Symbolic public art stands at the entrance to the City of San Diego North University Community Branch Library. The sculpture is titled Sprout.
Sprout was created by artist Blue McRight in 2007, the year the library opened.
The unique stainless steel sculpture is in the shape of a tender seedling about to rise up from the earth. Scattered on its two new leaves are many letters. Should this young plant grow and flourish, simple words would surely appear upon it, and its words would multiply.
With a little imagination you can see how Sprout’s small seed, given time and proper care, would produce a full grown tree of knowledge.
That’s what happens in a library, right?
At night the letters light up, which is something I have not yet experienced.
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The now shut and boarded Sunset Temple, a wedding, concert and private event venue in North Park at the corner of University Avenue and Kansas Street, has been decorated during the COVID-19 pandemic by street artists with a whole bunch of cool graffiti murals.
I took photographs of the very colorful urban art last weekend!
If you look at the Sunset Temple sign, you’ll notice this historic building was previously the Independent Order of Odd Fellows Sunset Lodge #328. The Odd Fellows is an organization that seeks to help make the world a better place with Friendship, Love and Truth. That explains the F-L-T part of the old sign.
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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!
Three years ago I enjoyed an amazing tour of artist James Watts’ studio in downtown San Diego. See those photos here.
The small creative space (home of what he calls on his Instagram page The James E Watts Institute of Artistic Behavior) is one of the most fantastic and inspiring places you’ll ever visit. Every inch is crammed with inexhaustible imagination and obvious love of life.
Whenever I walk down Seventh Avenue past the James E. Watts Studio, I peer into the front windows to see what works he has chosen to display.
This morning I was delighted by an explosion of art…
Choose happy.
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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!
Lorena Correa, a tattoo and mural artist from Bogotá, Colombia, completed painting a very cool mural a couple weeks ago at Super Cocina in City Heights!
If you like her detailed artwork, check out her Instagram @lorenaskunkrocker. You’ll see lots of hyenas!
This cool mural fills in a wall that features some earlier murals. It’s the latest addition to San Diego’s big outdoor art gallery that continues to grow in City Heights, on University Avenue between I-805 and I-15.
To see a couple other murals on the same wall at Super Cocina, click here and here!
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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!
You can easily explore Cool San Diego Sights by using the search box on my blog’s sidebar. Or click a tag! There are thousands upon thousands of photos for you to enjoy!
A fantastic kinetic sculpture was recently installed on the Coast Highway in Encinitas. You can see it shining among trees in the small park in front of the Self-Realization Fellowship building, at South Coast Hwy 101 and K Street.
The titanium and stainless steel sculpture is called Orpheus, named after the poet and musician of Greek mythology. Orpheus played his lyre so movingly that even the trees danced. And indeed, the trees near this metallic Orpheus seem to dance with it as the sculpture’s curving arms move quietly in the wind like living limbs.
Orpheus was created by Encinitas artist Jeffery Laudenslager. His peculiar geometric sculpture Fuji San was photographed six years ago here.
Orpheus has been acquired by the Encinitas Friends of the Arts and, according to this article, is the very first piece of public art in the City of Encinitas’ Sculpture Installation Program.
I took these photos last Saturday. By sheer coincidence, I read an article this morning that another similar kinetic sculpture by Jeffery Laudenslager was recently stolen from his driveway, and he is offering a reward to recover it.
Enjoy a few photos of Orpheus, playing its visual music in the sky above Encinitas…
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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!
You can easily explore Cool San Diego Sights by using the search box on my blog’s sidebar. Or click a tag! There are thousands upon thousands of photos for you to enjoy!
During my walk in La Mesa last weekend I spotted a girl strolling with numerous dogs down the sidewalk!
Happy dogs of every type were walking with her past Village Antiques, as a curious cat watched from the shop window. And all of this was happening at the corner of La Mesa Boulevard and University Avenue . . . on a painted utility box!
I saw that this fun but somewhat faded street art was created by Margo Parks and Yvonne Rose.
As I tried to do a little research about the artists, I made a big discovery. This street art is part of a larger La Mesa beautification project called the Walking Art Trail.
The Walking Art Trail was created by the La Mesa Arts Alliance (LMAA) in partnership with the community. Local artists painted a variety of utility boxes around La Mesa, and a brochure which you can see here shows the locations of each colorful box!
Back in 2017 I photographed a number of these painted boxes without realizing they were all part of a larger project. You can see my photographs here.
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It’s interesting that only a small fraction of street murals I spot around San Diego have a commercial origin. But one such mural that was painted about a month ago I’d like to share, because it’s undeniably cool!
The artwork was created by Evgeniya Golik (@evgola), a Russian born artist who resides in San Diego. She describes her work as pop-surrealist, or Neo-Renaissance. Her fantastic pieces are often on display in local galleries and regional art museums. You can learn more about her artistic inspirations and accomplishments at her website here.
This particular mural can be found downtown on the south wall of Mixon Liquor & Deli, on 1st Avenue just north of Ash Street. It advertises Trust Me Vodka.
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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!
You can easily explore Cool San Diego Sights by using the search box on my blog’s sidebar. Or click a tag! There are thousands upon thousands of photos for you to enjoy!
The San Diego Museum of Art’s new exhibition Young Art 2021: My World, Our Planet has opened!
At the title suggests, the museum’s biennial Youth Art exhibition has an environmental theme this year. Students from schools all around San Diego County have contributed.
There’s a new twist this time, however!
Professional artists, coordinated by Mindful Murals, are reimagining 25 works of this outstanding youth art by painting SDG&E utility boxes from Balboa Park down Park Boulevard into downtown San Diego. Every utility box “recreates” a canvas painted by a young person!
I’ve already photographed many of the utility boxes. So I was excited to see all the great original youth art hanging on the San Diego Museum of Art’s walls!
Wouldn’t it be fun, I thought, to compare some of the original art with the painted utility boxes? Of course it would!
The professional artists painting the boxes were encouraged to interpret the student canvases in their own unique way. You can see significant differences. (And painting an outdoor utility box that will be seen momentarily by passing motorists and pedestrians is very different than painting a canvas with a fine brush.)
To view photos of many more utility boxes, click here.
So, without further ado, here come the comparisons!
Plastic, Not Dinner, by Anjolie Ly, Westview High School. Large numbers of turtles are killed each year when they mistake plastic waste for jellyfish.Artist Brise Birdsong. A more perfect ocean environment.Strong Together, by Chloe Katz, Art Studio Light.Artist Amanda Saint Claire, mentoring Katie Flores.Turn Off the Light, by Anqi “Cici” Mei, Solana Pacific Elementary.Artist Nhuy Reid.2050, by Sheridan Liew, Sherry Art Studio/Canyon Crest Academy. A future of severe environmental pollution might look like this.Artist Lucy Helle.Wind Farm at Sundown on 8 East, by Arianna Larios, Homeschool.I don’t know the artist at this moment! When I learn, I’ll provide an update. UPDATE! The artist is Sean Hnedak.Oceana, by Alice Zhu, Westview High School. A girl’s serenity contrasted with her hair as an oil spill.Artist Alyssa Stewart.
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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!
While walking up Park Boulevard in East Village today I discovered more utility boxes that are being painted for the San Diego Museum of Art’s cool outdoor exhibition Young Art: Outside the Frame!
Most of the boxes you see here are located around Park Boulevard and F Street. Last weekend I discovered other newly painted utility boxes in this same general area and posted those photos here. Click the link and you’ll learn more about this unique, very cool project!
(I noticed some of those earlier boxes are now finished, and I’ll be updating that blog post with additional images shortly.)
To see even more colorful utility boxes painted for the Young Art: Outside the Frame project, you can check out additional blog posts here and here and here!
As you can see in the next photo, the fun goldfish box was painted by Ground Floor Murals. They also created a super cool mural in City Heights celebrating Tony Gwynn. See that here!
For the other boxes that follow, many of which are just getting started, I don’t know the artists yet…
The next three boxes are on the sidewalk adjacent to some very cool East Village murals I blogged about here!
UPDATE!
Here are a couple photos I took several days later…
ANOTHER UPDATE!
And a week or so later I took more photos! I now see the box with the words YOU ARE MAGIC is by artist Amanda Lopez (@amanda.makes.art). The box with the whale in the clouds is by Tory Brooke Marshall (@afrothynothing). And the face with flowing red scarf is by Mindful Murals!
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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!
You can easily explore Cool San Diego Sights by using the search box on my blog’s sidebar. Or click a tag! There are thousands upon thousands of photos for you to enjoy!
An outdoor sculpture gallery is now springing up in the heart of City Heights!
Today I paused near the intersection of University Avenue and Interstate 15 to feast my eyes on all the colorful artwork!
This very cool outdoor sculpture garden is sponsored by the City Heights Community Development Corporation, the City Heights Business Association and Synergy Arts Foundation. The character sculptures, which might represent a person that is real or imagined, are all created by members of the community, under the curation of local artist Jim Bliesner.
The sculptures have personalities that are funny, or sad, or hopeful, or simply whimsical–and all are super creative! I noticed some refer to the difficult COVID-19 pandemic we are all experiencing.
You can view this unique installation in the vacant lot north of University Avenue just east of Interstate 15. The mixed media sculptures stand behind a fence that is already decorated with hand painted murals that I blogged about here.
The sculptures will be on display in the lot for a year and a variety of community events will be held among them.
I’ll return at a later time to photograph additional sculptures. Stay tuned for an update!
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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!
You can easily explore Cool San Diego Sights by using the search box on my blog’s sidebar. Or click a tag! There are thousands upon thousands of photos for you to enjoy!
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