I spent most of my day Saturday in North County. My first destination was Lake Hodges.
Starting from the trailhead by Hernandez Hideaway, which is a short distance off Del Dios Highway, I walked north along the San Dieguito River Trail.
It was an overcast spring morning, cool, mostly quiet, with a few other walkers about and mountain bikers flying past in a very big hurry. Not sure what the hurry was. To seek adrenaline, I suppose.
After moving north along the trail for a few minutes, observing one or two fishermen relaxing down by the water, I found a side trail that led down to a private spot on the silver lake’s shore.
It was a time for open eyes and reflection.
Here are my photographs. Bright things in the gray morning included light on the rippling lake, yellow patches of mustard, and white snowy egrets.
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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!
An extraordinary exhibition of oil paintings by some of America’s finest artists opened at the California Center for the Arts, Escondido a couple weeks ago.
Yesterday I headed into the Center’s Museum to check out dozens of superb pieces that were created by members of the Oil Painters of America.
The Oil Painters of America has several thousand members who excel at representational oil painting, an art that has seen some decline in modern times. According to this page of their website: “Oil Painters of America was founded in 1991 by Shirl Smithson primarily to focus attention on the lasting value of fine drawing, color, composition and the appreciation of light…”
Think of those old masters in a fine art museum. Some of the exquisite works I saw yesterday appear to belong right beside them.
Contemporary art can be amazing, other mediums can be fantastic, but if you want to find a profound sense of humanity and subtle emotion in a canvas, this type of painting is hard to beat.
The exhibition is titled the 30th Annual National Juried Exhibition of Traditional Oils. The California Center for the Arts, Escondido is privileged to have these works on display. I noticed many of the pieces are for sale.
I loved so many of these fine paintings, it was hard to select a handful to give you an idea of what you’ll see when you enter the museum.
Whatever you do, be sure to pass through the California Center for the Arts’ Museum doors by May 16, 2021, when this fantastic exhibition of traditional oil painting draws to an end.
Taos Light, by artist Huihan Liu.Considerations, by artist John Michael Carter.Carpe Diem, by artist Jeff Legg.Mother, by artist Kathie Odom.Port Clyde Harbor, by artist Jim Carson.Saffron In Blue Ridge, by artist Brandon Gonzales.Into the Sun, by artist Sarah Kidner.
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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!
This afternoon I attended an inspirational event in the heart of City Heights. Local artists, community leaders and excited residents gathered for a fun celebration in the newly opened “Characters” outdoor sculpture garden!
You might recall I posted some photos of this cool art installation a while back before it was completed. Since then, more creative sculptures have been installed! I also noticed small signs have been added to each piece, with information about the artist and artwork.
I arrived early and watched as the crowd slowly grew, mingling among the diverse Characters sculptures. And before my eyes the number of smiling characters increased!
Everyone enjoyed food and live music, and there was juggling and stilt-walking by a member of the Fern Street Circus. After a little while various community leaders spoke, including local artist Jim Bliesner, the curator of Characters.
He introduced the neighborhood artists who created each sculpture, and many of the stories were inspirational. Every piece, like every person in the life of a community, is special and unique.
During the event I also learned that in two years this now vacant lot at the corner of University Avenue and Interstate 15 will be developed into affordable housing. When finished, a five-story building, the project of Wakeland Housing & Development and the City Heights Community Development Corporation, will be located conveniently near the City Heights Transit Plaza.
What I learned above all, however, is that City Heights is becoming an ever more vibrant community, with the help of many hands and hearts.
Edwin Lohr poses beside his sculpture Covid Calamity.
The sculpture was created using scarves that belonged to Ruth, a City Heights neighbor, friend, and victim of COVID-19.Kay Aye poses for a photo by her sculpture titled Speaking for Silent Majorities/Fruit of My Heart.Kay Aye was born in a refugee camp in Thailand. Her art speaks of the oppression that has been going on for years in her native land.Member of the Fern Street Circus engages in performance art! Different color paints dribble down 2020 Man, a sculpture made of tangled branches by Jim Bliesner.Twisted, chaotic broken branches form a human shape. 2020 was a year full of twists and turns!Art brings even more life to a vibrant City Heights community.
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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!
San Diego’s beloved Fern Street Circus has erected a permanent outdoor performance tent on a corner in City Heights!
Pedestrians coming down the sidewalk will soon begin seeing practice sessions and circus classes at the corner of University Avenue and 41st Street!
I learned about this cool development today during a big cultural celebration in City Heights, which took place in the adjacent, newly installed “Characters” sculpture garden. I’ll be blogging more about that event shortly.
As I walked around with my camera, I took these photos of the big circus tent and some of the colorful artwork that decorates the Fern Street Circus vehicles, which happened to be parked nearby. The cool graphics are the work of local artist Sergio Hernandez, who is also known as Surge.
To learn more about the Fern Street Circus and their many positive community activities, including after-school circus programs, click here. Fern Street Circus has been designated Cirque du Soleil’s Social Action Partner in San Diego, and they are celebrating their 30th anniversary!
Over the years I’ve attended several Fern Street Circus shows around San Diego and they are indeed wonderful.
Adding smiles to the world makes it a better place. And soon people walking and driving through City Heights will have another reason to smile!
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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 sign posted on San Diego’s Embarcadero near the Maritime Museum of San Diego indicates their Russian Foxtrot Class attack submarine B-39 has continued to rust, causing the historic vessel to near the end of its life.
A storm this winter that tore away sections of the outer metal skin has accelerated the submarine’s degradation. I believe it was the storm that I recorded back in January here. You can see waves in usually calm San Diego Bay breaking against the submarine.
It’s hoped that as the COVID-19 pandemic subsides, museum visitors will have one more chance to take a look inside the B-39. I learned that once the submarine has reached the end of its life, it will likely be taken to a shipyard to recover whatever might be salvageable. I also learned the Maritime Museum has thoroughly recorded the interior of the vessel, to preserve a very important part of Cold War history.
Learn more about this submarine by checking out the museum web page concerning it here.
I enjoyed a self-guided tour inside the Foxtrot-class submarine nearly five years ago, and posted some interesting photographs. If you’d like to see them, click 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!
The demolition of the immense, old Navy Broadway Complex on San Diego’s Embarcadero has resumed!
This morning I happened to notice a good chuck of the large remaining Navy building has vanished!
In 2017 demolition began on an adjacent section of the complex, to make room for the new 17-story U.S. Navy Region Southwest Headquarters, which was completed in September of 2020.
Four years ago I posted photographs of that phase of the demolition, and other construction activity along San Diego’s waterfront, here.
Once the last remnants of the Navy Broadway Complex are finally removed, construction can begin in earnest of the Manchester Pacific Gateway, which will feature a total of six new buildings.
According to the site plan, there will be a 1.9 acre plaza across Harbor Drive from the Broadway Pier and USS Midway Museum, a 34-floor Convention Center hotel with retail on Broadway by Pacific Highway, and office space in the five other, smaller buildings.
If you want to learn more about this project, which has evolved over its many years of planning, click here.
It appears the new bayfront hotel and its outdoor park will be called One Broadway Hotel & Plaza.
UPDATE!
One of my blog’s readers has informed me that I’m not quite up-to-date about this project. An article in the Union Tribune last September relates how “IQHQ real estate investment group…completed its acquisition of around two-thirds — or five city blocks — of the development site known as Manchester Pacific Gateway. The transaction paves the way for what IQHQ is calling the San Diego Research and Development District…”
So it seems the plans for this property have continued to evolve…
ANOTHER UPDATE!
I took more photographs a couple weeks later…
MORE PHOTOS!
And here are a four more pics that I took one morning in early June from Harbor Drive…
…and a couple days later…
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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!
An extraordinary work of public art welcomes curious eyes in Southeast San Diego.
To Light the Way Within is a colorful glass mosaic mural that greets visitors as they approach the front entrance of the Malcolm X Branch Library and Performing Arts Center in Valencia Park. It was created by local artist Jean Cornwell Wheat in 1995.
Last weekend I captured photographs of the 40-foot outdoor entry wall mural, working my way from left to right. The complex imagery relates the story of human language–its history and evolution. Ancient drawings, pictographs and symbols seem to mix and dance forward together when you examine the mural closely.
According to what I’ve read, the mural, created in collaboration with another San Diego artist, Raul Guerrero, incorporates a lantern, a symbol of enlightenment that lights up when it becomes dark. I’ll have to check that out one evening.
Learn more about artist Jean Cornwell Wheat at her website here.
A few days ago I posted photographs of her truly remarkable “hidden” public sculpture Dragonfly Dreams. See that here.
Several years ago I also blogged about an African American fine art exhibition at the San Diego History Center. Check that out here and you’ll see one of Jean Cornwell Wheat’s canvases, along with other great works by renowned San Diego artists!
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One of the most distinctive buildings in La Mesa can be found in MacArthur Park. The designated historic landmark, located at 4910 Memorial Drive, is called Porter Hall.
This small octagonal building, built by the Porter family in the late 1920’s, has an unusual tile roof that appears a little Chinese and a little Mexican. The roof’s exotic contours are explained by the fact that Henry and Elizabeth Chapin Porter had previously lived in China.
From 1932 to 1957 Porter Hall served as a San Diego County library.
Prior to 1974 the original octagonal structure stood on the other side of University Avenue. It was moved when the street was widened. Today the enlarged building is home of the Foothills Art Association.
When I walked past Porter Hall a couple weekends ago, I took these photographs. Some artwork could be seen from the sidewalk, including a beautiful mosaic bench with a colorful parrot. A plaque dedicates the bench to Katherine Faulconer.
You can learn more about La Mesa’s influential Porter family by reading page 5 of an old La Mesa Historical Society publication 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!
Large patches of bright yellow sunflowers can now be enjoyed along the San Diego River!
It’s springtime!
The native Bush Sunflower (also known as California brittlebush or Encelia californica) grows throughout San Diego’s coastal sage scrub habitat, and can be seen almost anywhere you go–on hillsides, in canyons, by sidewalks–at least where they haven’t been crowded out by invasive crown daisies.
Fortunately, the banks of the San Diego River support thriving native vegetation, and patches of California bush sunflowers are numerous.
I walked along a short segment of the San Diego River Trail in Mission Valley today and captured these photographs.
The newly opened T & C Neighborhood Park adjacent to the Town and Country resort was carefully planted with native vegetation, and I found many bush sunflowers blooming along its pathways!
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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 mural in San Diego’s Mountain View community speaks to the viewer with many words of wisdom.
Quotes from civil rights leaders and by thoughtful people who never achieved fame have been painted along a low wall. Those who drive or walk by are reminded that peace, freedom and kindness toward all are among our highest aspirations.
We are reminded to remain hopeful and to lead full lives.
The artwork, titled Inspiration Wall, was painted by Rik Erickson of Murals Fantastic. It was commissioned by the City of San Diego Graffiti Division. (Rik Erickson also created the large, very cool Imagine mural in North Park that features the face of John Lennon. It’s a bit hidden in a very narrow alley, but you can see it here.)
The colorful Inspiration Wall is located at the intersection of Ocean View Boulevard and 35th Street, across from the on-ramp to northbound Interstate 15.
I took these photos for you to enjoy…
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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!
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