Dreams Beyond Tomorrow at Chula Vista library.

Eight stunning works of digital art add beauty to the walls of the Chula Vista Public Library Civic Center Branch. They were created by artist Galina Semenova and are titled Dreams Beyond Tomorrow. Take a look at them.

The Dreamscape portraits “visualize the inner worlds of eight women navigating metastatic breast cancer…”They encourage us to slow down and live in the moment. As the artist states: “I invite you to stop running. Let these stories remind you than in an uncertain world, our most powerful act is to truly see one another in this very moment.”

Slowing down in a hectic, demanding world can be hard. But in our uncertain lives, what is truly important?

It’s a question we all should ask ourselves

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Young man follows his dreams in San Diego!

Niko Kohnen is following his dreams.

The young man was playing a keyboard outside Petco Park after today’s Padres victory against the Twins.

Where his dreams might take him, only time will tell.

Meanwhile, he’s putting smiles on many passing faces!

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Two artists explore memory at the Athenaeum.

Within the Context of Time: May-ling Martinez and Coralys Carter is an exhibition of art now showing in La Jolla at the Athenaeum Music & Arts Library.

As its webpage explains, the exhibition explores memory, time, and family history through two distinct yet deeply resonant artistic practices . . . While Martinez uses symmetry and balance to shape her assemblages and drawings, Carter plays purposefully with off-kilter constructions and hand-spun details . . .

The variety of pieces seem like memories that vaguely return in dreams and daydreams. Hair, baskets, racquets, tools, shells, fabric, a projector screen and other common everyday objects are often combined, just as memories can suddenly surface and strangely intertwine.

Evocative, mysterious, beautiful, and often melancholy, these two artists create frameworks from which one can begin to ponder the edges of the human experience: the vastness of time and memory alongside the mundanity of daily life.

I can’t describe the exhibition with words better than that.

This is visual art, meant to be absorbed not through words but with searching eyes. When you enter the Athenaeum, turn left at the front desk and walk into the Joseph Clayes III Gallery, then add the experience to your own memories.

Within the Context of Time: May-ling Martinez and Coralys Carter continues through July 25, 2026.

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San Diego youth explore Wonder through art.

Voice Out 2026 is a youth media art exhibition that officially opens today inside San Diego’s downtown Central Library.

Young creators from across the San Diego region were invited by Outside The Lens to explore the idea of Wonder through photography, digital illustration and mixed media. Nearly 200 pieces are now on display on the first floor of the Central Library.

I checked the art out yesterday after the displays were set up!

Wonder stretches our curious minds, leading us to places beyond our accustomed horizons. Places that can be fantastic and strange. I saw images full of dreams, discovery and possibility.

The art of Voice Out 2026 will be on display at both the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego and the San Diego Central Library throughout June 2026.

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All Shall Be Well at Athenaeum Art Center!

Do you love art? Have you ever visited the Athenaeum Art Center in Logan Heights? You should!

The Athenaeum Art Center is located inside the Bread and Salt building at 1955 Julian Avenue. The art center includes the Catherine and Robert Palmer Gallery, a secondary classroom gallery, and an extensive, very impressive print studio (which I’ll blog about shortly). The main gallery is currently hosting the exhibit Jonathan Paul Parker: All Shall Be Well.

San Diego artist Jonathan Paul Parker‘s first solo exhibition features drawings and painted works that are mostly on paper. His abstract pieces are colorful, complex and dreamlike. They are informed by his involvement in experimental film and improvisational music.

I visited the gallery today.

The images appeared to me like confused dream-shards a sleeper tries to assemble and retain in memory shortly after waking. Or perhaps they’re a sort of visual stream of consciousness–fragments of thought, feeling or memory that take strange form, rising mysteriously to the mind’s eye from a person’s inner being.

The exhibition webpage states: Using color, gesture, and rhythm, [Jonathan] works in a state of focused openness that allows intuitive and archetypal forms to surface. His process draws on the idea of active imagination, where inner images and impulses rise to awareness and shape the direction of the work.

Visit the free exhibition and discover how this unique art speaks to you!

You have a little over a week. Jonathan Paul Parker: All Shall Be Well can be enjoyed through March 7, 2026.

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Put your Head Above the Clouds in Escondido!

Above the clouds–above confused mists and storms–life is clear, bright and essentially good.

There’s a place in Escondido where you can rise above confining clouds, and even sit on them!

Dave Eassa: Head Above the Clouds is an immersive exhibition now showing at the California Center for the Arts Museum. Stepping into the gallery full of bright art is to launch yourself into sunny heights where memory, love, hopes and happiness are unbounded.

Colorful paintings brimming with joyful everyday life and wonder fill every horizon. Four sails suspended in the atmosphere soar with dreams created by young hands.

Here’s the exhibition’s webpage. It explains how artist Dave Eassa created a dreamscape shaped by memory, love, and imagination. Drawing from personal and familial archives, Eassa transforms the gallery into a space for reflection and connection, where life-sized portraits become monuments, clouds anchor the ground, and suspended sails carry the dreams of youth and community voices.

Dave Eassa is a San Diego-based visual artist, curator, and cultural organizer. Here’s his website. He is the Director of Philanthropy and Engagement at the Athenaeum Music & Arts Library in La Jolla.

I learned that Dave Eassa himself helped children visiting the museum to create the art on the sails. The names of the young artists are even listed on one wall as visitors step into the gallery.

Super cool!

You have an opportunity to put your head above the clouds at the California Center for the Arts Museum through March 1, 2026.

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Following your dreams in Ocean Beach.

I spotted this mural during my recent Sunset Cliffs walk. It’s painted on the side of Trinidad Motors in Ocean Beach.

Figures carrying musical instruments appears to stride across the beach toward the blue ocean.

The artwork is attributed to Jeff Yeomans Studio, based on a photo by Gerhard Lipold, painted with the assistance of Victor and Lynn Freeman.

Words in a corner of the mural state: We believe true happiness is found in celebrating our diversity, perseverance and following your dreams.

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Nine short stories during Comic-Con.

Comic-Con is magic.

Dreams gather, take shape, become tangible. Fantasies launch into the world as seeds in the wind.

Comic-Con is also a hotbed of self-promotion. So please excuse me. Here I go…

Do you love to read works of fiction that contain unexpected twists?

Here are nine very short stories I’ve written over the years. You can find them on my website Short Stories by Richard.

These seeds in the wind await your click:

One Strange, Shimmering Dream

Father’s Paintbrush

A Distant Place

Their Dream

Unheard Words

One Magic Bubble

The Bone Artists

A Secret Junkyard

Final Real Magic

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Stories that connect us in Oceanside.

Currently running at the Oceanside Museum of Art is an exhibition titled The Stories that Connect Us: Selections from the OMA Collection.

Each work by 35 Southern California artists is like a unique story that invites you to think, interpret, dream–and thereby become part of the same story. Your inclusion in each artwork’s story might be untold, but it is real.

The museum’s collection contains diverse pieces in different styles, some by highly renowned artists such as John Baldessari and James Hubbell.

I was surprised to learn the Baldessari piece in the exhibit was painted circa 1959, before the artist burned “all” of his work. His Wikipedia page explains: In 1970, Baldessari and five friends[8] burnt all of the paintings he had created between 1953 and 1966 as part of a new piece, titled The Cremation Project. The ashes from these paintings were baked into cookies… This painting survived.

Here are a few photos. If you’d like to become an integral part of these stories, visit the Oceanside Museum of Art by August 31, 2025.

(Forest), John Baldessari, circa 1959. Oil and mixed media on canvas.
Star Stalker, Walter Wojtyla, 1996. Acrylic on canvas.
Influx, Toni Williams, 2023. Oil on canvas.
Untitled (Two Figures with Purple/Pink/Orange Skies), Janet Cooling, 1980s. Oil on canvas.

The following James Hubbell watercolor includes a poem that he wrote in 2004. To read it, visit the museum!

The exhibition also includes two small, typically beautiful Hubbell sculptures.

In the Beginning, James Hubbell, circa 2007. Watercolor.

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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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Street art at Vision Culture Foundation in National City!

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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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.

Feel free to share!