Take a look at this beautiful new public artwork in Vista, California!
Colorful stained glass mural panels, by artist Buddy Smith, are being installed along S. Santa Fe Avenue, between Vista Village Drive and Civic Center Drive. They’re part of the City of Vista’s ongoing Paseo Santa Fe green street improvement project.
A lot of public art has already been added to one section of S. Santa Fe Avenue, including many of these stained glass panels in new information kiosks. A once blighted part of downtown Vista is being revitalized!
I took photos of some finished panels as I walked around today. I saw depictions of Vista’s flowers, birds, natural landscapes, and historic places!
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Many have reported seeing Wild Horses running loose in Vista, California. The small herd tends to gather near West Broadway, on the grass right next to the Vista Village Creek Walk!
I saw this amazing public art today during a long walk around historic downtown Vista. Wild Horses is a grouping of outdoor sculptures by Ricardo Breceda. They were created in 2016.
Ricardo Breceda is best known for his creation of over 130 metal sculptures in Borrego Springs, which is located in the Anza-Borrego Desert east of San Diego. Large creatures abound, including dinosaurs, desert scorpions and bighorn sheep. Probably his most famous sculpture is a 350 foot sea serpent that swims through the sand!
I enjoyed looking at many cool sculptures during my walk through Vista today, but Wild Horses was easily my favorite. From a distance the rusty steel horses appear so lifelike!
A nearby plaque provides a quote: …the old timer told of wild horses running from the hills to the ocean every spring with their young…
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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!
Years ago a pair of murals were painted under Friars Road, one on either side of Mission Center Road. Both show scenes related to San Diego’s public transit system.
On one mural there is a bus; on the other, a trolley. People stand near a bus stop, or a trolley station, or walk along, or simply engage in busy urban living.
I looked at the time-stained murals this morning and realized they emphasize our common humanity.
Diverse figures appear as simple silhouettes. As you pass through the darkness under the Friars Road bridge, you see these outlines of ordinary citizens to your right and to your left. All moving through the city together.
I’ve tried to ascertain who painted these murals–they are signed Duff 1997. If anyone knows more about them, please leave a comment!
Camera in hand, I walked beside the murals and took photographs of the mysterious silhouettes.
We can’t see the faces. But we can absolutely see the humanity.
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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!
To say the least, the year 2020 has been eventful. The coronavirus pandemic, economic disruption, an election year, widespread protests and even riots. During such times, it’s easy to understand we are all living inside history.
The events of five years ago are also part of human history, even if those days in retrospect seem less troubled, less chaotic.
Well, the world continues to turn and it’s time once again to revisit a few Cool San Diego Sights memories. These are from June 2015.
The big centennial of Balboa Park was underway, of course, and Comic-Con was fast approaching . . . plus there were many other happy celebrations of life in San Diego.
To revisit memories from five years ago, click the following links:
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The reliable sun rose again this morning. It cast its warm light over San Diego.
The sun promised to eventually climb above downtown skyscrapers.
Breathing in fresh air, moving between long shadows and seeping sunlight, I aimed my camera eastward and took a few photographs as I walked along the Embarcadero.
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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!
Last year amazing local artists who together go by the name Ladies Who Paint created two more murals on a wall on F Street, just east of 14th Street. Their artwork is part of the Ladies Who Paint Mural Walk in East Village. Last weekend I finally got around to taking photos!
These two murals were created on a blank space of wall left of the blue “HI hello HOLA” mural that I photographed here.
Other cool Ladies Who Paint murals that I’ve photographed can be seen here, here and 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!
This morning, during my walk to work, I witnessed a strange contrast.
I began by walking through downtown, heading down the length of the Gaslamp Quarter. I saw a few broken windows, many boarded up businesses, much graffiti.
After a crowd of thousands gathered downtown on Sunday, peacefully protesting the death of George Floyd while in the custody of Minneapolis police officers, a few hundred rioters brought chaos to our city after dark. These people moved at random down streets and around corners, vandalizing businesses and looting. A peaceful and quite powerful protest had been hijacked by a relative few and made ugly.
Later this morning, as I neared work, I walked a short distance along the San Diego River. The sun was up, illuminating the bright green growths of Spring.
A thought-provoking morning experience.
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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!
Cosmic Flight, a mural in Golden Hill by San Diego muralist Mario Torero.
A mural titled Cosmic Flight decorates the east side of Golden Hill Liquor at the corner of 28th Street and B Street. The mural was painted in 1978 by Mario “Torero” Acevedo, whose work can be seen all around San Diego. Over the decades Cosmic Flight has been touched up, altered due to graffiti, then restored. As you can see in the above photo, it has been vandalized again.
Mario Torero is the son of renowned Peruvian artist Guillermo Acevedo who immigrated to San Diego in 1960. The life of a Bohemian was already in Mario’s blood as he and a few others local artists strove to develop a creative community in San Diego decades ago. In 1980 he opened the Sol Arts Gallery in Golden Hill across the street from the Cosmic Flight mural, the corner where Starbucks is today.
Mario Torero frequently uses cosmic imagery and expressive faces in his colorful compositions. His themes typically revolve around the civil rights movement and Chicano activism. He has been instrumental in the founding of important cultural centers in San Diego, including Chicano Park and the Centro Cultural de la Raza. A prolific and important creator of activist art, he has achieved international fame.
I walked past Cosmic Flight yesterday and was struck by the mural’s grouping of faces, which are filled with subtle emotion, including quiet pride and confidence. That’s the powerful element I like most in Mario Torero’s artwork. The humanity.
Over the years I’ve photographed a variety of other murals by Mario Torero around town.
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!
Cool San Diego Sights! 