Tag: normal heights

All People Touch the Earth in Normal Heights!

Thirty-year-old public art in Normal Heights still shines with wisdom and love.

All People Touch the Earth is a 310-foot-long entryway and seating wall north of the Adams Elementary joint-use park, at the corner of School Street and Mansfield Street. It was created in 1992 with the help of over 900 community members, including school children, parents, and staff from John Adams Elementary School.

Hand prints and bits of tile and other objects that were placed in wet concrete accompany wise quotes. All float among the planets of our solar system!

A book is like a garden carried in the pocket.

People who live in glass houses should not throw stones.

Love your neighbor as thyself.

He who travels slowly to his destiny arrives whole.

Good Fortune

The secret of education lies in respecting the pupil.

Locks and keys are not made for honest fingers.

All the sounds of earth are like music.

Music is the universal language of mankind.

Colors speak all languages.

Hitch your wagon to a star.

It is there that our hearts are set. In the expanse of the heavens.

He who seeks to understand the universe understands nothing.

For every person who has ever lived there shines a star.

One can see the universe in a grain of sand.

Live long and prosper.

It takes a whole village to educate a child.

Talk does not cook the rice.

It is good to warm one’s self by another’s fire.

Three years old habit lasts till eighty years old.

…

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 Twitter!

Rare butter-ball-fly-ball in Normal Heights!

During my walk in Normal Heights today, I spotted a very rare “butter-ball-fly-ball” butterfly. The strange insect was clinging to an electrical box next to the Adams Recreation Center!

This fun butterfly street art is just a few steps from the baseball field at Adams Community Park.

You mean it’s a make-believe species?

And I spotted other nearby butterflies! These boxes were painted in 2021, thanks to Normal Heights Urban Arts.

Several other electrical boxes along the sidewalk near the Adams Recreation Center were painted with butterflies back in 2020. I documented those during a past walk here!

…

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 Twitter!

Another beautiful face in Normal Heights!

Over the years, several beautiful female faces have been spray painted on this wall in Normal Heights.

The wall is to one side of a tiny parking lot on Adams Avenue, between Adams Avenue Tattoo and the El Zarape restaurant. I noticed the date on this mural is 2022.

Back in 2019, I photographed another face on this same wall. See it here!

…

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 Twitter!

Tears water a blossom in San Diego.

Where the San Diego communities of Normal Heights and City Heights meet, the tears of Chucho water a small human blossom.

Perhaps you’ve seen the piñata character Chucho on El Cajon Boulevard just east of Felton Street, on the wall of U-Stor-It, facing a car sales lot.

Chucho is the creation of San Diego born Latina artist/muralist Michelle Ruby, aka Mr. B Baby. There’s a good chance you’ve observed the colorful character in other street murals around the city. You can find more photos of Chucho by clicking here.

The artist, describing her largest mural yet, says the imagery can be interpreted as your pain is what truly makes you blossom. There’s a description of her thinking and philosophy of life on her Instagram page here.

The beautiful mural was painted several months ago.

…

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 new Unity mural in Normal Heights!

There’s a cool new mural in Normal Heights, near the northeast corner of Adams Avenue and 32nd Street, that I believe was painted a couple months ago. It’s by San Diego artist Jonathan Wenner aka Unity (@unity1980).

I really like Unity’s style. It’s very unique, fresh and engaging. One can gaze at his artwork for a long while, and see more and more little details.

Does his style seem familiar? Unity also painted that cool Humphrey Appliance mural on Adams Avenue a few blocks to the east. You can see photos of that mural by clicking 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!

The creativity of new graffiti in Flash Alley!

There’s a special alley in Normal Heights that’s an outdoor gallery for many of San Diego’s most creative and known graffiti artists. It’s called Flash Alley. The alley is a few steps north of El Cajon Boulevard and City Heights, just east of 34th Street.

In my last blog post I shared photos of a very cool Junior Seau mural. It was painted a couple months ago at the south end of the alley.

After taking those photos, I walked north along Flash Alley and aimed my camera at lots of amazing, super colorful spray paint art. It all was painted in the last year or so.

I last visited Flash Alley in May 2020, and as you can see by comparing those old images here, all the current artwork is new. I recognized several artist signatures, including Sake, Persue and the Tortilla Crew.

…

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 amazing Junior Seau mural on El Cajon Boulevard!

If you’ve driven down El Cajon Boulevard between 34th and 35th Street in the past couple months, you might have seen this incredible huge mural celebrating San Diego Chargers superstar linebacker Junior Seau!

The mural was painted in early May by the artists of Ground Floor Murals. (Two days ago I posted photos of their new Manny Machado mural in Chula Vista here.)

Junior Seau is one of San Diego’s most beloved sports heroes, an NFL football legend whose life ended tragically nine years ago. It’s hard for me to believe that almost a decade has passed already.

Ground Floor Murals is composed of Paul Jimenez and Signe Ditona, a couple who began painting murals in earnest during the COVID-19 pandemic. They now have many cool murals all around the city! Read their story at their website here.

Their awesome tribute to Junior Seau is located at the border of Normal Heights and City Heights.

If you’re wondering about the graffiti directly beneath the Junior Seau mural, that’s part of extensive new art that was spray painted in the past year or two along Flash Alley. Yesterday I also photographed the fantastic urban artwork along the long alley and I’ll be posting those pics shortly!

…

This blog now features thousands of photos around San Diego! Are you curious? There’s lots of cool stuff to check out!

Here’s the Cool San Diego Sights main page, where you can read the most current blog posts.  If you’re using a phone or small mobile device, click those three parallel lines up at the top–that opens up my website’s sidebar, where you’ll see the most popular posts, a search box, and more!

To enjoy future posts, you can also “like” Cool San Diego Sights on Facebook or follow me on Twitter.

Color flows from building across mural fingers!

I love this new mural in Normal Heights! It was painted several months ago by Southern California artist Lourans Mikhail, on the west side of the Konrad King building on Adams Avenue.

Many colors now appear to be leaking from holes in the building wall!

The colors are streaming through the fingers of a smiling woman!

I always enjoy seeing the work of muralists who incorporate the architectural features of their canvas. This is a very creative example!

…

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!

End hunger with the SD Fridge Project!

Here’s an idea to consider if you’d like to help neighbors who could use a little food assistance.

While out on a recent walk, I spotted a refrigerator and some shelves in front of the Normal Heights United Methodist Church. A sign on the fridge stated FREE FOOD. I had to check it out.

Members of the church are participating in the SD Fridge Project, and the canned food and fresh vegetables near the church entrance are free for the taking. If anyone in the community is in a difficult place and could use some food, they are more than welcome to help themselves.

I read the info on a sheet taped to the refrigerator and learned more about the SD Fridge Project (@sdfridgeprojects). I took a photo so you can read it and perhaps become involved, too!

You can find the enlarged email address in an upcoming photograph, if you’d like to participate!

…

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!

An unusual Old Master mural in Normal Heights!

An unusual mural was painted in Normal Heights this year. It can be viewed on Adams Avenue, in a nook where this Prince mural used to be, and across from this Kobe Bryant mural. It was painted by local street artists Hasler and Shark, who also created the nearby Kobe Bryant artwork.

I say this mural is unusual, because street art is usually more like graffiti or contemporary artwork–abstract, extremely bold, and with a typically rebellious vibe. One doesn’t expect to see the recreation of a traditional Old Master painting.

The image that dominates this mural is of Italian artist Caravaggio‘s religious painting Saint Jerome Writing, 1605–1606. Words spray painted in the background are the Caravaggio quote: “All works, no matter what or by whom painted, are nothing but bagatelles and childish trifles unless they are made and painted from life, and there can be nothing better than to follow nature.”

Caravaggio usually painted realistic human forms, with dramatic lighting that emphasized emotion. His very popular work would influence other famous Old Masters like Peter Paul Rubens, Gian Lorenzo Bernini, and Rembrandt.

I wonder what Caravaggio would think if he visited San Diego today and looked around. Probably that he’d been transported to an alien world!

…

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!