Do you know any kids who’d like to win 4 valuable passes to San Diego Comic-Con this year? Listen up!
I just learned there’s a contest underway that ends tomorrow, put on by the Comic-Con Museum and Feeding San Diego. It’s called the Hunger Action Hero Art Contest.
Students from K to 12 are invited to create a hunger fighting superhero! Artwork and a brief superhero origin story are required to enter the contest, but kids must do so by April 22, 2022–that’s tomorrow! Fortunately, submissions can be made easily online.
Various prizes will be awarded for the top ten entries, in addition to 4 Comic-Con passes for the contest winner. To learn more, 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!
I walked a little through downtown San Diego this morning and this evening. And the first thing I photographed was the above sign We Stand With Ukraine.
Later, I’d see other instances of San Diego businesses and residents standing in solidarity with the Ukrainians, who have been suffering for a month now during the brutal Russian invasion orchestrated by Putin.
The civilized world has been watching the shocking events in Ukraine with horror and great sadness.
May reason, compassion, and human liberty prevail.
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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!
A newly opened art exhibit in San Ysidro provides hope and inspiration in these difficult times. It’s titled Love is an Action – Amor en los Tiempos de Pandemia (Love in Pandemic Times).
The exhibition features works by regional artists. Positive themes are plentiful, including compassion, acceptance, hope and healing. Most of the artwork concerns female experience and empowerment.
Love is an Action is the 15th Día de la Mujer Art Exhibition at Casa Familiar’s The FRONT Arte & Cultura museum.
I was struck by the power of many of these pieces. They are full of human feeling and authenticity. You can sense how many artists were uniquely affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, which threw us all into isolation and uncertainty.
You can also clearly see that art can help us through life’s difficulties–to remind us of what is good and what is important–to make us feel alive once again.
This is just a small sample of what you’ll see…
Postcards that visitors can write a message of kindness or encouragement upon. They will be sent anonymously when the exhibition ends.Breakfast, 2021, Lourdes Araiza. Photograph mounted on wood. Image of Mom eating breakfast, whose loving smile full of gratitude was a blessing.Amor a lo Natural, 2020, Paola Segura. Oil on canvas. Pride and power, struggle and frustration are often depicted through the artist’s pieces.The Graduate, 2022, Monica Nunez Aragon. Acrylic.Tu Sola Alondra, 2022, Alondra Zamora. Acrylic on canvas. The artist’s love letter to her culture as a Mexicana.Prayer, 2022, Betty Bangs. Acrylic on canvas.Healing, 2020, Veronica Aranda. Mixed media on canvas. An image that came to the artist of a world healing without pollution.Re-Member Her site specific installation by Collectivo XoQUE. Imagery of Aztec goddess Coyolxauhqui explores women living on the border, and seeks to “create intimacy in the attempt to pick up the fragments of our dismembered womanhood and reconstitute ourselves in harmony with nature, body and soul, and the mind and spirit.”Braiding a Message of Love.
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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!
Would you like to help clean up the San Diego River? There’s a volunteer event coming up that might interest you!
I was in Mission Valley this morning when I saw a poster promoting the First Annual San Diego River March. This coffee, walk and cleanup is being put on by the Ecological Servants Project, a newly formed organization based in El Cajon.
The founder of the Ecological Servants Project writes in a newsletter how his difficult life was transformed, in part by an encounter with nature’s boundless beauty. He came to understand that life itself is beautiful.
I do know the San Diego River could use many helping hands.
The date for the volunteer cleanup is Friday, March 18, 2022.
You can find all of the details at their website 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!
I saw the unique yellow signpost for the first time early this morning during a walk through Balboa Park.
I stumbled upon a similar pole a couple years ago during a walk through Rotary Lane in Vista, California. See that one here.
This new Peace Pole has debuted just as war in Ukraine gets underway.
I don’t know whether the hope for enduring world peace is vain, given various aspects of human nature and the resulting conflicts. But if we don’t hope for peace, and desire peace, and make peace, and treat each other kindly, then there is no hope for humanity.
I choose to hope.
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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!
While driving through Kearny Mesa, have you glimpsed something mysterious above an Aero Drive street sign?
I saw this unique “Honorary Deegan and Stephen Lew Drive” sign last weekend. I was walking down a sidewalk through the Convoy District.
Pausing at the corner of Convoy Street and Aero Drive, I took this photograph.
When I got home, I found a press release from San Diego District 6 Councilmember Chris Cate.
I learned that the 7900 block of Aero Drive was dedicated last summer to two brothers who were members of the Asian American community. Both were “…incredibly active civically, culturally, and philanthropically…”
I also learned this is the very first street sign in San Diego written in both English and Chinese.
I don’t recall seeing the dedication event on the news, and indeed a search of Google News turns up nothing.
I’m glad I happened to see the sign. I learned a little about two people who were loved by many, and who contributed to the life of our city.
“San Diego is a better, more kind, and compassionate place because of Deegan and Stephen.”
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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 saw this new mural the other day while walking along West Morena Boulevard, at the south end of San Diego’s Bay Park neighborhood. It’s near the new Tecolote Road trolley station.
Nobody in this world should ever feel alone. Even if you have no family. Even if you have difficult problems. Even if you’re feeling depressed or hopeless.
San Diego–and indeed every community in the world–has friendly, compassionate people. Find them.
If you are elderly or disabled, San Diego has a You Are Not Alone program that will call you regularly to see if you’re doing okay. Learn more about it 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!
I’ve just been contacted by Santa Claus. He has an important message for all of San Diego!
Merry Christmas, San Diego.
I hope you have a safe and dry Christmas Day with family and loved ones. Omicron is worse than getting coal in your stocking. Get vaccinated and wear a mask.
Santa hopes the pandemic will end and we all can return to “December Nights in the Park” next year.
Santa held his COVID-19 Vaccination Card during 2021 “Taste of December Nights.” (Photo courtesy Bill Swank.)After “Taste of December Nights,” Santa went to visit the Nativity scenes at the Organ Pavilion in Balboa Park. (Photo courtesy Bill Swank.)A week later, a well-dressed Chihuahua sporting a stylish Mohawk posed with Santa at Harry’s Coffee Shop in La Jolla. (Photo courtesy Bill Swank.)This cute little girl came to visit Santa while he was eating breakfast at Harry’s. (Photo courtesy Bill Swank.)… and this little guy was impressed with Santa’s baseball card. We want the Padres to win the World Series in 2022. (Photo courtesy Bill Swank.)
Be good to one another. Have fun. Laugh and be joyous, but also remember the meaning of the season.
A couple months ago a beautiful new mural was painted on a large wall in Imperial Beach. The artist is Carly Ealey. Her brilliant art can be found all over San Diego.
The title of this amazing mural is Grounding Frequency. It appears to me its message concerns an “electrical” connection between people–the connection of love and kindness. The artwork is part of the nationwide City of Kindness movement.
If you’d like to see it for yourself, this spray painted mural with heart is near the corner of Palm Avenue and Florence Street. You can’t miss it!
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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!
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An inspiring exhibit now on display at the San Diego Central Library is titled Call to Serve: Clara E. Breed & The Japanese American Incarceration. It can be viewed through January 2022 in the Art Gallery on the downtown library’s Ninth Floor.
The exhibit recalls how San Diego librarian Clara E. Breed comforted and advocated for those American citizens of Japanese ancestry who were sent away to internment camps during World War II. She particularly helped and encouraged the children, with whom she kept in communication. Part of the exhibit includes many of her letters.
Clara Breed also fought against the censorship of books, and for a library collection that contained more international and multicultural material, that would speak to readers from diverse backgrounds.
I was touched by Clara’s compassion as I read many of the letters. She clearly had a love for the hundreds of children that she tirelessly championed. Anyone reading her words will be moved.
A replica of a barracks that was used to incarcerate Japanese-Americans during World War II can be viewed on the Central Library’s First Floor, near the main entrance. I blogged about it about a month ago here.
“Military necessity” was the justification for the removal of all persons of Japanese ancestry from the West Coast of the United States…On April 1, 1942, Civilian Exclusion Order No. 4 announced that all persons of Japanese ancestry were to report to Santa Fe Depot…Military guards supervised the transportation fo some 1,150 San Diegans to the Santa Anita Race Track…“…When the children came to return their books and surrender their cards we gave them stamped postcards. Write to us. We’ll want to know where you are and how you are getting along, and we’ll send you some books to read.” –Clara E. Breed…I am going to miss you a great deal, as you must know. You have been one of my restorers-of-faith in the human spirit. I know that you will keep your courage and humor in the weeks and days that lie ahead, no matter what they may bring…
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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!
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