Long Live Vista! ¡Viva Vista!, by artist Kim Maria Cruz, 2019.
Public art thrives in Vista, California!
In addition to dozens of amazing sculptures, which I recently blogged about here, numerous colorful murals can be found throughout town!
Last weekend I walked randomly around downtown Vista and came upon an alley with an unusual name: Alley Art Man Way. It’s located between Main Street and East Broadway, South Citrus Avenue and Hanes Place.
As I wandered through and around the alley, I discovered many walls painted with fantastic artwork!
As you can see on the City of Vista Public Art Map, which you can check out here, there are many additional murals out there to be discovered. One day I’ll return to find more!
I’ve captioned my photographs using information obtained from the interactive map.
Alley Art Man Way in downtown Vista, California is home to many colorful murals!Vista Fire Department 1929, by artist Doug Davis, 2000.Water World, by artist Doug Davis, 2016.
Tribute to Margarita, by artist Daniel Toledo, 2018.Crazy, colorful graphic by front door of Backfence Society, where North County artists gather and create.Boogie Birds, by artist Chor Boogie, a.k.a. Joaquin Lamar Hailey.
Space Coyote, by artist Sarah Spinks et al.
Delpy’s, Vista Mercantile, Beattie and Travis, by artist Chuck Rose, 2001.Trees painted on either side of the entrance to Visions In Art.Lilac Cat on the Hunt, by artist Sarah Spinks and friends.
Vista Avocados, by artist Art Mortimer, 2011.
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Three pedestrian tunnels pass underneath California State Route 75, connecting the west and east sides of Silver Strand State Beach. If you choose to use the south tunnel, you might want to put on some scuba gear!
That tunnel is home of a long, very cool mural that depicts life above the water and beneath it.
Silver Strand State Beach occupies a section of the peninsula between Coronado and Imperial Beach. Much of the life painted in the mural can be observed from the park’s two shores.
Walking along coastal habitat by either the Pacific Ocean or San Diego Bay, you will observe many birds, including snowy plovers, great blue herons, least sandpipers, black skimmers, marbled godwits, long-billed curlews, snowy egrets, endangered California least terns, brown pelicans, seagulls and a variety of ducks.
Out in the water you might also spot surfacing seals and dolphins! But if you want to see a whale up close, you’ll need to dive into the tunnel!
This very cool environmental mural was painted in 2009 by Imperial Beach artist Jaime Rayon, with some help from young members of The Art Kids, in partnership with the nearby Loews Coronado Bay Resort.
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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!
Plaza del Arroyo mural near North Broadway and Escondido Creek features a wading bird.
Lots of colorful art that celebrates nature can be spotted in Escondido when you walk along the east side of Broadway, between the Escondido Creek Trail and the San Diego Children’s Discovery Museum.
These photographs were taken during a walk that headed south.
Enjoy!
Escondido Creek Trail mural behind flowers by the popular bike and pedestrian path.Nearby utility boxes with an elaborately painted owl and hummingbird.Another nearby electrical box reads BEE KIND.Mosaic on this post at the parking lot of the San Diego Children’s Discovery Museum shows desert animal and plant life.A desert tortoise, I believe.A beautiful, very colorful abstract butterfly mural near the entrance to the San Diego Children’s Discovery Museum.
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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!
Years ago a pair of murals were painted under Friars Road, one on either side of Mission Center Road. Both show scenes related to San Diego’s public transit system.
On one mural there is a bus; on the other, a trolley. People stand near a bus stop, or a trolley station, or walk along, or simply engage in busy urban living.
I looked at the time-stained murals this morning and realized they emphasize our common humanity.
Diverse figures appear as simple silhouettes. As you pass through the darkness under the Friars Road bridge, you see these outlines of ordinary citizens to your right and to your left. All moving through the city together.
I’ve tried to ascertain who painted these murals–they are signed Duff 1997. If anyone knows more about them, please leave a comment!
Camera in hand, I walked beside the murals and took photographs of the mysterious silhouettes.
We can’t see the faces. But we can absolutely see the humanity.
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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!
Last year amazing local artists who together go by the name Ladies Who Paint created two more murals on a wall on F Street, just east of 14th Street. Their artwork is part of the Ladies Who Paint Mural Walk in East Village. Last weekend I finally got around to taking photos!
These two murals were created on a blank space of wall left of the blue “HI hello HOLA” mural that I photographed here.
Other cool Ladies Who Paint murals that I’ve photographed can be seen here, 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!
Cosmic Flight, a mural in Golden Hill by San Diego muralist Mario Torero.
A mural titled Cosmic Flight decorates the east side of Golden Hill Liquor at the corner of 28th Street and B Street. The mural was painted in 1978 by Mario “Torero” Acevedo, whose work can be seen all around San Diego. Over the decades Cosmic Flight has been touched up, altered due to graffiti, then restored. As you can see in the above photo, it has been vandalized again.
Mario Torero is the son of renowned Peruvian artist Guillermo Acevedo who immigrated to San Diego in 1960. The life of a Bohemian was already in Mario’s blood as he and a few others local artists strove to develop a creative community in San Diego decades ago. In 1980 he opened the Sol Arts Gallery in Golden Hill across the street from the Cosmic Flight mural, the corner where Starbucks is today.
Mario Torero frequently uses cosmic imagery and expressive faces in his colorful compositions. His themes typically revolve around the civil rights movement and Chicano activism. He has been instrumental in the founding of important cultural centers in San Diego, including Chicano Park and the Centro Cultural de la Raza. A prolific and important creator of activist art, he has achieved international fame.
I walked past Cosmic Flight yesterday and was struck by the mural’s grouping of faces, which are filled with subtle emotion, including quiet pride and confidence. That’s the powerful element I like most in Mario Torero’s artwork. The humanity.
Over the years I’ve photographed a variety of other murals by Mario Torero around town.
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!
Drive along Interstate 5 between Mission Bay and Bay Park and you’ll see a huge sportfishing mural. It’s just north of Tecolote Road. Across the west side of the Kleege Industries building, a pair of enormous marlins chase leaping dorados!
I walked up West Morena Boulevard over the weekend to get close-up photos of the mural over a fence.
The artist is Chuck Byron, and the somewhat faded mural was painted in 2003. Sadly, according to my research, that is also the year he passed away.
He painted several large murals in California, Nevada and Mexico.
Chuck Byron was the captain of a fishing boat out of San Diego and a highly regarded fish and wildlife artist. He painted in a style referred to as exaggerated realism. In his San Diego studio he created some really great drawings and paintings, some of which you can see at the Chuck Byron website 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 super colorful mural decorates a long wall of the Lyft Driver Center on West Morena Boulevard. It depicts downtown San Diego, the Coronado Bay Bridge curving through the sky over bright sailboats, and Balboa Park’s Cabrillo Bridge and California Tower!
It’s a city on the move. Cars, a bicycle, a bus and scooters head down streets and paths every which way.
This cool mural was painted last year by internationally known California artist Celeste Byers, who grew up in Point Loma.
Check it out!
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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 Surfing Madonna in Encinitas, California. A mosaic by artist Mark Patterson.
Have you heard of the miracle of the Surfing Madonna? Many in San Diego have witnessed the miracle. Indeed, the miracle is known around the world.
Next to the Encinitas Boulevard sidewalk, just east of Coast Highway 101, there’s a tiny open courtyard with a beautiful ocean mural and a shrine-like mosaic titled Surfing Madonna. The 10 by 10 feet mosaic depicts the Virgin of Guadalupe on a white surfboard, praying.
When it was first installed anonymously in a public place the artwork was considered illegal. Permission had not been granted by the city of Encinitas. The artist, Mark Patterson, was discovered and fined and the mosaic removed.
But a miracle happened.
After much controversy and legal uncertainty, and after having been moved from place to place, the unusual but beautiful mosaic, beloved by many in the beach community, finally found a home in Surfing Madonna Park, which you can see in my photographs.
To learn more about the miracle of the Surfing Madonna, read the words on the plaque beneath it.
The small Surfing Madonna Park in a nook beside busy Encinitas Boulevard. The park is just a short walk east of Moonlight State Beach.A plaque details the history of the Surfing Madonna.
The plaque reads:
On Good Friday, April 22nd, 2011, the community of Encinitas was gifted with the Surfing Madonna mosaic, Our Lady, Star of the Sea.
Local artist, Mark Patterson and his good friend Bob Nichols, dressed up as constructions workers and hung the beautiful Surfing Madonna mosaic with its “Save the Ocean” theme. The mosaic was originally mounted underneath the train bridge, across the street from its current home.
The mosaic received international attention while the artist remained anonymous for months until discovered.
Although beloved by the community, she could not stay there and eventually found her way here, to her permanent home.
Mark Patterson sought to raise awareness of the value of the world’s Oceans. Through his vision he created the Surfing Madonna mosaic to spread a message of environmental awareness of Mother Ocean.
The mosaic gave birth to the Surfing Madonna Oceans Project which has continued to serve the Ocean and community through funding of local arts, environmental awareness, and by introducing special needs youth and their families to the joy of surfing and living with the Ocean.
Join us in celebrating the beauty of our world’s Oceans.
A beautiful environmental mural shows Garibaldi fish and other local sea life, by Encinitas artist Kevin Anderson.Brick pavers, some with religious themes, in the small courtyard. The pavers have raised money for programs that help the Earth’s oceans.The unique Surfing Madonna and a prayerful message: Save the Ocean.
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A large face greets those heading east on Turquoise Street in Pacific Beach.
Turquoise Street in Pacific Beach, from Mission Boulevard to Cass Street, is the home of a lot of fun street art.
Check out some photos!
Mural on parking lot wall by Treelogy Cafe Restaurant.These colorful flowers are at the center of the mural.Old-fashioned advertising artwork on wall of Cafe Bar Europa.The happy wood shack of Blossoms Design Florist.Mural in a narrow alley celebrates 90 years of Crystal Pier.Bottom of the alley mural, with an octopus tentacle wearing a beach sandal. #octopier by @artanystefMural on the side of P.B. Yoga and Healing Arts.Enjoying a hot beverage with a dog. Mural by artist Gloria Muriel on the side of The French Gourmet.A fun blue character painted on another nearby wall by Gloria Muriel.
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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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