Many of the studios in Spanish Village Art Center in San Diego’s Balboa Park are ready for the holiday season! Other artist studios will be getting ready soon!
I walked through Spanish Village late this afternoon and found wreaths, ornaments, and other fun decorations inside studios, on doors and in windows!
Need a unique Christmas gift for a special person? This is the perfect destination!
Peeking into Studio 41 the day before Thanksgiving.Come on into Studio 34.Wreath near art outside Studio 23, Southwestern Artists Association.Santa says Believe when you step into Glass Blowing Studio 19.Holiday wreath on yellow door of Studio 18, the Spanish Village office.Wreath and silver stockings hang on door of Studio 10.Welcome to a snowy forest scene.At Studio 6, which jolly old elf is the REAL Santa Claus?A beautiful little Christmas tree in Studio 2.Studio 2 has several white snowy wreaths with red cardinals!Come visit colorful Spanish Village Art Center during the holidays. Make sure to drop by during December Nights!
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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 X.
The San Diego Padres almost won it all last Major League Baseball season. They nearly took down the Dodgers. The Padres should remain awesome for many seasons to come. A new mural in North Park roots on the team. Let’s F-ing Go San Diego!
The spray painted artwork, which appears like neon at the corner of University Avenue and 30th Street, takes its inspiration from an exclamation made by Padres player Jorge Alfaro back in 2022. The impassioned expression has taken on a life of its own. LFGSD!
This cool art was created a couple months ago by muralists Carly Ealey (@carlyealey) and Christopher Konecki (@konecki_art).
Check it out!
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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.
A brilliant performance by San Diego Ballet was enjoyed this afternoon at the Spreckels Organ Pavilion in Balboa Park. Two selections from The Nutcracker–Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy and Waltz of the Flowers–were the highlight of the two o’clock Sunday organ concert! The outstanding guest organist was Mark Herman.
The company dancers of the San Diego Ballet soared powerfully above the outdoor stage with ease and grace. I don’t know how they defied gravity, dancing on air, moving lightly through space as if by magic.
For a moment, to my mind, they became flowers swaying in a light summer breeze.
I hope these images convey that grace. That feeling of exuberant joy.
The holiday season is a few days away! San Diego Ballet will be presenting The Nutcracker on December 21st at 1 pm and 5 pm, at the Magnolia in El Cajon. Learn more at their website 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.
Check out all these fun holiday decorations! They fill the House of USA cottage in San Diego’s Balboa Park!
The cottage is typically full of artifacts and images that celebrate American history and culture. When you place Santa Claus in the company of George Washington, visitors to the cottage might blink with surprise!
Are you ready for December Nights in 2024? San Diego’s epic holiday event in Balboa Park is coming up in less than two weeks–on December 6 and 7!
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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.
Fiesta de Reyes in Old Town San Diego State Historic Park appears to be ready for Christmas!
The Mexican restaurant and its colorful shops have been decorated with bright wreaths, poinsettias, Christmas trees, a Nativity scene, and a larger-than-life display up on one stage depicting the three wise men.
As you can see from my photographs taken this morning, many of the holiday decorations have a festive Mexican flavor!
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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.
With less than a week to go until Thanksgiving, signs of the Holiday Season have begun to appear around downtown San Diego!
Several hotels and destinations have already put up Christmas trees. Banners and other fun, festive decorations are springing up on street lamps and inside windows. I took these photographs this morning during a long meandering walk through the city.
I was told by downtown workers that the decorating should begin in earnest on Monday. I have no doubt I’ll be seeing many more Christmas trees, Santas, reindeer and winter wonderlands in the next few days!
Season’s Greetings on B Street.The Westgate Hotel has a Christmas tree in their elegant lobby. Giant nutcrackers and more should be going up early this week.The Westin San Diego Bayview has a couple of beautiful Christmas trees up, including this one.Poinsettias have been planted in front of The Guild Hotel on Broadway.You can watch the annual Parade of Lights on San Diego Bay on both December 8th and 15th. Why not do it from the Maritime Museum of San Diego?Seaport Village is ready for the holidays!Frosty the Snowman on a window of the Seaport Village Carousel.Surfin’ Santa will visit Seaport Village next Saturday!Seaport Village boasts the biggest Christmas tree ornaments I’ve ever seen!A very large Christmas tree in the courtyard at The Headquarters!Twenty tons of snow will be arriving at The Headquarters on Saturday, December 14th. Santa will be available, too!Kansas City Barbeque (of Top Gun movie fame) is once again providing a free Thanksgiving dinner to Active Duty Military! They’ve been doing it for over 40 years!The Grinch welcomes customers to Cali Cream Homemade Ice Cream in the Gaslamp Quarter! (I see Santa, too!)
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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.
Have you seen this very cool mural in Hillcrest? It’s painted around a corner of the California Bank & Trust building at 3737 5th Avenue, a bit away from the street. I hadn’t noticed it until my most recent walk through the neighborhood, about a week ago.
The artwork celebrates San Diego!
Images in the mural include the downtown San Diego skyline (including the El Cortez and Coronado Bay Bridge), Balboa Park’s iconic California Tower and Cabrillo Bridge, the San Diego Zoo, Mission San Diego de Alcala, and the Hillcrest landmark sign!
The art was created by @AustinGosswiller and @JackStrickerArt. Looking at the latter’s Instagram page, it appears to have been painted in 2023.
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.
A successful artist these days must wear many hats, and keep working at their art around the clock. That appears to be an important message in the recently painted Modern Day Artist mural in San Diego’s Hillcrest neighborhood.
It’s easy to miss this colorful public art. It’s on the east side of a building on the 800 block of Washington Street. Those driving east, right past the mural, will likely not see it unless they check their rearview mirror at the right moment.
The cool artwork was created a few months back by Kolten French (@koltenfrench), co-founder of Mindful Murals.
When I learned of the mural about a week ago, I walked from downtown up to Hillcrest to check it out!
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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.
Those who’ve passed through Hillcrest recently might have observed an epic lucha libre wrestling match taking place near the sidewalk. When I walked by last Saturday, a fierce luchador had his opponent in a devastating head lock. Several onlookers were cheering! And a young would-be luchador was standing by, emulating his masked hero!
The big wrestling event, as you might have guessed, is colorfully painted street art. Two electrical boxes have become canvases for the scene!
The artist is Gerardo Meza. Here’s his Instagram page. You’ve quite possibly seen other examples of his work around San Diego, particularly down in San Ysidro near the Mexican border. That’s where I originally discovered some of his very unique street art many years ago.
You, too, can watch this fun lucha libre wrestling on Sixth Avenue, a bit south of Anderson Place!
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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.
Did you know Hawaii has it own unique cowboy culture? Hawaiian cowboys are called paniolos. You might be surprised to learn that the origin of paniolos in Hawaii has a direct connection to San Diego’s early history, when our nascent city was part of Mexico and cattle ranches flourished!
An extensive new exhibit at the San Diego History Center in Balboa Park has the unusual title Aloha Vaqueros. It recalls how several Mexican vaqueros (cowboys) from San Diego moved to Hawaii to help control an exploding population of cattle!
I’ve read Richard Henry Dana Jr.’s Two Years Before the Mast, and I do remember how sailors from the Sandwich Islands (later called Hawaii) participated in the cattle hide trade up and down California’s coast. Several Sandwich Islanders also lived on the beach near the hide houses in Point Loma at La Playa.
I was unaware, however, that in the early 1830s, Joaquín Armas, a soldier and vaquero born at Mission San Diego de Alcalá, was hired by Hawaiian King Kamehameha III as an advisor on how to control thousands of wild cattle that had multiplied on the islands. Armas would then recruit three other Mexican vaqueros from the San Diego region, helping to establish vaquero traditions in Hawaii!
The thousands of environmentally destructive wild cattle had descended from long-horned cattle that were given by British Captain George Vancouver to King Kamehameha I in 1793. The wild cattle, evading hunters and traps, came under control about half a century later as vaquero-inspired ranches popped up on Hawaii’s islands. The cattle were valuable for the tallow and hide trade. Skilled ropers and riders were in demand, so many native Hawaiians would learn cowboy skills!
The paniolo experience would eventually become ingrained in Hawaiian culture. Take music, for example. One important development was Hawaiian open-tuning for the guitar called kihoʻalu, or slack-key.
Why are Hawaiian cowboys called paniolos? One theory is that the word is derived from español–the language spoken by the Mexican vaqueros.
If this very unique history fascinates you, go visit the San Diego History Center!
A few photos to provide a taste…
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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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