Tag: news

Tribute Regatta adds life to San Diego Bay!

What were all those sailboats racing in San Diego Bay this afternoon? I watched them as I rode the ferry from Coronado to downtown San Diego.

It turns out these boats were participating in the Cortez Racing Association‘s Tribute Regatta in the north part of San Diego Bay. According to the race page, the event honored the lives of our sailing friends: Lisa Brewer and Ernie Pennell.

I never tire of watching sails that billow and slant across the blue water.

The two-masted vessel in the center of the next photograph is Bill of Rights, based in South Bay in Chula Vista. The beautiful tall ship was passing through…

After the Coronado ferry arrived near the San Diego Convention Center, I walked out to the pier at Embarcadero Marina Park South and took more photos…

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Two-inch railroad cars to travel in San Diego!

What is the smallest operating railroad car you’ve ever seen? Have you ever seen a moving train so small that bits of dust on the track can stop it?

Incredibly diminutive trains are coming to the San Diego Model Railroad Museum in Balboa Park! Each car is about two inches long–the size of your finger!

A new Z scale permanent exhibit is being built in the museum and should be completed later his year. As a sign in the museum explains, this cool project is being supported by a grant from The Norris Foundation.

Z scale model trains are so tiny a complete oval layout can fit inside a briefcase. They have a scale ratio of 1:220. They’re even smaller than the N scale trains one can see in the museum’s incredible Pacific Desert Lines layout, which is operated by the San Diego Society of N Scale.

A sample Z scale layout is already on display (above photo). Plans for the not-yet-built layout can also be viewed…

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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.

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Beautiful San Diego Landscapes in Balboa Park!

San Diego and its surrounding region is so beautiful. There’s the coast and the hills and canyons and mountains, all fantastic subjects for painters of landscapes. A group of artists from North County has captured some of this beauty.

The Rancho Santa Fe Art Guild is now presenting their exhibition Beautiful San Diego Landscapes in Balboa Park. The exhibit can be freely experienced by anyone who ventures into Gallery 21 of Spanish Village Art Center. The gallery hours are 11 am to 4 pm. The exhibition continues through April 7, 2025.

Most of the pieces I saw depict picturesque spots in San Diego, including beaches, Point Loma, La Jolla, San Diego Bay and the rugged landscapes of East County. I noticed flowers fill quite a few canvases, too.

I enjoyed a short talk with smiling artist Linda and learned all of the pieces in the exhibit are for sale. She confided that buyers can negotiate the price. If you’re searching for some very fine artwork you should come on by!

A few examples…

Flower Fields in Carlsbad, by Linda Bourne-Marcos.
Torrey Pines at La Jolla Shores, by Laura Wheeler.
San Diego Spring, by Anne Benkendorf.

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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.

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Stories that connect us in Oceanside.

Currently running at the Oceanside Museum of Art is an exhibition titled The Stories that Connect Us: Selections from the OMA Collection.

Each work by 35 Southern California artists is like a unique story that invites you to think, interpret, dream–and thereby become part of the same story. Your inclusion in each artwork’s story might be untold, but it is real.

The museum’s collection contains diverse pieces in different styles, some by highly renowned artists such as John Baldessari and James Hubbell.

I was surprised to learn the Baldessari piece in the exhibit was painted circa 1959, before the artist burned “all” of his work. His Wikipedia page explains: In 1970, Baldessari and five friends[8] burnt all of the paintings he had created between 1953 and 1966 as part of a new piece, titled The Cremation Project. The ashes from these paintings were baked into cookies… This painting survived.

Here are a few photos. If you’d like to become an integral part of these stories, visit the Oceanside Museum of Art by August 31, 2025.

(Forest), John Baldessari, circa 1959. Oil and mixed media on canvas.
Star Stalker, Walter Wojtyla, 1996. Acrylic on canvas.
Influx, Toni Williams, 2023. Oil on canvas.
Untitled (Two Figures with Purple/Pink/Orange Skies), Janet Cooling, 1980s. Oil on canvas.

The following James Hubbell watercolor includes a poem that he wrote in 2004. To read it, visit the museum!

The exhibition also includes two small, typically beautiful Hubbell sculptures.

In the Beginning, James Hubbell, circa 2007. Watercolor.

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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.

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Taiko community comes together in Balboa Park!

Taiko groups from all around San Diego (and beyond!) came together in Balboa Park today for an epic taiko community performance and jam session! It was incredible!

Taiko is high-energy drumming, Japanese style, where drummers together shake the world all around with booming uninhibited joy!

The event was called Taiko 4.0. It celebrated the 40th birthday of Diana, founder of Naruwan Taiko.

Over the years I’ve been fortunate to experience a number of Naruwan Taiko performances, but today was something extraordinary. Dozens of members were joined by taiko drummers from groups (I hope I’m not missing anyone) San Diego Taiko, Buddhist Temple of San Diego Taiko, Asayake Taiko (UC San Diego students), Makoto Taiko from Pasadena, and even Rocky Mountain Taiko from Utah!

I counted about 50 taiko drums, many of them quite large. Now imagine the thunder!

The House of China of Balboa Park’s International Cottages helped to make this epic event possible. As the joyful, rhythmic drumming began, people from around the park heard and converged. By the time I departed mid-afternoon, a good crowd had gathered.

I hope my still photographs of this amazing event transmit the absolute joy. Taiko, like nothing else, can make one feel fully alive.

Before the start, getting ready…

Here’s Diana!

A group photo!

An introduction…

Drummers take their places…

Here we go!

Between pieces of music, the drums would be carefully lifted and reconfigured…

Here we go again!

A dancing percussive procession surprise!

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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.

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Mural for Art Alive in Balboa Park!

This very beautiful outdoor mural appeared several days ago in Balboa Park. You can’t miss the bright colors as you approach the San Diego Museum of Art.

Visitors to Balboa Park can use the butterfly for a selfie backdrop. The butterfly artwork enlivens the Plaza de Panama near the entrance of Panama 66, close to the spot where augmented reality artwork had been installed until recently. The colorful new mural promotes the San Diego Museum of Art’s big upcoming Art Alive 2025 event!

I see the artist is German Corrales aka Butterfly Man (@germancorralesarte), a well-known Chicano Park muralist.

Art Alive 2025 is coming April 24–27, 2025. The super popular event fills the San Diego Museum of Art with lavish floral displays and raises funds for the museum. Find out more about Art Alive by clicking here!

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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.

Feel free to share!

The new Padres mural in North Park!

Have you seen the new San Diego Padres mural in North Park? It appeared to have been completed yesterday when I swung by this morning to check it out.

It’s located at 2510 University Avenue on the Western Dental building. Sadly, the community had to raise money for this great mural to replace another Padres mural on University Avenue that had been defaced. You can see photos of that LFGSD mural before it was vandalized by clicking here.

The same artists painted this new, much larger mural: muralists Carly Ealey (@carlyealey) and Christopher Konecki (@konecki_art).

Looks awesome!

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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.

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Fun photos of 2025 East Village Block Party!

This morning, before the East Village Block Party officially began, I walked down J Street just north of Petco Park and checked out a bunch of very cool lowrider cars. You can see those photographs by clicking here.

I returned to the block party in the mid-afternoon as it was in full swing!

The huge crowd wasn’t surprising. The San Diego Padres seem more popular than ever. The East Village Block Party celebrates the beginning of a promising 2025 baseball season.

Enjoy some fun photos!

Mariachi Internacional was performing on the stage at the east end of the block party. As you’ll see, they’d later walk down J Street playing their instruments with big smiles.

The pitching game must be tough. I didn’t see a single person succeed.

Lots of Padres fans had their pets along…

Cody Carter and Quartet were performing country music live on another block party stage.

A fun street performer makes passersby smile…

People (mostly kids) were trying their hand at climbing…

A street artist who said his name is James created this cool graffiti East Village art. A dog with a swag chain gets ready for a photo in front of it!

A sign explains how fans helped to replace a vandalized Padres mural in North Park. (You can see the mural that was replaced here.)

Here come the mariachis!

Will the Padres make the MLB Postseason again in 2025? We hope so!

Firefighters at San Diego Fire Station No. 4 give my camera a thumbs up!

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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.

Feel free to share!

Dreams, sleep apnea, and the art of Mary Jhun.

The current exhibitions at the Oceanside Museum of Art include Mary Jhun: In Losing Sleep, I Painted. The surreal work of Mary Jhun, who works out of Escondido, is presented in one of the museum’s upstairs galleries.

I wanted to see this exhibition because I’ve photographed several of her beautiful murals around San Diego in the past. If you’re curious, here’s one in San Ysidro, here’s another in City Heights, and here’s one more in North Park. (Sadly, I believe the one in San Ysidro was later removed.)

I didn’t know until now that Mary Jhun suffers from sleep apnea and must use an uncomfortable CPAP machine to help her breathe at night while sleeping. The Oceanside Museum of Art exhibition explores how it affects her life, creativity, and very importantly, her dreaming.

You can see her dreams in her artwork. Her pieces typically depict female faces and figures, which she calls The Girls. The Girls are elaborately drawn complex creations, filled with organic life, often entwined with machinery and strange architectural forms.

As the exhibition webpage explains: Jhun’s goal is to allow the viewer to feel understood, to question what they see, and to understand reality through a deeper lens, outside of the norm and into a place beyond realism. Her imagery of “The Girls” represents an inner self, one that is culminated in many alternate versions of what is or can be.

I love artwork that makes you stand a long while, gazing, thinking, feeling and wondering. Mary Jhun’s fine art certainly does that.

The exhibition continues through June 15, 2025.

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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.

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A new Navy SEAL exhibit inside America Plaza!

The new Navy SEAL Museum will be opening in downtown San Diego later this year. Meanwhile, I’ve noticed they’re in the process of installing an exhibit on the ground floor of the One America Plaza office building, near the lobby, in a hallway that leads to the trolley station. (The same hallway where the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego used to have exhibits.)

Two of six large display cases now contain U. S. Navy SEAL artifacts. The other four have signs that indicate EXHIBIT COMING SOON.

If you want to check out this developing exhibit, One America Plaza is located at 600 West Broadway. (It’s that tall bluish building with a top that looks like a phillips-head screwdriver!)

Early this year I posted a blog about a large bronze frogman statue that will be placed outdoors near the coming museum. Once installed, you’ll see it beside the America Plaza trolley station across from Santa Fe Depot.

Read that blog post here.

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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.

Feel free to share!