Tag: culture

A colorful Chinese New Year Fair at Balboa Park!

If you love color, culture, food and fun, you should head over to Balboa Park tomorrow, Sunday, February 16, 2025. The second day of the Chinese New Year Fair, hosted by the House of China, will be taking place at the International Cottages!

I walked through the free festival today and photographed a wide variety of cool sights. In addition to the vendors of ethnic food and unique gifts, and the colorful cultural entertainment, the Hall of Nations features artists who are showcasing traditional Chinese art, including calligraphy, brush painting and gourd decoration. I found plenty of references to the Year of the Snake!

There’s something new and exciting to see everywhere visitors turn.

Sunday the entertainment lineup runs from 11 am to 4 pm, with lion and dragon dances and dancing by various groups, plus fashion models, music and more!

These three young journalists were at the event. Write, write, write! Start a blog! Be curious! Be persistent! Be passionate! You never know where your efforts might lead!

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A refreshing sip of fine art at UC San Diego!

Very unusual public art stands near the center of the UC San Diego’s large La Jolla campus. While this surprising work of art might splash your nose, it’s not in your face. What I mean by that is: while you’re bent over enjoying a cool drink, you might not know that the fountain is a work of fine art by an important artist. There’s no sign or plaque indicating such.

This untitled work of public art—an exact replica in granite of commercial metal fountains typically found in schools, business offices and government buildings–is part of UC San Diego’s Stuart Collection of art. It was created in 1991 by internationally recognized conceptual artist Michael Asher.

Michael Asher believed that an artwork’s encompassing environment determines how we perceive it. As his Wikipedia biography explains: Asher’s work takes the form of “subtle yet deliberate interventions – additions, subtractions or alterations – in particular environments.” His pieces were always site-specific; they were always temporary, and whatever was made or moved for them was destroyed or put back after the exhibitions. This untitled work at UC San Diego is his first permanent public outdoor work in the United States.

I took a refreshing sip from the fountain during my last visit to UCSD. To my right stood a flagpole, and beyond that a historical marker indicating the campus is located on the old site of Camp Calvin B. Matthews, a rifle and artillery training base of the United States Marine Corps. (See my blog post concerning the historical marker by clicking here.) Asher placed the drinking fountain at this precise spot, directly opposite the historical monument, after a lot of deliberation.

There’s more to this “mysterious” work of art than you might suppose. Please read all about it by visiting the Stuart Collection website here.

This very special drinking fountain can be found south of the Price Center, in grassy, park-like UCSD Town Square.

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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.

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Year of the Snake in San Diego’s Gaslamp!

Chinese New Year is being celebrated this weekend with a festival in downtown San Diego’s Gaslamp Quarter. 2025 is the Year of the Snake!

The 42nd Annual San Diego Chinese New Year Fair is a free cultural event taking place along two city blocks by the San Diego Chinese Historical Museum. The food, entertainment, lion dancing and more can be found at the corner of Third Avenue and J Street–the center of San Diego’s Asian Pacific Thematic Historic District.

I’ve been under the weather the last couple days, but I found the energy today to walk down from Cortez Hill to experience a little bit of the fun. I snapped these photos.

The family-friendly 42nd Annual San Diego Chinese New Year Fair is presented by the Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association of San Diego.

The big event is taking place Saturday and Sunday, February 8-9, 2025. Hours both days are from 10 am to 5 pm.

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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.

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Hand-painted piano at Oceanside Museum of Art!

Do you play piano? Head over to the Oceanside Museum of Art, sit down at this very cool hand-painted instrument, and tickle the ivories!

I saw this piano during my last visit to the museum. It has a name: Henri. I believe it’s named after French pianist Henri Herbert.

Henri was painted by local artist Rene Cosby. It’s the result of the Oceanside Art Piano Project and a sponsorship by the Oceanside Cultural Arts Foundation.

There’s a great detailed article concerning this first public piano in Oceanside. To read it, click here!

(Back in 2016, the San Diego Symphony placed ten uniquely decorated pianos around San Diego for the public to play. Most of those pianos have disappeared, but you can see the photographs that I took by clicking 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.

Thank you for sharing!

Photos of San Diego Tết Festival 2025!

San Diego Tết Festival 2025 is being held all this weekend at Liberty Station. The cultural event celebrating Lunar New Year is free and a whole lot of fun! It’s the Year of the Wood Snake!

The big annual festival is a production of the Vietnamese American Youth Alliance. (In past years, this Tết Festival has been held in Mira Mesa. I went in 2017 and posted photos here.)

As the festival began late in the morning today–Saturday–excited families converged on the wide grassy field of NTC Park, drawn by tons of food, vendors, community organizations, kids activities, photo opportunities in the Cultural Village, a petting zoo and carnival rides. The main attraction, however, was the entertainment up on the main stage.

To begin the entertainment, Naruwan Taiko brought out their drums and boomed thundering, joyful energy out into the audience. This was soon followed by the day’s Opening Ceremony. Sea Cadets were introduced in front of the stage, a color guard advanced, and the national anthems of Vietnam and the United States were sung powerfully by a talented young lady.

A traditional Invocation and Prayer Ceremony followed. Elder members of the Vietnamese community made offerings and prayers for peace.

Then came politicians on stage, then firecrackers to one side, then Hoa Nghiêm Lion Dance! Much more would follow after I departed. (Would you believe it, five different lion dancing groups perform during the epic three-day festival!)

If you’d like to go to the big festival, here’s their website with all the information!

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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.

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Year of the Snake celebrated in San Diego!

The 15th Annual SD Lunar New Year Festival is being held this weekend in San Diego!

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.

Thank you for sharing!

Marshall Toomey enlivens Oceanside Museum of Art!

There’s an excellent chance you’ve already enjoyed the art of Marshall Toomey. He has worked as a Disney animator, contributing to classic films like The Lion King, Aladdin, Hercules and The Hunchback of Notre Dame.

Visitors to the Oceanside Museum of Art are in for a real treat. In one of the museum’s upstairs galleries, extraordinary paintings by Marshall Toomey (@marshalltoomey) fill the walls with energy and color.

The artist paints from his own life experience. Perhaps that’s why his works are so engaging, so recognizably human. There are dynamic scenes from a barber shop, a church, a family barbeque, a game of dominoes…

As he explains: “My paintings represent moments in time. I aim for realism with incredible vitality–they feel almost alive. I like to paint portraits, animals and food…”

When I look at his paintings, I feel that life, after all, is good. There’s family, play, worship, being together, a bit of craziness, good humor, and a sense of joy.

In a strange way, his images feel timeless. Timeless–in that magical way certain animated movies remain loved by both young and old for many generations. You can see how his style has been, as he explains: “inspired by the masters and by my history as a Disney animator.”

Marshall Toomey: Black Americana is the name of this great exhibition. It continues at the Oceanside Museum of Art through April 13, 2025.

Uncle Junebug’s Bar B Q, Marshall Toomey, 2024. Oil on canvas. (Painting based on an Auguste Renoir painting, Luncheon of the Boating Party.)
A Soothing Game of Dominoes, Marshall Toomey, 2024.

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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.

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The Splinter in the Eye–of La Jolla.

The provocative title of the current exhibition at La Jolla’s Athenaeum Music & Arts Library is The Splinter in the Eye. Does artist Carlos Castro Arias want the viewer to remove the log in their own eye before offering criticism?

The mixed media, sensory installation challenges a naïve view of the world. To me, it appears to highlight historical disruptions and destruction resulting from developments brought on by civilization. It also suggests the ultimate failure of human ambition–the materialism and the conceits.

One thing is certain. These works by the artist can make one feel uneasy.

Severed limbs, the severed head of missionary priest Junipero Serra in a birdbath, visions of dripping blood and a baptismal pool of blood, bloodlike crosses projected onto the floor as if through the stained glass of a cathedral, dead taxidermy birds from a museum, fractured relics, plants growing through skeletons and blue jeans…all framed by rigid two-by-fours, as if the unstoppable construction of new things divides and overwhelms all.

Pieces in the exhibition have bizarre titles like Eating the Guts of Those Who Loved Me, Botox Against the Machine, Caffeine Overdose, and (don’t shoot the messenger, please!) Borderline Retarded. Yes, the effect of it all is rather depressing. Apart from representations of the ancient and the natural world, there seems to be little or nothing envisioned that is hopeful.

I know, many artists like to shock people with criticisms of modernity–in particular Western Civilization and its Christian heritage–but is the world of today really that bleak?

My question is: has the artist removed the log from his own eye?

Now I’m in trouble, I suppose.

Perhaps my attempt at interpretation is terribly uninformed. Perhaps I’m overreacting.

If you’d like to explore this bold artwork and come to your own conclusions, head on down to the Athenaeum Music & Arts Library in La Jolla before the exhibition ends on January 11, 2025.

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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.

Thank you for sharing!

Spreckels Organ’s historic 110th Anniversary Concert!

The famous Spreckels Organ in Balboa Park celebrated its “birthday” today with a special anniversary concert. The organ debuted in 1915 on New Year’s Day for the Panama-California Exposition. Officially the world’s largest outdoor musical instrument, the Spreckels Organ has provided free weekly concerts in San Diego for–can you believe it–the last 110 years!

San Diego Civic Organist extraordinaire Raúl Prieto Ramírez is in Spain visiting his family for the holidays, so concert-goers today enjoyed music performed by well-known organist Russ Peck–another San Diego favorite! It’s the New Year, so he chose several traditional pieces by Johann Strauss Jr., including Wine, Women, and Song and, of course, The Blue Danube.

During the special concert, the public was invited to enter the organ building and see (and really hear!) the King of Instruments with its over 5000 pipes in action. Experiencing the organ this way is typically a once-every-year opportunity.

I didn’t venture inside the organ building this time–I’ve posted photographs in the past. You can see the photos I shared 10 years ago by clicking 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.

Thank you for sharing!

Native and Indigenous Healing Garden and mural at SDSU.

In 2022, the Native and Indigenous Healing Garden debuted at San Diego State University, to one side of the Communication Building. The circular garden, which also serves as an outdoor classroom, is filled with healing herbs that can be freely harvested. Life grows in sunshine around a central stone fountain.

The plants in the garden represent various indigenous cultures: the Kumeyaay, the Aztecs, the Mixtecs and Zapotecs, and other indigenous people in California and Mesoamerica.

Painted beside the garden on one side of the Communication Building, visitors will also find a large, very beautiful mural.

This website provides details about the 30’ x 60’ mural: Designed by students as part of an Arts Alive SDSU project by History Professor Paula DeVos and Art Professor Eva Struble, the artwork includes various plants, animals, and designs with deep ties to Native Indigenous culture throughout California and Mesoamerica.

If I lived near SDSU, I know I’d walk by frequently, simply to sit on the shady bench you see in my photographs. One feels drawn to this healing garden, the smell of sage and other life springing from the earth, and the quiet beauty of the place.

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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.

Thank you for sharing!