Tag: mysterious

Mural at Escondido Boys and Girls Clubs building.

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!

…

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!

Between Heaven and Earth in Balboa Park.

Today I stepped through a door and found myself somewhere between Heaven and Earth.

The fine art exhibition, titled Between Heaven and Earth, filled Gallery 21 in Balboa Park’s Spanish Village Art Center. Canvases on the gallery walls flowed with shadows, mists and dimly seen forms. The San Diego artist who ushered these visions into existence is Catherine Carlton.

Her more mysterious pieces seem to blend earthly scenes with a sense of their spiritual essence. Her creations evoke a subtle emotional response–a feeling that there is more to this world than what meets the eye. Some of her pieces include sacred symbols or bits of verse.

I particularly loved her art made with layered wax containing pigment. Images of rain, lightning, and natural landscapes are ethereal, fluid, and alive. You can see an example in my next photograph.

Catherine Carlton creates this sublime beauty in her art studio at Liberty Station. She particularly loves to produce commercial art, and has painted murals for various local restaurants..

If you’d like to see more of her work, visit her website here!

…

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!

Glimpses of San Diego from a bus.

I ride the bus a lot.

I usually use a combination of buses and trolleys for my work commute. I also ride different routes all around the city on weekends for my photographic adventures. (Old walking legs must be rested occasionally!)

I’ve been less active than usual lately, so my blogging material at the moment is sparse. But I do have one folder on my computer containing past images that were captured while riding the bus!

If we’re stopped and the window is clean, I can get crisp shots. Other shots are rather blurry. They all provide a momentary glimpse of our city’s life.

These photos are unedited, just scaled down a little. If you can identify all of the San Diego locations, you win a smile!

(Yes, one photo wasn’t taken while riding a bus, but as I waited at the Fashion Valley Transit Center. The skateboarder and ducks were simply perfect.)

…

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!

A mystery concerning several very odd things.

An exquisitely beautiful seagull feather on the wet concrete at my feet.

Have you ever encountered a deep mystery whose solution turned out to be obvious?

A mystery like that unfolds in my new short story A Half Dozen Odd Things.

I love to walk around the city, take photographs, make discoveries . . . and occasionally write short fiction.

Do you love to read?

To solve the surprising mystery of A Half Dozen Odd Things, click here!

I hope you have a great Sunday!

Richard

Imagination and reality on Kettner.

Everything you can imagine is real–on Kettner Boulevard.

This morning I saw this long mural across the street from the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego. Looking up, I discovered window washers on a downtown building. They appeared to be suspended in a maze of reflecting mirrors.

I imagined eyes looking down from places behind the mirrors, searching the streets of reality below…imagining–

Everything you can imagine is real.

But can everything that is real be imagined?

Incidentally, the mural’s quote is by Picasso. The words, many colors and geometric fragments were painted by @StefanieBalesFineArt.

…

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!

World-famous author investigates mystery in San Diego!

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, legendary author and creator of Sherlock Holmes, is in San Diego this Halloween weekend attempting to solve an ages old mystery.

Today I saw him at the Maritime Museum of San Diego examining clues concerning the mysterious disappearance of the ship Mary Celeste. Nobody knows what happened to the Mary Celeste back in 1872, when it was discovered adrift in the Atlantic Ocean off the Azores Islands without a soul aboard. And with nothing touched. Not even its cargo of alcohol in barrels.

Did evaporated alcohol create a flash explosion that left no discernable trace, but caused the captain and crew to desert ship? Did their lifeboat somehow end up lost at sea?

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was examining charts and considering a strange variety of clues as I and some other Maritime Museum visitors looked on with bewilderment. I suggested a kidnapping by denizens of Atlantis. No better explanation seems to exist.

The celebrated author and novelist affirmed that he will be at the Maritime Museum of San Diego tomorrow–Halloween Sunday. Perhaps you can help him solve this intractable mystery!

Learn how the actual Sir Arthur Conan Doyle is connected with this mystery here!

Kids who are 12 and under are invited to write down their own theories. Winner of this contest gets four free tickets to an adventure aboard the historic tall ship Californian!

…

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!

Amusing photos for an almost weekend!

It’s almost Friday. That means it’s almost the weekend. Right?

Works for me.

So that we can all anticipate the weekend properly, I’ve curated an odd batch of amusing photos.

Taken during the past month or so. No particular order…

What label beverage is this?
New superhero in town? Villain?
Not much of an agenda.
Discarding seven years bad luck.
Biggest coupon ever.
Truck successfully smashed through a brick wall, only to hit that pole.
Guitarist crossing.
Padres trying out a new outfielder.
Now that’s genuinely scary!

…

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!

Mysterious ghost ship drifts toward San Diego!

An abandoned ship of mysterious origin is presently drifting toward San Diego’s harbor. It has been calculated that the very old sailing ship, named the Mary Celeste, will make landfall at the Maritime Museum of San Diego on October 29, 2021.

Reliable sources have reported that celebrated author and detective Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, creator of the character Sherlock Holmes, is speeding his way to San Diego to solve the mystery of this ghost ship.

Why is a deserted ship drifting slowly across the vast ocean without a single crewmember?

Was there a bloody mutiny?

Did they all leap overboard in a fit of mass hysteria?

Is it possible the Mary Celeste is being driven toward San Diego by a crew of ghosts?

If you’d like to help solve this perplexing mystery, please read what is written in the following photograph:

In case you’re curious, that first photo is a public domain image from Wikimedia Commons. I blurred it to make the present day “sighting” just a little more plausible!

According to its Wikimedia page, the old painting shows: Brigantine Amazon entering Marseilles in November 1861. In 1868 she was renamed Mary Celeste. She was found drifting with nobody aboard in November 1872, and is the source of many maritime “ghost ship” legends.

…

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 mysterious standing stones of Nestor!

Mysterious standing stones rise in Nestor, a community located in San Diego’s South Bay. You can find them in a quiet residential area, just north of Nestor Park, on Grove Avenue east of Hollister Street.

Few people ever see this unique public art. Why is it here?

The standing stone sculptures together are titled Plaza Piedras. They were created in 2001 by internationally renowned artist Roberto Salas. Plaza Piedras was commissioned through the City of San Diego Metropolitan Wastewater Department and the Commission for Arts and Culture. The public art was created to enhance the nearby Grove Avenue Pump Station.

Roberto Salas created these large, mysterious stelae to pay tribute to indigenous cultures. According to this website: “Salas chose a variety of monumental forms to evoke associations with ancient sites such as the Pre-Colombian pyramids, mysterious ruins of Stonehenge, and the massive figures of East Island…”

At the bottom of the central sandbox, kids digging down can discover various relief shapes. I poked around the sand with my foot like a lazy archaeologist, without success.

As you can see from my photos, this quiet park-like place sees gang activity and is frequented by the homeless. Vandalism on the standing stones appears to be regularly painted over.

I took these photographs while moving north through Plaza Piedras.

…

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!

Unusual sculptures rise above Spanish Village!

Check out these unusual, wildly creative sculptures. They were recently placed on columns near the center of Spanish Village Art Center’s large outdoor patio. I had to stop in my tracks to look up during my Saturday walk through Balboa Park.

These five unique pieces are the work of two artists in the San Diego Sculptors Guild, which is located in Spanish Village. I’ve identified the artists in the next photo caption.

I don’t know if there’s a unifying theme. But this art does makes you look twice, to say the least!

From left to right, the sculptures are: Cupid’s Hammer by Sergey Gornushkin, Pinocchio by Yuriy Akopov, Holy Surf by Sergey Gornushkin, Seal the Deal by Yuriy Akopov, and Gotem by Sergey Gornushkin.

…

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!