Colorful murals have been painted on a rooftop structure above Pinch Pottery Studio in San Diego’s downtown East Village.
Stylized hummingbird and hearts artwork can be seen from E Street, if you raise your eyes to look for it. I love how a strange, mysterious eye seems to be staring back at you from what appears to be a barred window!
Another mural depicting a pink Volkswagen Beetle on the east side of the rooftop structure can be seen from Tenth Avenue, if you look above Pokez Mexican Restaurant.
This artwork’s style appears familiar, but I’m not certain who created these faded murals. If you know, leave a comment!
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Very unusual public art stands near the center of the UC San Diego’s large La Jolla campus. While this surprising work of art might splash your nose, it’s not in your face. What I mean by that is: while you’re bent over enjoying a cool drink, you might not know that the fountain is a work of fine art by an important artist. There’s no sign or plaque indicating such.
This untitled work of public art—an exact replica in granite of commercial metal fountains typically found in schools, business offices and government buildings–is part of UC San Diego’s Stuart Collection of art. It was created in 1991 by internationally recognized conceptual artist Michael Asher.
Michael Asher believed that an artwork’s encompassing environment determines how we perceive it. As his Wikipedia biography explains: Asher’s work takes the form of “subtle yet deliberate interventions – additions, subtractions or alterations – in particular environments.” His pieces were always site-specific; they were always temporary, and whatever was made or moved for them was destroyed or put back after the exhibitions. This untitled work at UC San Diego is his first permanent public outdoor work in the United States.
I took a refreshing sip from the fountain during my last visit to UCSD. To my right stood a flagpole, and beyond that a historical marker indicating the campus is located on the old site of Camp Calvin B. Matthews, a rifle and artillery training base of the United States Marine Corps. (See my blog post concerning the historical marker by clicking here.) Asher placed the drinking fountain at this precise spot, directly opposite the historical monument, after a lot of deliberation.
There’s more to this “mysterious” work of art than you might suppose. Please read all about it by visiting the Stuart Collection website here.
This very special drinking fountain can be found south of the Price Center, in grassy, park-like UCSD Town Square.
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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 X.
In the darkness long before sunrise, downtown San Diego sleeps.
I often walk the city streets in the very early morning, when practically nobody is about. There are those times when I have to catch the day’s very first trolley. It can be a strange almost eerie experience. The stillness. The silence.
Here are some photographs I’ve taken during recent night walks.
There are sudden visions behind windows, on sidewalks, rising into the black sky.
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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.
I’ve no doubt someone out there has the solution to this mural mystery in Carlsbad!
I’ve done some online research but can find nothing about this old-fashioned mural on a wall beside the 2742 State Street building, which is home to Lofty Coffee Company.
The mural is very faded and partly obscured. I’ve greatly increased the contrast of the above photograph to help bring out the design and colors.
The painted mural centers on the historical Carlsbad train station and shows a steam locomotive on the nearby track. A horse is hitched to a cart advertising Village Limousine Service. Was that an actual business in Carlsbad?
Who created this nostalgic mural? When?
How much of the artwork is hidden by the adjacent building? Why is the standing wall that it was painted on seemingly preserved–the wall appears to be separate from the buildings on either side.
Please leave a comment if you know anything! I’m sure many readers would love to learn more about this engaging old public art!
UPDATE!
James R Dean on my Facebook page stated:
Its our guess that the lady who owned it prior (antique store) would know. The entire building was once all part of same mural. Very cool lady, shes still around. In the early 90s my mom found my toy chest there. (one of 3 made for family by my grandfather). I bought it and later had children who used it. My guess is this was painted in 80s and they left the one to keep some of the art.
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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.
Do you know anything about this mysterious sculpture in San Diego’s South Bay, at the intersection of Hollister Street and Conifer Avenue? It’s a few blocks north of the Palm Avenue trolley station.
I haven’t walked this way in a long time, so I don’t know when the sculpture appeared. I took these photos last weekend.
Who created this fun artwork? Why are farewells painted in various languages? Why, on its back, is there a seemingly contradictory message Please No Art?
Two yellow hands on the mysterious sculpture appear to be cleaning while splashing drops of water. Could this have been a sign that once stood at the exit of a carwash? I’m racking my brain for an explanation.
Leave a comment if you happen to know anything!
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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.
A historical monument to Solana Beach’s original developer Ed Fletcher stands by a pathway that leads through Fletcher Cove Park down to the beach. I’ve often wondered about the granite marker.
It reads:
THIS PLAZA PARK AND MILE OF OCEAN SHORE DONATED TO THE PUBLIC BY ED FLETCHER, THE DEVELOPER OF SOLANA BEACH – ERECTED BY ADMIRING FRIENDS
I’ve tried to learn something about the small monument, but to no avail. Perhaps a reader of this blog can contribute a knowledgeable comment.
When was this monument installed? Who were the admiring friends?
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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.
A very unique sculpture can now be approached by the public on San Diego’s waterfront. More construction fences have come down at the new Research and Development District (RaDD) complex!
The Tower of Ten Billion Stars is another work of monumental art on what is called the RaDD Artwalk. You can spy the narrow oblong sculpture standing strangely on one end, by looking south from Broadway, east of Harbor Drive.
The creator of this shimmering “tower” is Lindy Lee, a Chinese-Australian artist. As its official description states here, it stands as both a beacon and wayfinder.
Hundreds of small holes in the sculpture’s side allow the passage of bright daylight. The holes shine like visible stars in a silvery sky. They seem to form constellations. Stars–like the North Star–have been wayfinders since ancient times, right?
I’m not sure why it’s a Tower of Ten Billion Stars. There are 100 to 400 billion stars in our own Milky Way galaxy. And there are between 100 billion and 2 trillion galaxies in the Universe.
Perhaps this curving tower is like a tiny, tiny, infinitesimal sliver of the inconceivably vast and mysterious Cosmos.
I walked around the sculpture this evening and took some photographs. I love those reflections of palm trees and nearby tall buildings!
(I also love how “beyond boundaries” can be read nearby. Astronomers can only theorize. The words are actually in reference to a World Design Capital event being held at RaDD.)
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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.
Have you ever had an eerie experience on the Star of India, San Diego’s world-famous tall ship? The old ship does have a long history of ghostly encounters. Are you curious?
Haunted Star Tales is an experience now available at the Maritime Museum of San Diego, in time for Halloween. Several signs posted around Star of India tell how visitors to the historic tall ship have had possible encounters with ghosts from the ship’s past.
For example, people have reported a mysterious cold chill in the boatswain’s locker, just above the chain locker where a death occurred in the year 1909.
And there are those instances when ship caretakers, night watchmen and others have felt a finger in their back when nobody else is present–possibly by the ghost of one John Campbell, a stowaway boy, who, in 1884, working for his passage, fell 100 feet to the ship’s deck.
Wander the decks and darker areas inside 1863 Star of India, oldest active sailing ship in the world, looking for informative signs that tell of possible hauntings. You will find many human stories and so much fascinating history.
Whether you encounter a ghost–who knows?
Souls lost and mysterious sightings… Come aboard and find out for yourself!The bo’s’un’s locker, where unexplained cold chills have been felt.The chain locker, where a death occurred.Visitors come to the ticket taker or volunteer tour guides and ask… Did someone die 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.
In this photograph and the next two, you can see art created by and artist who has been called “one of his era’s greatest sculptors.” Can you find it?
These photos were taken a couple days ago behind the old luggage terminal of Santa Fe Depot, in downtown San Diego. The historic terminal, needed back in the days when train travel was a very common mode of transportation, would become the downtown home of the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego. A year or so ago the museum moved entirely up to their beautiful La Jolla location.
What you see here is the patio between the old luggage terminal and a Santa Fe Depot trolley platform.
What are those metal cubes?
Those six large cubes, together weighing 156 tons, is an art installation commissioned by MCASD in 2004 titled Santa Fe Depot. The artist is Richard Serra.
Richard Serra was a giant in the art world. He died earlier this year, March 26, 2024, at the age of 85.
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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.
Surprising as it might be, Rancho Bernardo has some of the most unique and extraordinary rock art in North America!
Five hundred to one thousand years ago, indigenous people created both pictographs (rock paintings) and petroglyphs (rock carvings) in present-day Rancho Bernardo. I didn’t know this until I observed an interesting Rancho Bernardo Historical Society poster at last weekend’s RB Alive! street festival.
If you’d like to learn more about this topic, there’s an informative YouTube video you should watch. A history presentation from 2018 features analysis of Rancho Bernardo’s rock art. Photographs of the badly faded art were enhanced using special software previously used by NASA.
Cool San Diego Sights! 