazier’s Station”. In 1886 Gerhard Schutte and Samuel Church Smith purchased the land and renamed it “Carlsbad” with the intention of building a health resort. In 1929, after the paving of nearby Highway 101, construction began on the Spanish-Revival style “California-Carlsbad Mineral Springs Hotel” on this site. By 1939, the spa functions had ceased and the hotel changed owners several times. In 1957, Lutheran Services of San Diego purchased and re-opened the hotel as a retirement community. California Lutheran Homes acquired the community in 1964. The original building was demolished in 1996 to complete an expansion and modernization of the retirement community. The front facade has been reconstructed by California Lutheran Homes and Community Services as a replica of the original “California Carlsbad Mineral Springs Hotel.” A time capsule, buried behind this monument, will be opened 50 years from the ground breaking in October of 2046.
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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.
When I visited the Lunar New Year celebration in City Heights last weekend, I was surprised to find hundreds of words affixed to a stretch of 44th Street behind Officer Jeremy Henwood Memorial Park. (It’s the alley-like street between the City Heights Library and Recreation Center, and the sports fields of City Heights Park to the east.)
I hadn’t recalled seeing this public art before.
I found a detailed article concerning the unique outdoor installation. The project is titled Memoria Terra and is intended to last for five years. The art debuted last summer.
Artist Shinpei Takeda and five young writers composed poems that tickle passing feet. The poems regard the history of this very diverse community (with its substantial immigrant and refugee population), social issues and gentrification.
As residents make their personal journey, they are also encouraged to gaze down at the abundant words to create their own poem.
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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.
The big festival is taking place in City Heights at Officer Jeremy Henwood Memorial Park. It’s presented by the Little Saigon SD Foundation.
According to the Vietnamese calendar, the Year of the Snake begins on January 29, 2025.
As always, this annual Tết Festival is full of positivity and happiness. There’s plenty of diverse entertainment provided by community groups. There are karate demonstrations, dancers on the main stage, mariachis and the Fern Street Circus. There are several lion dance performances by both Southern Sea Dragon & Lion Dance (they posed for a group photo) and Lucky Lion Dance.
As Lunar New Year traditions demand, there are loads of backdrops providing photo opportunities, and tons of food!
I walked around the festival around noontime today and snapped these colorful photographs.
Today–Saturday–the free, family-friendly event continues into the night. Then there’s more fun on Sunday. For the hours and entertainment lineup and more, check out the event 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.
Two very unique bicycle-driven libraries debuted in San Diego this weekend!
The San Diego Public Library was demonstrating their new “libraries on wheels” for the first time at the San Diego Lunar New Year Festival in City Heights!
Is ice cream in there? No, something better! Books!
I learned these bikes that transport books will be utilized for increased community engagement. All those cool books will also encourage people to sign up for a free library card.
Last year, when I visited The Walkway of the Stars in La Mesa, two of eight murals had yet to be painted. I checked out the alley-like pocket park again yesterday and discovered that the final murals, which honor community volunteers, have been finished!
If you’d like to see all of the amazing murals with your own eyes, you can find The Walkway of the Stars in downtown La Mesa between the Allison Avenue municipal parking lot and La Mesa Boulevard.
“Thanks for Your Help!” by Channin Fulton (@channinfulton)“Jewel of the Hills” by Nolan Lee (@nolanleeart)
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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.
Cool San Diego Sights! 