Tag: mexico

Día de los Muertos celebration in Sherman Heights.

Día de los Muertos at the Sherman Heights Community Center has become one of the most anticipated Day of the Dead celebrations in San Diego. In 2024 the week-long event turned thirty years old.

The many traditional altars inside the community center, erected by local families and organizations, remember loved one who are deceased. All around the center a joyful festival is enjoyed by families who engage in activities that celebrate life, past and present.

Walking the short distance from downtown to Sherman Heights, I arrived at the event yesterday.

I was fortunate to join a group that was touring the Día de los Muertos altars (ofrendas in Spanish). Daniel was explaining to several people (including folks from Germany) how these altars originated in Pre-Columbian times and evolved to include Catholic elements when Spain entered the American continent. Most of the altars include symbols of the four elements defined in ancient times: earth, water, fire and air.

In Mexican ofrendas today, earth is still represented by marigolds and offerings of food, water by drink, fire by candles, and air by papel picado, which flutters in a breeze.

Daniel explained that because Day of the Dead has universal themes–family, human mortality, the circle of life and love–and because of commercialization and the influence of popular culture, the holiday is spreading worldwide. He noted that other cultures have inserted their own special symbolism into Day of the Dead celebrations.

I took photographs of the many altars. Most were extremely elaborate.

So many loved ones that have passed on–but who live still in memory…

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San Diego Symphony’s beautiful community ofrenda.

The San Diego Symphony has placed a community ofrenda in their box office lobby for Día de los Muertos. The beautiful Day of the Dead altar can be found inside the front entrance of downtown’s Symphony Towers. Step inside, turn left and you’ll see it.

The community ofrenda was designed by local Mexican-American artist Maricruz Alvarado. She has been creating beautiful ofrendas for 25 years.

(By the way, I recently posted photos of a gigantic skull that Maricruz made! See it by clicking here!)

Members of the community are invited to contribute photographs and other momentos to the San Diego Symphony ofrenda in memory of deceased loved ones.

I swung by for a look early this morning…

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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.

Old Globe celebrates Día de los Muertos!

Día de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) was celebrated today by the Old Globe in San Diego’s Balboa Park. Lots of family-friendly activities and theatrical performances were enjoyed by the public in the Old Globe’s outdoor Copley Plaza!

I enjoyed the first performance of this magical event: actors portraying Mexican folk passed through the audience, came to a grave in front of a beautiful Día de los Muertos altar, and summoned the spirit of a deceased loved one. The spirit came and danced with them, before finally departing.

The event would go on to feature other performances, including a puppet play and Drummers Without Borders. My camera captured their smiles before I headed off, as you can see in the final two photos.

Learn more about the Old Globe’s very colorful Day of the Dead event on their web page 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 X.

Advocates work for accessibility in Tijuana.

An important presentation was made this evening in San Diego’s Balboa Park. A thoughtful audience, assembled inside the World Design Capital’s Exchange Pavilion, learned how the organization Tijuana Access is working to make Tijuana and Mexico more accessible for the disabled.

Eduardo Lopez Ruiz explained how Tijuana Access is raising awareness and lobbying for greater accessibility south of the border. He explained that our neighbors to the south are a bit behind the United States when it comes to making buildings, streets and city facilities more friendly for those who have difficulty functioning in a world full of potential obstacles.

Working to make our world more accessible, Eduardo affirmed, is a matter of compassion. Not only are a significant number of people born with or develop a disability, but most of us become elderly–right?

There are all sorts of ways to make a city more accessible. Automatic doors, ramps, lifts, slip resistant materials and tactile paving can be adapted to enhance mobility. Handrails, rest furniture, properly placed buttons and switches, Braille printing and other changes can make life much easier and safer for many.

The presentation was mostly in Spanish with an interpreter helping us English speakers. I asked how I could link to Tijuana Access with my blog, because readers might like to help in some way. The Tijuana Access Instagram page is here. Their Facebook page is here.

To my readers in Mexico, perhaps this is a cause you’d like to support. Or simply spread the word to help to raise awareness!

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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.

Bonita Museum’s Border Blasters in Balboa Park!

On Saturday, the Bonita Museum and Cultural Center brought part of their Border Blasters exhibition to the World Design Capital’s temporary Exchange Pavilion in Balboa Park!

Border Blasters is an exhibition by artists from Mexico and the United States that explores the impact of Tijuana and San Diego radio, television and music in the region. As experienced by those who live on either side of the border, the diverse media coming via the airwaves is seen and heard by many eyes and ears.

The art of Border Blasters celebrates this unique, shared culture.

As I walked through Balboa Park yesterday, the first thing that attracted me to the Exchange Pavilion (the orange structure that stands at the center of the Plaza de Panama) was a gigantic skull! The skull has a name: Francisco!

The colorful sculpture, made of paper mache and other materials, was created by artist Maricruz Alvarado. That’s her above, standing by Francisco!

Francisco is hollow and very light. He can be wheeled around! I stepped inside the big skull and this is what I saw. Images of the band La Cruz!

Next, I noticed what appeared to be rows of seashells arranged inside the Exchange Pavilion. They were created by Endangered Concepts. I learned they are actually composed of compressed unrecyclable plastic!

One of the sculptures I was shown was made to appear like a Pacific Triton Conch. Blowing through it produced a trumpeting sound!

Next, I spied a strange musical invention. It’s called QUADRA. The conceptual art piece is by multi-disciplinary artist and San Diego native Jason Soares. You turn the square dials and different electronic sounds are generated!

Jason was still setting everything up when I took these photos.

As one sign explained, QUADRAs FRONTERAs configures the QUADRA for the first phase of a multi-location quadraphonic autonomous zone that seeks to connect multiple geographic locations together. All I know is the generated sound coming from the speakers was very cool!

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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.

History of El Hispano Americano newspaper in San Diego.

A fascinating exhibit on the 9th Floor of San Diego’s Central Library concerns the history of the old El Hispano Americano newspaper, founded in San Diego by Hernando Limón Hernández, who had been a general in the Mexican Army.

Display cases in the library’s Marilyn & Gene Marx Special Collections Center contain photographs, printed art, old newspapers and documents, detailing the life of General Hernando Limón Hernández and his groundbreaking newspaper in San Diego.

While living in Mexico, the General had been tasked with designing and building lighthouses across Mexico’s main ports. He and his family would settle in San Diego by 1916, where the retired General became a Spanish teacher at the military compound in Coronado.

He soon purchased the new El Hispano Americano newspaper, and began to operate its print shop in downtown San Diego.

El Hispano Americano was the first modern Spanish language newspaper published in California. It would become the first binational newspaper that circulated simultaneously in Southern California and Northern Baja California. At its peak, in 1932, El Hispano American averaged 25,000 daily readers.

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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.

Make a paper marigold at the San Diego History Center!

The San Diego History Center in Balboa Park has erected a community ofrenda (altar) for Día de los Muertos. Visitors are invited to contribute in a special way by making their own paper marigolds and adding them to the altar!

When I visited the History Center today, I noticed their ofrenda includes photos of notable people from San Diego’s past. And a non-human too! Bum, San Diego’s famous town dog!

A table near the community ofrenda has instructions on how to construct a marigold from the orange paper that is supplied. Perhaps you’d like to make your own! I’ve included a photo of the instructions and I’ve transcribed the words…

The Spanish word, ofrenda, refers to an altar of offerings set out to honor the deceased. Traditional household ofrendas have three distinct tiers representing the heavens, the earthly world, and the deceased… Marigolds represent the warmth of the sun…

How to make a marigold!

1) Stack four sheets of tissue paper so they align; 2) Pleat the paper in an accordion fold; 3) Cut a half-circle shape at each end; 4) Wrap a pipe cleaner around the middle of the paper to hold it in place. This will also act as the stem; 5) Fan out the tissue then gently pull the layers apart to create a fluffy petal effect.

Between October 2nd and November 2nd, visit the free San Diego History Center in Balboa Park to make your own marigold!

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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.

Old Town gets ready for Día de Los Muertos.

Día de Los Muertos is about a month away, but Old Town San Diego is already preparing for the big event!

For 2024, Día de Los Muertos will be as big as ever, spilling from Old Town San Diego State Historic Park down San Diego Avenue. For three days the public is invited to the free celebration!

On Friday, November 1, there will be a fun family screening of The Book of Life. The movie will be shown in the grassy plaza at the center of Old Town State Park.

That Saturday and Sunday, the Día de Los Muertos Festival will take over Old Town. In addition to entertainment, there will be tours of more than 40 unique Day of the Dead altars, and anyone can join the annual candlelit procession from Immaculate Conception Church down San Diego Avenue to El Campo Santo Cemetery.

Learn more about everything here.

During a morning walk today, I saw a beautiful altar set up already at Casa de Freds restaurant, and one being prepared in the park next to the Whaley House Museum. Many fancy Catrinas are already set up at Fiesta de Reyes. Calaveras, marigolds and sugar skulls are appearing all over!

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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.

San Diego civic art at Rancho Bernardo Library.

Various works belonging to the San Diego Civic Art Collection can be experienced by visitors to the Rancho Bernardo Library. I took photos of three prominent examples a couple weekends ago.

The first work is titled Ampersand. Matt Rich, Assistant Professor of Art at the University of San Diego, created the eye-catching acrylic on canvas in 2018. It hangs on a wall above the library’s main stacks.

This particular painting is part of a series of works that riffs on the symbol of the ampersand. The ampersand holds, both symbolically and formally, the ability to represent the idea of connection.

Connection perfectly describes any library. Shelves connect readers with unexplored worlds.

The next artwork I observed in the library hangs high on a wall roughly opposite the front desk. It’s titled Salta pa’ lante (Jump Forward), by artist Alida Cervantes. The dynamic art was created in 2020. A pair of aluminum panels come alive with acrylic spray paint and oil.

Alida Cervantes is a Mexican artist who lives and works in the Tijuana and San Diego border region. Traveling daily between the US and Mexico, Cervantes’ work is characterized by an interest in power relations between race, class, gender and even species.

This diptych…is part of the artist’s exploration into the Mexican casta (caste) paintings of the 17th and 18th centuries…Cervantes presents two figures that are the offspring of individuals not only from two different races but also from two different times in history: the present and the colonial…

Finally, here’s a piece titled Primary Waveform (half circle), by artist Kelsey Brookes. The optically mysterious acrylic on wood was created in 2018. You can find it up on the second floor of the Rancho Bernardo Library, at the top of the stairs.

Kelsey Brookes is a research scientist turned artist. His paintings experiment with pop, abstract, and traditional styles while exploring scientific subject matter, including molecules, atoms, and modern biochemistry...

This sculpture is one of a series of works inspired by the Fibonacci sequence and waveforms...

From a distance the painted wood almost appears like basketwork, but give it a closer look. What are those tiny figures? Is that a reflection you see, or a complete circle that curves beyond your reach?

Stand near Primary Waveform (half circle), then gaze across the library for a commanding view of those first two works of art!

Additional works in the San Diego Civic Art Collection can be found at the library’s glass wall and gate entrance, exterior courtyard, and in the library’s study rooms.

Why not visit the Rancho Bernardo Library and see it all for yourself?

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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.

Ballet folklórico, joy, and the Gift of Dance!

Enjoy a collection of colorful photographs. I took them today during the Fiestas Patrias event in Old Town San Diego State Historic Park.

These young ballet folklórico dancers are from Gift of Dance, a school Where Love, Technique, Joy and Tradition brings Communities and Families Together!

I’ve seen this group at other San Diego events. When they perform, I feel that life is indeed good. All the troubles of this world melt away, and one can see how the human race might be. Simply joyful.

After a fun Fiestas Patrias parade around Old Town’s central plaza (in which the costumed dancers participated), two separate dance performances were staged on the grass. Onlookers enjoyed a variety of traditional Mexican baile folklórico folk dances, including La Raspa, Los Machetes, and even a Mexican Waltz. Beginning dancers included a two-year-old!

At the end of each performance, the audience was invited to come up and dance on the grass, too!

I hope these photos convey the joy…

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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.