Tag: painting

Southeast Art Team beautifies Lincoln Park!

The Southeast Art Team, a group of artists who reside in southeastern San Diego, recently painted very colorful murals in Lincoln Park!

The boarded up old Pete Mayo’s Original Waffleburgers building near the corner of Euclid Avenue and Imperial Avenue has new life–entirely due to the efforts of positive people who love their community.

I walked through the neighborhood today and checked out two cheerful murals on two sides of the now vacant building. (I also spotted more of the team’s street art along Imperial Avenue. Photos to come!)

The President of the Southeast Art Team is Kim Phillips-Pea. She’s a super positive, energetic community leader whom I met this summer while the team was helping Mario Torero restore his important Civil Rights mural at 32nd Street and Imperial Avenue. You can see photos of that mural being restored here.

If you want to learn more about the Southeast Art Team, and perhaps help them out, check out their 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!

Mural in Lakeside celebrates a moment in history.

A fantastic mural painted in Lakeside at the corner of Woodside Avenue and Maine Avenue celebrates an important moment in this East County community’s surprising history.

Spectators in old-fashioned garb watch an automobile race around Lindo Lake near the long-vanished Lakeside Inn, once called The Coronado of the Hills because of its architectural similarity to the Hotel del Coronado. On one historic day in 1907, race car driver Barney Oldfield set a new world land speed record.

A corner of the mural indicates this nostalgic artwork was painted by David E. Ybarra for the Ron Schafer Family.

I’ve included a vintage photograph of the race depicted in the mural!

Barney Oldfield driving the Peerless Green Dragon at the Lakeside Track, San Diego, California. April 7, 1907. (Public domain photo from Wikimedia Commons.)

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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!

Art panels say BE THE CHANGE.

Three panels of painted art have appeared in the breezeway between downtown’s Santa Fe Depot train station and the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego.

Together they form a positive message: BE THE CHANGE.

BE
THE
CHANGE
Goal Warm Liberated Kindness Peaceful Tender Determined Brave Spirited…
Motivated Playful Amazed Passionate Sunshine Intelligent Unique Calm Free Grace…
Wonderful Inspire Strength Curious Encouraged Mindful Onward Beauty Freedom…
A new butterfly.

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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!

The unique, authentic life of street art.

A painting is hung on the wall of a home or museum and endures for generations. Street art–from an alley’s sudden bold graffiti to the most elaborately constructed mural–is born, sees the sunlight, greets countless passing eyes, ages quickly, fades, is ruined, vanishes. And where it once lived, often new art springs up.

In a sense, street art is like our own lives. Authentic. Something we all appreciate. That speaks from the heart, confidently. That is temporary.

During my walk through City Heights yesterday I saw how a uniquely beautiful mural painted outside a coffee shop has vanished. I enjoyed a look at it in August. But its gone in October. Its life was short. It was badly defaced, I’m told. And now this carefully made street art is gone forever, painted over.

Summer soon becomes autumn, then winter.

Cherish every moment in life.

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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!

Community gathers on a fence in City Heights.

Colorful new artwork has appeared on a fence in City Heights! Small painted scenes celebrate the neighborhood and provide a feeling of life in this diverse community.

I’ve learned the paintings are by artist Jim Bliesner, who has contributed his heart and talent to projects around San Diego over the course of many years. With strokes of his brush he has magically gathered many neighbors together!

I see people from all walks of life running, jumping, playing, shopping, going to school, interacting, making their voices heard.

I see a community that’s alive!

This fence beside a vacant lot is becoming a sort of temporary outdoor art gallery. You can find this colorful artwork on University Avenue, just east of Interstate 15.

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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!

Paint and love for the Balboa Park Carousel!

I saw today that the Balboa Park Carousel is receiving new paint and some much deserved love!

The historic 1910 Herschell-Spillman carousel has been out of operation for most of the year due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but the idle time is being well spent. The Friends of Balboa Park have already applied new coats of paint to various elements of their carousel, including much of the structural framework that holds the wooden horses and other carved animals.

You can see in the second-to-last photo how recently painted parts of the Armored Horse like the saddle appear brand new. All of the animals will get the same treatment!

Want to read some Fun Facts concerning this carousel? Visit this page!

I’m told the Balboa Park Carousel will reopen eventually–the timing depends on the future course of the coronavirus pandemic in San Diego.

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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!

Fun street art along Black Mountain Road!

During my walk along a stretch of Black Mountain Road in Mira Mesa yesterday I came upon a lot of fun street art!

I found artwork both old and new. I found colorful works of imagination painted by many hands.

Why have we always needed art?

To connect with this great big world, and attempt with eyes and hands to more fully understand it?

To be engaged in the world? To feel productive and alive? To feel pleasure and a sense of personal accomplishment?

To search ourselves? Expand ourselves? Challenge ourselves? Express our desires?

To discover true things about life?

We have always needed art.
We have always needed art.
Electrical box painted with art that seems prehistoric.
Electrical box painted with art that seems prehistoric.
Street art that resembles a Rubik's Cube!
Street art that resembles a Rubik’s Cube!
A very colorful peacock.
A very colorful peacock.
Flowers in a vase.
Flowers in a vase.
Peace on a fence.
Peace on a fence.
Stay fresh.
Stay fresh.
A happy angel.
A happy angel.
Football player runs with the ball.
Football player runs with the ball.
Three parrots.
Three parrots.
Three colorful reptilian creatures.
Three colorful reptilian creatures.
A space station of the future.
A space station of the future.
An enchanted castle, perhaps.
An enchanted castle, perhaps.
Rocket on the gantry, or perhaps a futuristic building.
Rocket on the gantry, or perhaps a futuristic building.
Space monkey eats a banana!
Space monkey eats a banana!

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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!

Photos of Codi, Old Town’s Favorite Horse!

State Park ranger Richard “Dick” Miller and Codi. Photo courtesy Richard Miller.

A couple weeks ago I wrote about a mysterious horseshoe and plaque at the top of some stairs at the Old Town Transit Center. The small monument memorializes Codi, Old Town’s Favorite Horse. (See my blog concerning the horseshoe here.) I asked whether anybody remembered Codi, and I’ve subsequently received photographs and a little information!

I learned that Codi was the horse of Richard Miller, who patrolled Old Town San Diego SHP as a mounted state park ranger. Richard “Dick” Miller retired in 2001 and came back to Old Town for another 12 years as an interpreter. He also started the group known as TRVEA, the Tijuana River Equestrian Association.

Codi and Dick Miller patrolled both Old Town San Diego State Historic Park and Border Field State Park. Codi was a Morgan grade horse who weighed 1400 lbs, and when he passed he was about 22 years old.

After Codi’s passing, the horseshoe monument was made possible by the Old Town Transit Center contractor’s inspector, who had become a friend of Dick Miller.

Do you recognize Codi in these old photographs? If you have lived in or visited San Diego, perhaps Codi has a place in your memories, too!

Codi and Dick Miller at Old Town San Diego State Historic Park. Photo courtesy Richard Miller.
Codi and Dick Miller at the 1985 Sandcastle Parade in Imperial Beach. Photo courtesy Richard Miller.
Painting of Dick Miller riding Codi in front of the Casa de Estudillo in Old Town San Diego, by artist Miguel Chavez. Photo courtesy Richard Miller.

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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!

Three chickens escape from the Pie Shop!

Three clever birds have managed to escape from the famous San Diego Chicken Pie Shop restaurant!

I saw them by the sidewalk huddled in a small group, keeping an eye in three directions to avoid recapture!

This cool street art in North Park is the work of Kelly Hutchison in 2020.

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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!

A short story about a paintbrush and magic.

Anyone could participate in painting a small square in this large mural!

It has been months since I promoted my blog Short Stories by Richard, but I just now published a new short story titled Father’s Paintbrush, and I think some readers might enjoy it.

Like several other stories I’ve written, it has a surprising O. Henry-like ending!

If you’re interested, you can read this small work of fiction about life, learning and magic by clicking here.

I have more photographs taken yesterday at Presidio Park coming up, so stay tuned!

Where will I walk today? I haven’t decided!