Dozens of very large insects have swarmed onto the chain link fence at Adams Community Park in Normal Heights! They seem to be attracted to the nearby Adams Recreation Center!
The insects, made of twisted metal wire, include butterflies, beetles, praying mantises, flies, ants, spiders, damselflies, ladybugs, moths, ticks, bees, dragonflies…and bug-eyed species that seem to defy classification!
Does anyone know who created this very cool wire artwork? Was it a project of school kids? Were these fashioned at the recreation center? Please leave a comment if you know anything!
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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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During my walk along a stretch of Black Mountain Road in Mira Mesa yesterday I came upon a lot of fun street art!
I found artwork both old and new. I found colorful works of imagination painted by many hands.
Why have we always needed art?
To connect with this great big world, and attempt with eyes and hands to more fully understand it?
To be engaged in the world? To feel productive and alive? To feel pleasure and a sense of personal accomplishment?
To search ourselves? Expand ourselves? Challenge ourselves? Express our desires?
To discover true things about life?
We have always needed art.
Electrical box painted with art that seems prehistoric.
Street art that resembles a Rubik’s Cube!
A very colorful peacock.
Flowers in a vase.
Peace on a fence.
Stay fresh.
A happy angel.
Football player runs with the ball.
Three parrots.
Three colorful reptilian creatures.
A space station of the future.
An enchanted castle, perhaps.
Rocket on the gantry, or perhaps a futuristic building.
Space monkey eats a banana!
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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!
The students at Wangenheim Middle School in Mira Mesa have created posters that tell the truth about the destructive nature of drugs.
I was fortunate today to be walking nearby as members of the Associated Student Body were hanging these very creative anti-drug posters on the school fence facing Black Mountain Road!
And they were happy to pose for a group photo!
It’s Red Ribbon Week, when students in schools across San Diego and the United States engage in an annual drug and violence prevention awareness campaign.
Wangenheim Middle School students and members of the Associated Student Body are involved in all sorts of positive community activities, such as a Thanksgiving food drive. It’s encouraging to know the youth you see in the next photograph are some of our future leaders!
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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!
Artist Alley in Oceanside, California is a very cool “hidden” place that I discovered on Saturday. I was walking near the Oceanside Civic Center when I noticed that colorful mural with the whale you see above. It drew me into the alley!
Artist Alley is located directly across Pier View Way from the Oceanside Public Library and the nearby Civic Center fountain. The alley stretches midway between Freeman Street and North Coast Highway. Step into it and not only will you find all sorts of amazing murals, but there are several artsy specialty shops you’ll want to explore.
I was told by the friendly guy at the Ikigai Artifacts body jewelry store (on the inside walls there are even more awesome murals!) that most of the artwork in Artist Alley was painted in the past year or two. Much of it resulted from a group effort, involving a variety of local artists.
I captioned photos of the larger murals where I ascertained who the artist is.
(My Saturday walk resulted in many more photos, so stay tuned! Upcoming blog posts include a visit to the very cool California Surf Museum!)
Ojos de Picasso (Eyes of Picasso), Mario Torero, 2016.
Art near entrance to Ikigai Artifacts by Amber (@_deadcorpse_).
Mural in Oceanside’s Artist Alley by Paul Knebels, 2019.
Mural at entrance to Artist Alley in Oceanside by Marilyn Huerta, and Caymin Charles Ellspermann.
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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 huge owl has been spotted perched on a building in University Heights. Drive down El Cajon Boulevard just west of Texas Street and there’s a good chance you’ll spot it, too. The mysterious owl seems to have merged with a flowering tree!
This cool mural was painted by San Diego muralist Gloria Muriel. Her unique style is unmistakable!
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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!
It has been months since I promoted my blog Short Stories by Richard, but I just now published a new short story titled Father’s Paintbrush, and I think some readers might enjoy it.
Like several other stories I’ve written, it has a surprising O. Henry-like ending!
If you’re interested, you can read this small work of fiction about life, learning and magic by clicking here.
I have more photographs taken yesterday at Presidio Park coming up, so stay tuned!
I was heading through the Gaslamp Quarter up Fifth Avenue when I noticed a new mural was being painted. An artist was working in the outside stairwell entrance of Vin de Syrah, a “hidden” subterranean wine parlor. Over the years, I’ve noticed that new murals appear in this stairwell every so often, but until I performed a little research today I hadn’t known where these steps led.
In the past, fantastic murals that I’ve seen at the entrance to Vin de Syrah have often included elements from Alice in Wonderland.
When I noticed the muralist at work below, I looked down and said hello, but it didn’t appear that she heard me. Her style seems familiar, but I can’t identify the artist. I have a hunch I’ve photographed the work of this artist elsewhere in San Diego!
Today I walked past this new Vin de Syrah mural and took the following photograph:
UPDATE!
I’ve learned the artist is Delilah Strukel. Check out her Instagram page 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!
Welcoming Frida to My Imagination, by artist Lin Wei, 2018. Oil painting.
A fantastic exhibition has opened in Escondido that celebrates the life and work of legendary Mexican painter Frida Kahlo.
Today I stepped into the Museum at the California Center for the Arts, Escondido to experience The World of Frida. The juried exhibition recently arrived from the Bedford Gallery in Walnut Creek, California.
Over one hundred highly creative pieces by artists who’ve been inspired by Frida Kahlo cover the walls of the Museum. Imaginative portraits of Frida Kahlo are plentiful, as are reimaginings of her works. Many different artistic styles delight the eye!
Like Frida’s paintings, most of these pieces employ lavish color and symbolism. Themes often reflect Frida’s own complex and sometimes mysterious personality.
In the artwork you will find pain and poise, vitality and frustration, sensitivity and anger, feminism and vulnerability, remoteness and love. It seemed to me that Frida’s emotional and intellectual complexity–the seeming ambiguity–provided many of these artists with a blank canvas upon which they could paint their own related ideas, feelings and experiences.
My photos are a small glimpse of this remarkable exhibition!
As you can see, another gallery at the Museum contains even more artwork, including a very cool car with a traditional Mexican altar in its trunk and a large Frido Kahlo Day of the Dead Altar. A third gallery features Frida-related artwork by local school students!
Head up to the California Center for the Arts, Escondido before November 15, 2020 when The World of Frida comes to a close.
Visitor to the Museum at the California Center for the Arts, Escondido explores The World of Frida.
Defiant Deer, by artist Jamie Burnside, 2018. Acrylic on canvas.
Seed of Life, by artist Crystal Moody, 2017. Acrylic.
Frida Kahlo Shrine Box Day of the Dead, by artist Monica Balmelli, 2016. Mixed media.
Young Frida, by artist Kim Bagwill, 2018. Oil on panel.
Frida with Flower Crown, by artist Betsy Gorman, 2018. Mixed media collages.
Frida’s Chair, by artist Marian De La Torre-Easthope, 2018. Oil on canvas.
Frida #51, by Stikki Peaches, 2017. Mixed media on paper.
1954 Chevy Belair. Trunk altar honors family from Uruapan, Michoacan, and Mexico City, Mexico. Manuel Navarro Sr.
Frida Kahlo Día de los Muertos Altar by artist Daniel F. Martinez.
Celebrating Frida in the Afterlife, by Hayle V., San Pasqual Union School District Grade 7, 2020. Acrylic paint, markers.
Corazon de Frida, by artist Juan Solis, 2018. Acrylic on canvas.
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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!
One of two Trail to Literacy benches in San Ysidro Park.
If you notice two colorful benches in San Ysidro Park, go take a closer look. On both you’ll discover a Trail to Literacy.
The benches are decorated with tiles painted by children. You’ll see small works of art that celebrate books and stories that young people love.
This wonderful community project promotes reading. After looking at the tiles, I think I want to visit a library and check out some children’s books. What better way to activate imagination? And relearn wisdom.
The benches stand not far from renowned artist Victor Ochoa’s beautiful Tree of Life, which I photographed while walking around the park last weekend. See those photos here.
Trail to Literacy painted tile bench near a water fountain.
The Paperboy.
Dogzilla.
Froggy Gets Dressed.
The Cat in the Hat.
The Gingerbread Man.
Flipper and Where the Wild Things Are.
Quetzalcoatl on the side of one bench.
A second Trail to Literacy bench at San Ysidro Park.
Mulan.
Corduroy.
La Hermana de Froggy.
Mouse Mess.
Viva Piñata!
Just Imagine with Barney.
El Arbol Generoso.
More colorful tiles painted by creative youth.
Reading sparks imagination, teaches knowledge and wisdom, and makes life much more rewarding.
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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 face of an East Village mural by Carly Ealey and Christopher Konecki.
I spotted a very cool face during my walk through East Village last weekend! It was spray painted in a nook that might be easy to miss.
The mural was created in 2019 by Carly Ealey and Christopher Konecki of Cohort Collective. If those names seem familiar, their fantastic art can be enjoyed all over the city. (They have another mural with a similar vibe and palette of colors on nearby Park Boulevard. See photos of that one here.)
You can find this cool face near the corner of 15th Street and K Street, not far from the entrance to the San Diego County Bicycle Coalition.
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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! 