A month and a half ago I headed down Imperial Avenue to the Interstate 15 underpass to observe the painting of many large murals. I returned today. They’re all completed!
To see the painting in progress, and to learn more about this project, visit my previous blog post by clicking here.
Here are today’s photographs. As you can see, the common theme is music…
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Bella Vita Fest is being held this weekend in San Diego’s Little Italy. A big part of the Italy themed festival is the creation of chalk art along India Street.
This morning–Sunday–the chalk artists (many traveled to San Diego from places far away) were busy at work completing their amazing creations. Subject matter included anything and everything from Italian history or culture.
I took these photographs of talented chalk artists at work on the street…
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This mural at Liberty Station in Point Loma is suggestive of many things. Variously shaped and colored cells combine into what appears to me like an organism seen through a microscope, or perhaps a color-coded map, or perhaps a sunset or stained glass seen through an odd lens. What does it look like to you?
The public art is titled Vitral Sunset: A Marine Perspective Across The Border. It was created last year with acrylic paints by Tijuana artist Mischka Ippólita (@mischkaippolita). You can find it at Barracks 19.
A nearby plaque describes the art:
The visual references that inspired this mural are seascapes, landscapes, local plants, and microscopic life.
Components of the mural are a combination of ships at sea aerial views and cross-sections of native plants from California and Baja California. A significant factor that unifies all the elements in the piece references the North Chapel, an aesthetic emulating the stained-glass windows.
Yes, the mural does evoke all of those things. Very cool!
A couple weeks ago I took these photos…
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This mural was painted in 2021 by San Diego artist Regan Russell. Located at the southeast corner of Park Boulevard and University Avenue, it’s technically at the west edge of the North Park neighborhood.
Whenever I see this colorful mural, I’m reminded of that old Atari arcade game Marble Madness. If you’re old enough and remember once-popular video game arcades, you might also remember this groundbreaking game.
Using a trackball, players would try to roll a marble along a three-dimensional course around corners, down ramps, along precarious edges and through various obstacles. The isometric playing field appeared a bit like this mural!
Murals with similar geometric designs have lately become more common in San Diego. I usually don’t photograph them. This particular mural, however, allows my imagination to roll a marble along University Avenue down a colorful North Park slope into neighboring Hillcrest!
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Yōkai are supernatural beings and spirits from Japanese folklore, and they’ve gathered in San Diego’s Balboa Park!
Yōkai: Stories and Imagination is a community art exhibit now showing at the Japanese Friendship Garden and Museum.
Artists were invited to submit their interpretation of Japanese yokai for this exhibition. These original works can be viewed in both the Upper Garden Gallery and the Lower Garden’s Inamori Pavilion.
Yōkai include shapeshifters, ghosts, demons, and tricksters. They can be mischievous, helpful, or malevolent, often appearing as animal-like figures, possessed objects, or humanoids. They embody the mysterious and uncanny aspects of nature and human emotions.
Check out a few examples that I photographed.
I’ve always enjoyed this type of artwork. It can be wild, weird, fierce and unsettling. Mysterious forces in our world are often portrayed in human or animal form–familiar figures that we emotionally understand.
It would be interesting to compare yokai to deities and characters from the mythologies of other cultures.
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I discovered something cool today while walking through Liberty Station in Point Loma. Pisano Artistry, located in a building adjacent to the Dick Laub NTC Command Center, will soon have a Star Wars exhibit!
I learned the fun news while peeking through the window of artist Joe Pisano’s gallery.
You’ve seen Joe Pisano’s unique and patriotic drywall screw art on Cool San Diego Sights previously. Here and here and here.
I haven’t spoken to him about it, but it definitely appears that he’s a Star Wars fan.
Can’t wait to see it!
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Look at all these great works of art! They were created by neighbors at Father Joe’s Villages.
Father Joe’s Health and Wellness Program includes activities that foster creativity, well-being, and personal growth. That includes making art!
The latest Painting the Town exhibition, now on view at the San Diego Central Library, celebrates this art.
Father Joe’s Villages helps those in San Diego experiencing homelessness. They provide emergency and transitional housing for adults and families with children, provide showers, laundry facilities, a public lunch line, a health center, employment and education services, and more.
Look at this beautiful art and see hope.
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Who in and around San Diego hasn’t heard of the artist James Hubbell? Between his architecturally fantastic Ilan-Lael residence and studios in Santa Ysabel, to his many works of public art around the city (many of which I’ve photographed), the beloved artist has earned a special place in the heart of San Diegans.
Did you know James had a brother named Bert who was also an artist?
An exhibition now showing at the Oceanside Museum of Art features the work of both immensely talented artists. It’s titled Brothers in Arts: James Hubbell and Bert Hubbell.
During my recent visit to the museum, I noticed the art of these brothers is similar in certain ways. The construction of pieces is very organic, elemental. The works seem to have been extracted from or designed by the living Earth itself. While James lived and worked in Southern California, for over fifty years Bert lived in Kokubunji, Japan near sacred Mt. Fuji.
Their art’s earthy quality seems natural and familiar–perhaps that’s why it feels so spiritual.
According to the exhibition webpage, Bert…was profoundly shaped by Japanese culture, Shinto, Animism, and Native American art. Self-described as a “primitive artist,” he worked across mediums but most prolifically in ceramic sculpture. His fantastical creatures—reminiscent of yōkai—externalize inner fears and anxieties as a means of transformation and healing… Bert, who never sold his art, left behind an estimated 28,000 individual ceramic figures as well as paintings, drawings and found object assemblages.
The exhibition, which continues through September 6, 2026, provides an interesting contrast between the work of the two brothers. In places their pieces are placed side by side. In one gallery room a wall contains the work of James, and the opposite wall contains pieces created by Bert.
One gets the impression Bert could have reached the level of renown achieved by his brother. It seems, however, that he created art just for the personal joy and satisfaction of creating art.
Like any art, you need to experience it in person. A few photographs to entice you into visiting the Oceanside Museum of Art:
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This might be the most fun interactive art exhibition you’ll experience all year! It’s showing for one more week at the Oceanside Museum of Art, and it’s titled Aaron Kramer: Sense of Wonder.
Do you love crazy, clever, fun-loving inventions? Upstairs at the museum you’ll find loads of them! Playful artist Aaron Kramer likes to tinker and make mechanical wonders using found objects.
Visitors to the Oceanside Museum of Art can turn cranks and press buttons that activate wacky kinetic creations. Wires, old springs, bottles and tin cans, cardboard, odd pieces of wood, broken things–magically become spinning whirligigs, dipping hummingbirds, dancing figures . . . even contraptions that trace images on paper!
I’ve always loved these sort of whimsical creations. Remember that scene near the beginning of the movie Chitty Chitty Bang Bang–that crazy, elaborate Rube Goldberg-style contraption that automatically made breakfast? These small works of art are just as fun!
If you’re young at heart, you’ll be pressing every button and turning every crank! Through August 23, 2026, that is, when this super cool exhibition wraps up.
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It’s been well over a year since I visited the Artist Alley in downtown Oceanside. I walked through it again today!
Look what my camera found!
Most of this art must be fairly new, because it was painted in places where earlier murals existed.
(The two murals just inside the entrance of the multi-suite building that opens into the alley might have been there a long time–I don’t know. My first four photos are of those.)
I love how the artwork changes in the alley over time. Every time I walk through it I discover new creations!
Oceanside’s very cool, very magical Artist Alley can be entered directly south of the city library and civic center. Simply cross Pier View Way and you’ll find it!
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