Colorful mosaic art can be found all around Kimball Park in National City. I spotted this wall covered with cheerful mosaics during one of my recent adventures in the South Bay.
The low wall, on the north side of Kimball Park, is filled with bright, beautiful trees and houses and animals and musical notes. The designs are fashioned from tiles, bits of ceramic and glass. I believe it was another project of A Reason To Survive (ARTS) whose building rises just a few steps to the north.
The lighting wasn’t ideal with alternating bright sunlight and shadow, and the artwork appeared dulled by time and weather, so I’ve altered my photographs slightly, in an attempt to make the colors more vibrant.
You can check out several other amazing mosaics in the immediate area by clicking here or here or 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!
The small mountain will rise from The Map of the Grand Canyons of La Jolla, in a plaza filled with educational artwork at Kellogg Park.
I learned about this wonderful project on Saturday during my walk along the La Jolla Shores beach boardwalk.
The sculpture will depict canyons running from Mount Soledad down deep into the Pacific Ocean. Those visiting The Map of the Grand Canyons of La Jolla Educational Plaza will be able to visualize in three dimensions what is shown in two dimensions in the large, colorful mosaic at their feet.
The Grand Canyons of La Jolla project is the work of the Walter Munk Foundation For the Oceans, which is responsible for the The Map mosaic in the plaza, plus signs and another nearby sculpture.
The Map mosaic is the plaza’s extraordinary centerpiece. It beautifully represents the local shoreline and underwater canyons in the San Diego-La Jolla Underwater Park Ecological Reserve.
Lines drawn in The Map concern ocean wave dynamics, calculated by Walter Munk, a world-renowned scientist who worked and taught for many years at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography. Over a hundred sea creatures also appear in the mosaic.
Signs at one edge of The Map detail the birds, fish and other marine life one might see above or below the water off La Jolla. A second completed sculpture, near the place where the small Mount Soledad will appear, concerns the Kumeyaay in the coastal region. It also shows intertidal sea life, cast in bronze.
Should you walk down the boardwalk (honorary Walter Munk Way) at La Jolla Shores beach, make sure to visit The Map. And watch for the coming of a second small Mount Soledad!
Walter Munk developed ocean wave prediction theory.
To learn more about Walter Munk’s scientific contribution during World War II, his groundbreaking work at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, his worldwide recognition, and why surfers love him, click here.
To watch a Walter Munk Foundation video concerning The Map click here.
Read an article about the mosaic’s debut in 2020 (replacing an earlier “map” at this location) by clicking 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!
Perceptive people strolling down the boardwalk at La Jolla Shores beach might encounter something both unexpected and wonderful.
Decorating the north and south sides of the La Jolla Shores Lifeguard Station are colorful tile mosaic panels that depict the sun and sea. The public art is titled Shorelines.
Shorelines was installed in 2012, and was created by award-winning San Diego artist Mary Lynn Dominguez.
I really like this beachy artwork! It’s swirly and bubbly and captures the mood of the nearby beach. Looking at the panels is like glimpsing a bright, abstract world through horizonal windows.
You can learn more about Shorelines, which is part of San Diego’s Civic Art Collection, here!
At the front of the lifeguard station, facing the boardwalk, I also noticed a plaque. It remembers Ron Trenton.
The plaque is a bit corroded, as you can see in my photograph. It reads:
Now Comes the Lifeguard, Back to the Sea, Where He Found Action, Where He Found Peace, Where He Saved Others With Selfless Devotion and Where He Risked All With a Smile of Emotion
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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 beautiful transformation began in National City in 2013. Hundreds of community members came together to make a positive, permanent change. Butterfly Park, a blighted strip of land near the corner of 20th Street and Palm Avenue, became more like its namesake!
I first learned about this wonderful transformation on Sunday, during an incredible tour provided by Olivewood Gardens and Learning Center’s super nice Cooking for Salud Coordinator, Patty Corona.
We walked through the park and were greeted by colorful butterflies everywhere we turned!
I learned how, during the course of several days, families from throughout the neighborhood, school students, the Kitchenistas of Olivewood Gardens, and even the mayor of the time worked in the park installing butterfly beauty: mosaics on benches, a table and a trashcan, beautiful metalwork on posts, and an outdoor stage shaped like a butterfly wing! Vegetation that attracts butterflies was planted, too!
According to this article, “The project was led by Pomegranate Center… Olivewood Gardens and Learning Center…pitched the idea for a community gathering space in November 2012.“
(The Pomegranate Center was also instrumental in creating the Manzanita Gathering Place in City Heights. See those photos here.)
As we walked through the park, I learned the wavy metal sculptures on posts were created by Sweetwater High School welding students, and the log benches were the work of former National City Mayor Ron Morrison.
In 2015 the very colorful aluminum butterfly sculptures you see in my photos were decorated by community members using reflective vinyl, under the leadership of local artist Roberto Salas. This “Butterfly Path” can also be found in two other National City Parks: Kimball Park and Las Palmas Park.
I’ll be posting more photos of them in an upcoming blog post!
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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!
At Kimball Park in National City, a beautiful mosaic above a drinking fountain affirms that Water is Life!
This colorful public art provides an interesting contrast to the mosaic in my previous post: the fiery Firewall in front of the Solana Beach Fire Department.
Correct me if I’m mistaken, but I believe these two fantastic Water is Life panels were the work of A Reason To Survive (ARTS) and local youth. Like other mosaics in and around Kimball Park, it was conceived as part of ARTS’ Creating Vibrant Neighborhoods Initiative.
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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!
Every night, fire appears in front of the Solana Beach Fire Department. The mysterious wall of glowing embers near the fire station might surprise motorists driving down Lomas Santa Fe Drive.
I walked past Firewall during the day and took these photos.
The simulated wall of embers, that lights up after dark, is a very unique piece of public art that debuted in 2019. It’s by artist Betsy Schulz.
In addition to the red, yellow and orange glass embers, there are beautiful fused-glass mosaic panels facing the sidewalk and street.
Amazing mosaics created by Betsy Schulz appear all over San Diego County. During my walks I’ve photographed many.
This public art sculpture and its small surrounding garden were created with the help of Van Dyke Landscape Architects, and the Solana Beach Civic and Historical Society and Garden Club.
I added contrast to some of these photos to bring out color in the mosaics.
Take a look!
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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!
Does anybody know the history of this old mural in Escondido? It decorates the east side of the Conrad Prebys Escondido Branch of the Boys and Girls Clubs of Greater San Diego.
During a walk through Escondido last weekend, I photographed this colorful mural from the distant sidewalk. It appears to be a mosaic made of small tiles. Youth are depicted reading, playing basketball, and engaged in other activity. The artwork is dated 1976. Tiles spell out two clear signatures: A. Dluhos and T. Pardue.
After some internet searching, I believe the first artist is Andre Dluhos, and the second is Terry Pardue. I’m pretty sure about the second name, because I read this article.
Andre Dluhos was born in 1940 in eastern Czechoslovakia and moved to the United States in 1969.
If anyone out there knows anything about this nearly half century old mural, please leave a comment.
It would be fascinating to learn more about it, and the artists, too!
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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!
If you’d like to fill your eyes with extraordinary public artwork, head to the Solana Beach Library. That’s where you’ll find the Solana Beach Library Mosaic Mural.
This awesome, absolutely gorgeous mosaic consists of ten panels. According to a descriptive plaque, each panel represents a category of information found in the Dewey Decimal System, which is used to sort books on library shelves.
The Library Mosaic Mural was designed and created by Solana Beach artist Christie Beniston in 2010, based on illustrations by Rafael Lopez.
The ten main Dewey Decimal classes, in numerical order, are: computer science, information and general works; philosophy and psychology; religion; social sciences; language; pure science; technology; arts and recreation; literature; and history and geography.
As a young man I worked as a page at another North County library, pushing a small cart through peaceful rooms filing away returned books. Libraries will always be special to me.
This artwork is so vivid and alive I had to gaze at it a long while. I wanted to venture inside the library, but it was closed at the moment.
Then my restless feet urged me forward. I continued my walk through a world filled with innumerable wonders. A world like an infinite pile of books waiting to be shelved.
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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!
Have you seen the amazing 300-foot mosaic wall along A Avenue at National City’s Kimball Park? If you haven’t, you really need to!
This extraordinary public art was created in 2015 by local students, community volunteers and the nationally recognized local organization A Reason To Survive (also known as ARTS). It is part of ARTS’ Creating Vibrant Neighborhoods Initiative. Numerous public art projects have beautified National City and uplifted young lives.
The long A Avenue mosaic wall depicts water flowing through National City’s watershed to the ocean. Tiles, clay shapes and small objects represent blue water, fishes, birds, animals and meaningful bits of life from the community. The wall stretches along a row of parking spaces just east of City Hall.
A Reason To Survive has been working for years to beautify our small corner of the world, and perhaps more importantly, to provide hope and inspiration to at-risk South Bay youth. Their innovative art programs have transformed literally thousands of young lives. The ARTS Center is located on 12th Street a short distance east of this wall.
I believe another mosaic wall that I blogged about this year was also a Creating Vibrant Neighborhoods Initiative project. That wall is near the National City’s War Memorial and Veteran’s Wall of Honor, also located at Kimball Park. You can see those photographs here.
I’ve taken additional photos of other nearby ARTS mosaics, which I’ll be blogging about shortly!
(One more thing. I hadn’t realized it at the time, but A Reason To Survive also helped to create the Manzanita Gathering Place in City Heights. See those photos here.)
Okay! Now enjoy a look at this truly amazing A Avenue wall…
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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!
There’s an elaborate, quite beautiful tile mosaic mural outside the old God’s Extended Hand building in San Diego’s East Village. You can see it at the corner of 16th Street and Island Avenue.
The colorful mural is overflowing with compassionate messages and religious imagery, including Christ as a shepherd carrying a lamb.
The God’s Extended Hand ministry endured for 96 years, feeding the homeless and hungry, until it closed down a few months ago. Father Joe’s Villages will be redeveloping the site, creating more affordable housing and support for the homeless downtown. I don’t know whether these mosaics will be preserved.
I walked past part of the artwork this morning and took these photos. I only photographed the wall along 16th Street. Some people camped on the sidewalk were by the other wall on Island Avenue.
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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!
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