Tag: folk art

Crafty armadillos roll into San Diego!

Dozens of crafty armadillos have rolled into San Diego. I observed them today in Balboa Park, inside the Mingei International Museum!

The roll of armadillos (that’s what a group of armadillos is called) is hanging out inside several glass display cases on the ground floor of the museum. Tuck and Roll: The Art of Armadillos is the name of the free exhibition.

The exhibition includes folk art armadillos crafted from wood, clay, glass, metal, stone, fiber and various natural materials such at shells, gourds and coconuts. There are bowl armadillos, toy armadillos, ashtray armadillos, pipe armadillos, jar armadillos, coin bank armadillos, toothpick holder armadillos…

These crafty armadillos were made primarily in Central and South America, and Mexico, where the roly-poly animals are found in the wild. Many of the objects were created by indigenous peoples following centuries-old traditions.

I took a few photos, but if you plan to visit Balboa Park, step through the Mingei International Museum’s door and encounter these fun armadillos yourself!

Tuck and Roll: The Art of Armadillos will be displayed into January 2026, so you have plenty of time.

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A closer view of public art at San Ysidro Library.

Picadillo Folklorico

Picadillo Folklorico and El Movimiento are two works of public art decorating the exterior of the San Ysidro Branch Library.

Visitors to the library might crane their necks to gaze up at these two large steel screens, but closely observing the intricate water-jet cut designs in each can be difficult. So I took a few photos that provide a better look at some of the detail.

The artists who created Picadillo Folklorico and El Movimiento are Einar and Jamex de la Torre, “brothers and artistic collaborators who were born in Guadalajara, Mexico, and maintain studios in Baja California and San Diego.”

According to the San Diego Civic Art Collection description, the two pieces were inspired by the Mexican folk art of paper-cutting and traditional Moorish screens.

By examining these close-up photographs, you can discover all sorts of interesting little figures incorporated into each design. Many of the figures appear like ancient pictographs, perhaps representing real or mythical creatures.

All of the elements combine to create the impression, in my own mind, of complex, outwardly expanding life.

What do you see?

(The same two artists created amazing public art inside the San Ysidro Library. I’ll post those photos coming up!)

El Movimiento

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Thanks for visiting Cool San Diego Sights!

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 (formerly known as Twitter)!

Folk dancing under the Moreton Bay Fig!

As always, Balboa Park was alive today!

Look what I stumbled upon while walking past the gigantic old Moreton Bay Fig tree, by the San Diego Natural History Museum. Folk dancing!

The Cabrillo International Folk Dancers had made the wooden platform under the massive tree their dance floor. That’s because, I was told, the Balboa Park Club ballroom, where they usually dance, was being used for another event.

Learn more about the Cabrillo International Folk Dancers and consider joining the fun group by clicking here!

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Thanks for visiting Cool San Diego Sights!

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 Twitter!

Dwarf dinosaur “glarfs” restored in Bonita!

Two dwarf dinosaur glarfs have been restored in Bonita!

The glarfs, named Rumbi and Rangui, now stand behind construction fencing in front of Bonita Village Shopping Center. They appear just about ready to be set free!

According to a posted letter, Rumbi the Glarf (the yellow one) was badly hurt last year. But Rumbi’s human friend Kelly has been working to make everything all better.

Several loving messages on the fence express Get Well wishes.

A nearby plaque explains a bit of glarf history. Rangui is the blue one…

RANGUI THE GLARF

Original created in 1959 by Jerry Lee Gauss

Replication by Kelly Tracy in 2006

Rangui is the original Glarf dinosaur created by Bonita’s Jerry Lee Gauss. The story of Rangui and Rumbi was told in the 2000 Bonitafest Melodrama “When Dinosaurs Roamed the Valley” in The San Diego Union-Tribune and on Channel 7/39’s “About San Diego.” Cast and audience members raised funds to rebuild Rangui.

Unfortunately, there’s a terribly tragic aspect to this otherwise wonderful story. The 15-year-old creator of the glarfs, Jerry Lee Gauss perished four years later at the age of 19 in a car accident.

According to the RoadsideAmerica website, both glarfs were made as an anniversary present for Jerry’s parents. And here’s a little more of the history.

Fully restored, children will again be able to romp on the strong backs of Rumbi and Rangui. And so a young creator’s gift of love will live on and on.

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Thanks for visiting Cool San Diego Sights!

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 Twitter!

Passion, stories, and love of life in art.

True art flows from an artist’s passion to create.

That passion is now being celebrated at the Mingei International Museum in Balboa Park. The exhibition is called This is Our Story.

The artists in this exhibition were not professionally trained. Their works used to be called folk art. Today’s experts call it vernacular art. It is art by ordinary people.

The art of This is Our Story has personality. It is unashamed, happy, in no way conceited. It comes from personal experience, imagination, and hands that love to be moving. It is art that loves to be alive.

You won’t find a Rembrandt in this exhibition. But you will enjoy glimpses of many unique stories.

This is Our Story concludes on February 26, 2023.

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Thanks for visiting Cool San Diego Sights!

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 Twitter!

Fun art by Carlsbad Poinsettia train station!

If you’ve ever traveled by Amtrak or Coaster train through the Carlsbad Poinsettia station, you might’ve seen this fun artwork on the back of a fence!

I got off at the train station during my last Carlsbad adventure and took photographs!

At the south end of the station’s west platform, a pathway leads a short distance along the tracks before turning past residences toward the beach. From this path there’s a good view of the fence art.

I quickly asked the conductor of the Coaster, who was out on the platform making sure all passengers had boarded, if he knew anything about this folksy art. He told me it had been there for years and years–as long as he could remember.

The fence is painted blue, and it is populated by fish, a shark, birds and other ocean creatures. At the center of it all a small fishing boat, occupied by a mannequin, is suspended as if floating on water. At the left end of the scene, a surfer rides a three-dimensional tubular wave!

Do you know anything about this delightful fence? Leave a comment!

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Thanks for visiting Cool San Diego Sights!

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 Twitter!

Christmas Imaginarium Carriage visits Balboa Park!

The wonderful, eye-popping Christmas Imaginarium Carriage visited Balboa Park this morning! It arrived for the Deck the Cars event in the parking lot by the San Diego Automotive Museum.

People around San Diego might see this unmistakable vehicle driving about from time to time. I first saw it over 9 years ago.

During Deck the Cars, a crowd of car enthusiasts converged to admire the Christmas Imaginarium Carriage, which, like a mobile work of art, is decorated with angels, nutcrackers, Santas, small houses and buildings, Christmas trees, lights, ornaments, and painted winter holiday scenes.

Enjoy this look at one man’s fantastic dream made real!

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Thanks for visiting Cool San Diego Sights!

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 Twitter!

The big House of Mexico fiesta in Balboa Park!

A big, wonderful fiesta was held today in San Diego’s Balboa Park!

The House of Mexico held their annual lawn program at the International Cottages, and, as usual, a good crowd came out!

There was much to do and see–and eat! (I must admit those churros were irresistible.)

Smiles shined all around as the festival filled with more and more people. Members from diverse communities around San Diego and Mexico were in attendance, and all were welcome.

Before the entertainment began at two o’clock, I wandered into the House of Mexico’s new cottage. Inside, displays included some very striking folk art, representing the legends and spirituality of the indigenous Huichol or Wixárika. I was told the exhibits in the cottage will be changed every few months.

After wandering away to listen to the Spreckels Organ concert for a while, I returned to the International Cottages to catch some of the House of Mexico’s cultural entertainment.

Enjoy these photos!

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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!

Death and Monsters in Escondido!

Fearless people (and art lovers) have the rare opportunity to view Death and Monsters in Escondido!

Muerte y Monstruos (Death and Monsters) is an exhibition currently on view in the museum at the California Center for the Arts, Escondido. The collection of traditional Mexican artwork, created by the Linares family of Mexico City, includes many papier-mâché sculptures depicting skeletons and skulls, or calaveras, engaged in living and death.

And there are fantastic monsters, or alebrijes, too! Pedro Linares is credited with inventing that form of very colorful folk art.

It’s fortunate many of the fragile pieces on display have survived. Their purpose was to be burned or broken during holiday festivals in Mexico. The sculptures in Death and Monsters were preserved by San Diego art collector Larry Kent.

Much of this art was inspired by legendary Mexican printmaker José Guadalupe Posada. His iconic work is being concurrently displayed in the main gallery of the museum!

Would you enjoy a unique experience during the upcoming season of Día de los Muertos? The exhibition continues through November 21, 2021.

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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!

The extraordinary reopening of the Mingei Museum!

Three years of construction at Balboa Park’s House of Charm is completed. The reimagined, redesigned, greatly enlarged Mingei International Museum, which occupies most of the historic building, has finally reopened!

The multicultural Mingei Museum, whose focus is crafts and design, opened its doors to the public yesterday. To celebrate, admission to the upstairs galleries will be free during Labor Day weekend through Monday, September 6.

I slowly walked through the new spacious indoor pavilion that occupies the ground level. The ground floor will always be free to the public.

A big seating area invites visitors to relax. Several large glass cases display colorful museum pieces. There’s a nearby gift shop and café, too. Through one door anybody can go outside to sit in a beautiful courtyard at tables under shady umbrellas. (That might become a favorite place to read and write!)

The second floor’s main galleries are approached up stairs through the House of Charm’s tower. As you head up the steps, look up. You’ll be wowed by renowned artist Dale Chihuly’s glass sculpture chandelier! (Lights in the stairwell walls cast intricate shadows, which one guide at the museum said he really likes!)

I walked about the upstairs galleries and admired the many exhibits. I particularly like folk art. I laughed at some pieces, stood in wonder before others.

Artwork handcrafted by “ordinary” folk from all around the world often feels more powerful and authentic than so-called fine art. Because its creation typically flows from human experiences that are unique but universal. Folk art represents what day-to-day people consider desirous or meaningful in life.

By the way, if you’re an artist in San Diego seeking inspiration, or if you want to do some art research, there’s a huge library on the second floor! The Frances Hamilton White Art Reference Library features a specialized collection of over 12,000 books!

I took some photos to provide a taste of the new, more-extraordinary-than-ever Mingei International Museum.

Next time you’re in Balboa Park, you definitely need to check it out! And make sure to venture outside on the second floor, to enjoy amazing views of the Plaza de Panama!

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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!