Very beautiful artwork can be seen just outside the entrance of the La Jolla Community Center. Tile panels on either side of the front door and tile work on a nearby bench depict La Jolla’s stunning coastal scenery.
I took these photographs during a walk a couple weekends ago when the center happened to be closed. I’m very curious who the artist might be.
I believe the work was done back in 2012–part of a larger building renovation. If you know more about this wonderful art outside the community center’s entrance, please leave a comment below!
Enjoy these photos, which I edited slightly using increased contrast and sharpness to bring out the colors and details.
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Two very cool new murals were recently painted at the Grossmont Transit Center in La Mesa. One mural, titled Float On, faces the trolley tracks, and the other, titled Succession, can be found on the opposite side of the same wall, facing nearby bus stops.
Five colorful new murals will soon be painted in downtown La Mesa. Old murals along The Walkway of the Stars, a pocket park that celebrates local volunteers, have been painted over, and a sign indicates new artwork will be created on the same walls this summer.
I was a bit shocked today when I saw how the beautiful old murals had disappeared. But the new mural designs appear pretty awesome. You can see the five new mural designs on the City of La Mesa’s Instagram page by clicking here.
If you’d like to see the vanished murals, I took photographs back in 2017 and posted them 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.
A very beautiful new mural is now being painted in Barrio Logan, on the side of Barrio Market at the corner of Cesar Chavez Parkway and National Avenue.
I met the friendly mural painter today, who goes by the artist name Andrea Border Baby. She’s a high school math teacher in South Bay. It’s her first ever public mural!
I learned Andrea has been one of the artists helping with the Chicano Park Mural Restoration project.
I also learned the left half of the new mural, depicting La Virgen de Guadalupe, memorializes a deceased loved one, and the right half celebrates the community of Barrio Logan.
The finished mural is set to debut in a couple weeks, on Saturday, September 14th!
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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 X.
A beach scene mural that shows the Oceanside Pier, a woodie and three girls with a surfboard on the sand has appeared in downtown Oceanside. You can view it on the parking lot side of Finney’s Crafthouse restaurant. Postcard-like words read: Greetings From OCEANSIDE.
The artist is Jerry Ragg. The mural was painted in 2024 in memory of JT Ragg.
I spotted the cool artwork during my weekend walk in Oceanside and took these photographs into the sun. Consequently, I had to increase the contrast of each image quite a bit.
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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 X.
A large, very beautiful mural in La Jolla shows three birds–a Black-throated Sparrow, a Rock Wren, and a Cactus Wren–in their native habitat. It’s titled Mukikmalim, Su’ulim, Chem-tema-ki’ay, which is in the Kupa language. It translates as Birds, Stars, Our Lands.
According to this article, it’s the first public display of the Kupa language. The artist, Gail Werner, who descends from three of the county’s native peoples, Kupa (or Cupeño), Luiseño and Kumeyaay, received her inspiration for the mural from her hikes in the Anza-Borrego desert, beyond the mountains east of San Diego.
The public art debuted in downtown La Jolla in 2023, and is part of the ongoing Murals of La Jolla project. I saw the artwork last weekend on Herschel Avenue as I approached the bus stop on Silverado Street.
According to the Murals of La Jolla website: The bird imagery is inspired by traditional Southern California Native American songs, called Bird Songs, and the accompanying dance, the Bird Dance. These songs and dance weave a story of how the people came to be where they are and the accompanying journey that brought them to this land, which is said to parallel the migration of the birds.
In my own opinion, Mukikmalim, Su’ulim, Chem-tema-ki’ay is one of the most beautiful murals I’ve ever encountered in La Jolla
The imagery transports me to wilder places around San Diego . . . to hikes I’ve enjoyed.
With all its buildings, streets and parking lots, it’s hard to imagine how La Jolla (or any San Diego neighborhood) might have appeared before the first Europeans and settlers transformed the natural world they found.
And now for my photographs–of unspoiled nature represented on a building, taken from across an asphalt parking lot…
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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 X.
A gigantic sand sculpture now stands near the foot of the Imperial Beach Pier. The “Back 2 IB” retro sculpture, created using 80 cubic yards of sand, celebrates nostalgia from the 1980s. It’s the centerpiece of Imperial Beach’s family friendly 2024 Sun & Sea Festival!
Carved into the massive sculpture are images from the 1980s that many will recognize. Pac-Man. Ghostbusters. MTV. Rubik’s Cube. Cabbage Patch Kids. E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial. Back to the Future. Nintendo Entertainment System. A video game arcade. A boom box. Music on cassette tapes…
Is this the coolest sand sculpture ever, or what? Why was it built? Each summer, during the annual Sun & Sea Festival, Imperial Beach is also known as Sandcastle City!
When I visited the festival late this morning, the local sand artists, including members of the Imperial Beach Posse Sand Carvers, appeared to be nearly finished. They’ve been working on their monumental work of art for several days.
I walked around the “Back 2 IB” sand sculpture and took these photographs of the sand sculptors hard at work…
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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 X.
San Diego artist Hugo Fernando Fierro (@hoyote) was spray painting a wall in City Heights today. He’s finishing off a huge, super cool mural on the side of Inscriptu: Custom Printing and Laser Engraving Services, at the corner of University Boulevard the 42nd Street.
I learned about this project from Carlos Quezada of Love City Heights, who told me that hopefully more great murals will be appearing in this east San Diego community’s future.
When I arrived to check out the artwork this afternoon, Hugo was taking a break and we struck up a conversation. Not only is he a great muralist (see other City Heights murals painted by Hugo here and here), but he’s an illustrator, video producer and animator.
Check out the artwork’s neon colors, crazy characters and complex, dynamic composition! When I asked for the title of this mural, he said he hadn’t decided yet.
Hugo then stepped onto the lift and began adding black spray paint to the mural, to resemble dripping printer’s ink. The touches of black make the colorful graphics pop even more.
If you look closely at the mural, you’ll see elements that pertain to Inscriptu, a print shop that specializes in large format.
One day local firefighters driving down the street paused to admire the developing artwork. They suggested that a reference to San Diego Fire Station 17 be added. Do you see it?
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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 X.
An extraordinary mural officially debuted yesterday in downtown Escondido. Back in the Day was painted by local artist and prolific muralist Zane Kingcade on The Photographer’s Eye building, a few steps east of Heritage Park. The mural recalls Escondido as it appeared years ago. Look for this new public art near the intersection of Grand Avenue and Juniper Street.
On Saturday afternoon an enthusiastic group gathered to celebrate the new mural. Escondido’s Mayor White presented long-time resident and author Arlene Cook Shuster with a plaque in appreciation for her generous contribution to the project, then Arlene spoke at length about the historical places depicted in the mural.
We heard the history of the Escondido Lumber, Hay & Grain Company, Sunkist (founded in Escondido!), Shelby’s Grocery, the Times-Advocate, Havens’ Studio, Grape Day, Rube’s Fabulous Country Corner, Homer Heller Ford, The Wagon Wheel, and 15 cent Burgers! We learned that some of the places shown in the mural have vanished entirely, while a few of the old buildings, or remnants of buildings, remain to this day.
Zane Kingcaid then spoke about his creation of the mural–how in the dark of early morning over the course of a couple weeks he sketched images from old photos that were projected onto The Photographer’s Eye building.
Escondido artist Zane Kingcade gestures toward his newly created mural Back in the Day.Escondido Mayor Dane White introduces Arlene Shuster.Arlene Cook Shuster tells those who’ve gathered about the history of special places in Escondido.A special day in Escondido as history is painted into the present.
I also learned that Zane Kingcade recently finished another mural, one block north of Heritage Park on Valley Parkway. The artwork decorates the exterior of Joor Muffler & Complete Auto Service, not far from the big iconic Joor Muffler man! This mural is titled All Roads Lead to Esco.
I had to check it out!
Joor Muffler man.
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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 X.
During my walk in San Ysidro last weekend, I discovered two relatively new murals painted in the Cultural Corridor. It had been a little over a year since I walked this way.
The San Ysidro Cultural Corridor extends north along Cypress Drive from San Ysidro Boulevard to the trolley tracks near the Beyer Avenue station. The alley-like corridor contains many colorful murals that change from time to time. Community development organization Casa Familiar is the driving engine behind this ongoing project.
Past blog posts that include photographs of additional murals in the Cultural Corridor can be found here and here and here and here.
My first images today show a happy mural on a wooden fence at the north end of the corridor. It was painted in 2023. The artist is Ivan Arevalo.
The second mural celebrates San Ysidro. It was painted by Ground Floor Murals. Sadly, you can see how the image of a proud bird of prey has been defaced by a tagger.
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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 X.
Cool San Diego Sights! 