Tag: la jolla

Double Bill art exhibition in La Jolla!

Lovers of art in San Diego are in for a treat. Head down to the Wisteria Cottage Gallery in La Jolla and you can admire the work of two celebrated local artists who taught at UC San Diego.

Double Bill: The Art of Manny Farber and Patricia Patterson contains numerous fine works by this husband and wife team who made their home in Leucadia.

Paintings large and small, beautiful sketches, historical photographs, and books the pair published are all on display.

Both artists liked to create images of simple, familiar things. Family life and home are frequent subjects. The images are friendly and warm. If I could reach into two dimensions, I’d happily take the depicted scenes and objects into my hands and make them my own.

You’ll notice when you visit the gallery that Patricia often paints people and moments in life. Manny often creates collage-like images of ordinary objects. To viewers who love living, they can all make a powerful connection.

Here’s the exhibition webpage.

Double Bill: The Art of Manny Farber and Patricia Patterson will be open free to the public through February 1, 2026.

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Mary at the Stove at the Athenaeum.

Mary at the Stove is a painting by Patricia Patterson, a former professor of art at UC San Diego. You can find in heading up some stairs at the Athenaeum Music & Arts Library in La Jolla.

This beautiful work of art was originally painted on a plasterboard wall at the Athenaeum for an exhibition in 1993. Now it’s part of the library’s permanent art collection.

When I visited the Athenaeum a couple days ago, I told the friendly librarian at the front desk I would be walking over to the Wisteria Cottage Gallery next, to view the exhibition Double Bill: The Art of Manny Farber and Patricia Patterson. That’s when she told me about Patterson’s Mary at the Stove.

I love the image and its simple warmth. It shows ordinary life in an unpretentious, almost nostalgic way. It struck me this painting is something between a Japanese print and folk art. But what do I know?

As you’ll see in my next blog post, Patricia Patterson created many such wonderful images.

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3D printing rocks as art in La Jolla!

A rather unusual exhibition of art can now be viewed in La Jolla at the Athenaeum Music & Arts Library. Yes, those shelves in the above photo are full of 3D printed “rocks!”

They’re actually a kind of lightweight plastic material, but they do resemble black volcanic rocks. Visitors to the Athenaeum’s Joseph Clayes III Gallery can watch a rock being printed and handle a specimen and consider the deeper meaning of Nolan Oswald Dennis: Demonstrations (i).

As the exhibition webpage explains, this collection of art, selected by The Athenaeum and INSITE from many entries, is informed by the study of geological and planetary systems—and situated within African and diasporic relations to the land, cosmos, and anti-colonial political structures.

A further description in the gallery includes: This artwork explores the political and spiritual history of the land in South Africa as a proxy for an after-history of the planet as a discontinuous but interrelated whole, imagining that we can use the digital shadow of a simulated rock (the thing without itself) to hold the immaterial social, spiritual and political relations which are also part of the geo-physics of the planet.

I’m afraid I’m not terribly sophisticated, so those explanations are a little beyond me. It struck me the exhibition is about something that is universal: the enormous complexity of essence and connection. That’s probably too simple.

Visit this very unique exhibition, turn over a simulated rock, and arrive at your own particular conclusion!

Nolan Oswald Dennis: Demonstrations (i) can be experienced through January 17, 2026.

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Fencing trees and space at UC San Diego.

UC San Diego’s outdoor public art can be surprising. That is certainly the case with Two Running Violet V Forms. The 1983 installation by artist Robert Irwin is part of UCSD’s Stuart Collection.

Located near the center of the La Jolla campus in a eucalyptus grove, stretches of blue-violet chain-link fencing form two elevated v’s that students can walk beneath. These linear geometric forms pierce the complexity of living eucalyptus trees.

I walked into the grove yesterday and paused for a few minutes to take in the effect.

The sky at the moment was cloudy gray. Had the sky been bright blue, the Two Running Violet V Forms might have been more intriguing–even spiritual–showing different qualities of light, seeming to blend with the upper air, providing a more subtle contrast with the organic grayish eucalyptus trunks and high green leaves.

Under a colorless gray sky, however, and among grayish trees, the fencing’s stark color was too garish, too harshly artificial. At least for me. Sorry to criticize. Keep in mind I’m no art expert.

When I finished reading an essay concerning of this unusual art, I completely understood the intention. I’ll have to return on a sunny blue sky day.

The sculpture and artist are explored in depth on this Stuart Collection webpage.

Robert Irwin‘s work is held in high esteem. His unique creations focus on human perception, engaging different environments and effects of light. His work includes the Central Gardens at The J. Paul Getty Center in Los Angeles.

His cut glass windows overlooking the ocean at the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego produce interesting contrasts of light. See those photos here.

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Morning views from the Cliffhanger Café.

These photographs were taken this morning. I found myself at the Cliffhanger Café and Bar, overlooking the ocean at the Torrey Pines Gliderport in La Jolla.

It was cloudy but predictably beautiful. The wide Pacific Ocean and sky above was painted with complex light and subtle variations of color. Green grass in the foreground, below the deck of the café, produced a stunning contrast. No gliders were up yet. A happy dog was running about.

In all of San Diego, is there a more amazing place to sit outdoors, eating a bite? Take a look at the scenery! Imagine a typically sunny day.

I posted an elaborate blog concerning the Torrey Pines Gliderport almost ten years ago. (Time flies.) From what I observed today, not a whole lot has changed. Just as amazing. See those many past photographs here.

After finishing a snack on the deck, I wandered down to the bench you see in the above photo…

This bench with an amazing view beyond many potted plants has a plaque…

Morgan Meredith Rohde… Drawn to the ocean and kissed by the sun, radiant, exuberant, always smiling, Morgan lives in our hearts forever.

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La Jolla’s historic Post Office and the New Deal.

In ten years the historic post office in the Village of La Jolla will celebrate its 100th anniversary.

It’s very fortunate the 1935 building has been preserved. The result of a Great Depression-era works program, the post office was threatened by a planned U.S. Postal Service downsizing in 2011. The historic building was saved by an outpouring of community activism.

The handsome La Jolla Post Office was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2013 and remains a beloved landmark in La Jolla at 1140 Wall Street.

The architectural style is considered Mission Revival. You can read about its construction and history on the Living New Deal website here.

It’s interesting to note the building’s plaque states the La Jolla Post Office’s creation was the result of the Works Progress Administration (WPA). The Living New Deal website, however, states it was the Public Works Administration (PWA). The two were separate programs.

Inside the post office lobby, a beautiful New Deal-era mural was painted by renowned local artist Belle Baranceanu. The art shows a hilly panorama of La Jolla and the Pacific Ocean. If you’d like to see photos of the mural, click here!

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I post new blogs pretty often. If you like discovering new things, bookmark coolsandiegosights.com and swing on by occasionally!

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La Jolla plaque honors San Diego’s underwater pioneers.

A plaque honoring San Diego’s underwater pioneers is embedded in a boulder a short distance west of La Jolla Cove. It was placed above Boomer Beach next to Ellen Browning Scripps Park last year.

People walking beside the ocean on the scenic boardwalk might see the bronze plaque near a bench.

The plaque reads:

Since 1933, offshore from this beach access, the seafloor bears memorial markers to name and honor San Diego’s most heralded underwater pioneers. The San Diego Bottom Scratchers Dive Club.

The Bottom Scratchers dedicated every dive to preventing the waste of sea life and to helping others appreciate the wonders of the sea. All who enter here fall under oath to do the same.

Plaque donated by San Diego Freedivers.

Here’s a great article about the Bottom Scratchers Dive Club, which began almost a century ago. It explains: The name “Scratchers” came from the members’ habit of scouring the ocean bottom for food… The Bottom Scratchers either invented or were the first to use the basic freediving spearfishing gear still employed today… Soon club members became local legends… Everything the explorers experienced was new…

There are some great old photographs in the article, too.

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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!

Cut glass, new light, and the La Jolla coast.

Should you visit the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego in La Jolla, make sure to step into the Krichman Family Gallery. That’s where you can experience eye-opening effects of light, caused by apertures cut in glass windows overlooking the coast.

This site-conditional installation is the work of Robert Irwin, who passed away in 2023. According to a nearby sign, his art is foundational to a certain West Coast minimalism, referred to as Light and Space. He was a longtime resident of San Diego.

Window areas with no glass bring new light into the viewer’s eyes. Standing in the gallery makes one wonder: to what extent do we fully experience reality and its acute beauty? Is there “glass” in our eyes that can be cut away?

Those open spaces in the windows also allow our senses to feel and smell the fresh ocean breeze. Now, if only human hands could reach out and feel the ocean’s vastness.

Robert Irwin is also responsible for the Edwards Sculpture Garden’s radiant Spanish Fan, which you can see in the lower left of the above photograph.

Inside the museum’s adjacent galleries are more of Irwin’s beautiful works. Perhaps I’ll cover those at some future time.

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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!

Paintings celebrate food at La Jolla library!

There’s a tasty, mouth-watering exhibition ready to be devoured at the La Jolla Riford Library. Step into the Community Room and bring your appetite for art!

The Culinary Arts offers a buffet of paintings by 15 local artists that celebrates food!

As the library’s exhibition website states, you’ll find captivating oil paintings of everything from Cheeseburgers to Triple Decker Ice Cream Cones to delectable Beignets!

The visual feast comes to an end on May 18, 2025.

Fortunately, if you’re still hungry, all of these delectable pieces are for sale. By purchasing a painting or two, these treats can become takeout and brought home for your future enjoyment!

Yummy samples…

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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!

Remembering the Holocaust in La Jolla.

The lead photo of this blog post is horrifying. It serves to remind us that we humans are capable of unspeakable atrocities.

An exhibition at the La Jolla/Riford Branch Library concerns one of those atrocities: the Holocaust.

RUTH: Remember Us the Holocaust, through words written and spoken by local Holocaust survivors, biographies, artifacts and photographs, serves to remind us that horrors like this must be forever remembered and resisted by ordinary, kind-hearted people.

One way to cement our need to remember is to visit the exhibition and experience what life was like for Jewish people and others in Germany under the Nazis before and during World War II. The irrational hatred, persecution, mass murder.

Why must people act this way?

Life is short enough. Why not simply be kind?

Why on Earth would anyone want to murder over a million children?

RUTH: Remember Us the Holocaust’s curator is Sandra Scheller, daughter of Holocaust survivors Ruth and Kurt Sax. She grew up in the South Bay of San Diego. She’s the author of Try To Remember Never Forget, and the creator of the documentary with the same name. Sandra’s TED talk, Keeping Memories Alive, has been used throughout schools as a learning platform for Holocaust education and TED Talk future speakers.

The exhibition is not only open to the public on the second floor of the La Jolla library, but many school children continue to learn an important part of history by visiting the extensive displays.

You can learn more about the exhibition and its Holocaust survivor speaker series by visiting the RUTH: Remember Us the Holocaust website here.

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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!