People ride past what is possibly the most amazing, fantastic front yard in all of San Diego!
I walked through Middletown yesterday on a mission. I wanted to pay a visit to the locally famous Harper’s Topiary Garden!
What a fantastic, amazing creation! This private front yard on a hillside has been transformed by the residents into a eye-popping landscape of weird animals and delightful designs. I felt as though I’d stepped into a small world touched by magic.
This is one super cool sight that is undeniably extraordinary!
Human imagination coupled with passion can actually turn wildest dreams into reality!
Mission Hill Garden Club asks How Does Your Garden Grow? I’ll bet it’s nothing like the Harper’s Topiary Garden!Harper’s Topiary Garden seems to be a combination of a vegetable Noah’s Ark and an army of fantasy creatures paralyzed by magic.A green guy in a sombrero takes a siesta. Perhaps this is his dream.A funny rabbit stands and points among many topiary oddities.It appears that Edna Scissorhands is kept quite busy.Harper’s Topiary Garden is a marvel of human creativity.Those who drive up this street might be in for a great surprise!Cats and critters with long ears lounge in the sun near the top of the wonderfully weird garden. I think I also see a robot.Perhaps the garden is inspired a bit by the fantastic worlds of Dr. Seuss, who lived in nearby La Jolla.A most amazing topiary garden. A treat for the eyes!
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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!
Dozens of beautiful sails out on San Diego Bay yesterday. In the afternoon I sat at the end of Broadway Pier and lazily snapped photos.
I spotted tall ship Californian sailing gently past, and a host of shining sailboats racing across the blue water in the San Diego Yacht Club’s Lipton Cup fall regatta.
This morning, toying around with GIMP’s Oilify filter, I created some dreamy images. I’ve never oil painted anything . . . but with the help of my trusty old computer, now I can pretend otherwise!
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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 chapter in the history of Little Italy. These few words also appear in untold human stories. Factory and first class Italian macaroni.
Sidewalks are crisscrossing pathways inside countless stories. Often elements from the stories linger in front of one’s eyes.
I recently walked down Kettner Boulevard in Little Italy. I moved slowly forward down the west sidewalk, from Kalmia Street to Fir Street.
Someone carefully laid these tiles in one small section of the sidewalk. Adding to many forward journeys a brief moment of beauty.Art, love, tears, humor . . . and croissants. Elements that are shared in many stories.Essential words underfoot. Many might pass without noticing.What thought or emotion caused someone to produce this image on a wall? Where is that person now?A carefree vision of what might be. Dreams on another wall in the city.Two stories intersect for a moment. The story of an artist and the story of a pedestrian.Art on a sidewalk shows an imagined garden path into an idyllic future.Many in Little Italy have had their paths influenced by legends.This restaurant has been a dream ever since we were kids playing on the street of Little Italy…A moment in memory captured, made magical, and shared.Little Italy in San Diego, where countless moving feet and stories converge.
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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!
Admiral Hornblower on blue San Diego Bay. It gleams in the last rays of daylight.
This evening I glimpsed dreams of gold on the darkening blue…
The ship moves across the darkening water toward a golden sunset.Young students row a Maritime Museum of San Diego longboat as the sun sets. Perhaps they dream of finding pirate gold.Rowing the longboat forward across the water. They move together, as if in one twilight dream.A trail of gold glistens behind Admiral Hornblower as it moves into the mysterious distance.
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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 spied this natural wonder in Balboa Park’s Desert Garden. Why yellow?
Most of my holiday was spent in Balboa Park. Reading, jotting a few words, walking.
As I turned corners, I encountered many mysteries and wonders.
Who placed a palm frond cross and hearts on a bare tree?What on earth produced this bizarre, hollow, bulging tree trunk?What are those wonderfully odd wicker carts? I know! Those are Electriquettes, which first appeared in Balboa Park during the 1915 Panama-California Exposition.Why is this small sculpture of a child in the Japanese Friendship Garden? Nobody knows. Someone placed it here mysteriously many years ago.What mysterious turn of the wind arranged this, and why did I turn my eyes to see it?Should one exit stage left or stage right?Will seeds planted in Balboa Park by Kate Sessions outlive us all?I happened upon this rose near a closed, locked door. Why is a flower beautiful?When the Comic-Con Center for Popular Culture eventually moves into the Federal Building, will visitors wear costumes?Do puppets ever manipulate their own strings?People gaze into the green distance. What do they wonder?In the courtyard of the House of Hospitality is a Time Capsule Dedicated to the Future of Balboa Park, to be opened in 2035. What waits hidden inside?How many photographs does it take to satisfy a photographer?Who gets to open those windows, and water those flowers?Spring and summer end. What is in their future?Why does time move forward?
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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!
This morning I explored the heart of La Mesa. I’ll blog about my adventure shortly.
This afternoon I returned downtown, then strolled for a couple of magical hours along San Diego Bay. I gazed at the whirl of people all around. I glimpsed moments in life.
Near the softly rippling, bright water, life can seem like a dream.
Walking along, touching a tree.A moment on some steps.Ice cream on a sunny Sunday afternoon.Resting on the shady grass.Family and a passing white sail.A kite high in the blue sky.Like dreams on sparkling blue.Looking down into mystery.A busy day and a smile.A story some will not see.Fishing for memories.A wave upon waves.Fishing beyond an old fence.Many choices.The passage of time.Realizing dreams.Youth and fantasy.A bite to eat.
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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!
Double Talk by artist Richard Deacon, winner of the Turner Prize. Laminated wood and imitation leather. 1987.
Look at these photos! Enjoy a taste of some wonders that have materialized inside the San Diego Museum of Art!
My docent friend took me on a tour yesterday morning of the jaw-dropping exhibition Richard Deacon: What You See Is What You Get. The abstract artwork of this world-renowned British contemporary sculptor, winner of the Turner Prize, is being shown for the first time in a major American museum–right here at the San Diego Museum of Art!
I don’t know how to begin explaining the various pieces. I did plainly see that Richard Deacon takes joy in inventive creation, working diverse materials, seeing organic forms bubble and expand into life. Gazing at his often huge pieces, I felt myself tumbling through a space filled with living shapes, mythological symbols, dreamlike visions. His muscle-crafted marvels have been extracted from infinite possibility, bent into reality.
I don’t know what else to say. I’ve added a little more description in my photo captions. But words are insufficient. What you see is what you get!
It’s great news that this special exhibition at the San Diego Museum of Art has been extended through Labor Day, September 04, 2017. Go feast your eyes!
Richard Deacon. What you see is what you get. To see it, head over to the San Diego Museum of Art!Eyes are met with an astonishing work of abstract art. Dancing in Front of My Eyes, 2006. Wood, aluminum.In places screws, glue, and the wood itself seem to be “unfinished” parts of a living whole. The fluid piece undulates from the hand of its inventive creator.An intangible tangle of shadow on the floor seems to be an important part of the sculpture. The artist calls himself a fabricator.An amazing creation, that seems to me like active muscles or tendons in a living body. Dead Leg, 2007. Steamed oak, stainless steel.The wood is artistically bent using steam and heat. During this process, Richard Deacon has about two minutes to permanently alter the wood’s shape.This looks to me like supple leather. A portion of Fish out of Water. Laminated hardboard, screws. 1986-87.Richard Deacon creates astonishing art using many different materials. These huge pieces are ceramic. They seem to have bubbled up from the Earth, or the artist’s mind.Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow C. Glazed ceramic. 2000.Housing 10, 2012. Marbling on folded STPI handmade paper, constructed with magnet button.Richard Deacon enjoys playful, suggestive language and has called this huge piece Double Talk. The viewer can decide what is meant.The abstract sculpture stretches and curves in an inviting way. It is both natural and larger than life.Falling on Deaf Ears, No. 1. Galvanized steel, canvas. 1984. My docent friend explained this represents the ship of Odysseus, as he sailed past the treacherous Sirens.Across this room soars Like a Bird. Laminated wood, 1984. Richard Deacon creates spacious wonders that tickle the mind and expand the spirit.
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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!
Visitor to the San Diego Art Institute in Balboa Park journeys through a dream.
Stepping into the San Diego Art Institute in Balboa Park is like entering a world of dreams. Weird, unexpected dreams hover around corners, dangle overhead, emerge mysteriously from the floor and walls.
A journey through this dreamworld opens one’s eyes to the possibilities of human creativity. During my recent visit I felt as though I were floating through some sort of Twilight Zone. The unearthly sounds, the psychedelic whirls of video, the explosions of imagination, the seemingly sublime and inexplicable visions.
If you’re in San Diego and love provocative art, head over to Balboa Park! The San Diego Art Institute is more gallery than museum, with exhibits that change every couple of months.
One can wander through a maze of rampant human creativity The current exhibit focuses on mixed media.Upside down, strange and sudden.Through alleys of dazzling images.Aaron Garretson, Sunday Morning Cocktails. Threat, yarn, cloth, found materials. 2016.Weird visions on a wall include spinning blobs of video.Elise Amour, Untitled. Mixed media with vintage photo. 2017.Surrounded by art. Slow feet meander from dream to dream.Eight pieces by Jodi Hays. Gouache, ink and collage on paper. 2015.
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Do you like to read original, thought-provoking fiction? To read a few stories I’ve written (and something that resembles a poem), click Short Stories by Richard.
Arresting street art in Normal Heights. A snarling wolf.
Dreams seem to have materialized on a cluster of electrical boxes at the corner of Felton Street and Adams Avenue in Normal Heights.
Some of the street art is tranquil and crystal-like. Some of the images are like visions from a nightmare. Others are fantastically distorted–almost but not quite human!
Take a look–if you dare!
A nightmarish skull.More skulls include an upside-down peace sign–sometimes a symbol of death.A wraith-like figure seems to be in pain.Hands and fingers create an eerie, seemingly inhuman skull.An abstract flower has a peace sign right-side-up. Perhaps an affirmation of life.Colorful designs like snowflakes on an electrical box appear to be visions in a beautiful dream.Someone peers at the stars.Perhaps life is but a dream. A woman seems to grow from something swirling and elemental.Crazily distorted faces.Many human expressions–but fantastic and weird. I believe I’ve seen creatures like these in my dreams.Who is that in the middle? Perhaps you or me.
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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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