After the rain, girls in plastic ponchos take photos with Will the friendly Bard near the Balboa Park reflecting pool.
A major storm hit San Diego yesterday, causing flooding and uprooting trees.
I went for a walk through Balboa Park this morning. As I started across the Cabrillo Bridge, my hat protected my face from a few lingering very light showers. But they didn’t last long. My camera was out.
Rain has painted the arching west entrance to Balboa Park.Leaves, puddles, and a few early visitors entering Balboa Park after the latest San Diego storm.Leaves blown by a very windy storm on a wet tile bench in the Alcazar Garden.The aftermath.The Plaza de Panama might be wet, but people find tranquility and many wonders in the park.Dripping branches and leaves seem to overhang The Watchers. This outdoor sculpture is by artist Lynn Chadwick.Rainwater has collected in this beautiful flower.Walkways glisten and the air is clean and cool.The colors of the tiles in Spanish Village’s patio are made bold and cheerful with the lingering moisture.A magical passageway.Magical life. A squirrel on the damp green grass feasts.Walking toward the Casa del Prado, between the huge Moreton Bay Fig and the San Diego Natural History Museum. Everything is so green.A photographer gets his subjects to pose. Hopefully nobody slips!An iconic sculpture in the rain-wet courtyard of the House of Hospitality. Aztec Woman of Tehuantepec by famed San Diego artist Donal Hord, 1935.Beads of water on bright jewel-like flowers.Cleaning up after the muddy, messy storm with a smile.Gazing down at the Japanese Friendship Garden’s canyon from an overlook by the koi pond.The strong storm yesterday knocked over a towering eucalyptus tree at the Japanese Friendship Garden canyon’s edge. Guys with chainsaws cut it up.That long puddle almost looks impassable!Rain or not, it seems an umbrella and cell phone simply can’t be put aside.Patches of dampness add even more character to the side of the Balboa Park Club.A seldom used path to the old cactus garden is lined with bright rain-loving moss.Just a beautiful photo.The picnic benches behind the Balboa Park Club are empty as usual. Grass has turned bright green in collected pools of water.The clouds are clearing. I hear a cry above. Paired Red-tailed Hawks whirl and dance in the sky together above Balboa Park.This is Engineer Joe. He was blowing a train whistle outside to attract an audience! He is presently performing at the Marie Hitchcock Puppet Theatre.
Engineer Joe is a super nice guy. He told me that the Balboa Park puppet theater has been in continuous operation since 1948. That’s a long time for a puppet theater! He also said Marie Hitchcock created the hand puppets used by the San Diego Zoo to feed endangered California Condor chicks in the early 1980s, saving the species from extinction!
The sun is out after the storm. A Balboa Park ranger opens the colorful table umbrellas in the Plaza de Panama.
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The sleepy face of Morning, a sculpture by renowned San Diego artist Donal Hord.
Many who walk along the waterfront pause to enjoy a beautiful sculpture near Seaport Village. Morning, sculpted from black diorite by internationally renowned San Diego artist Donal Hord, stands atop a low grassy hill at the edge of Embarcadero Marina Park North. Should curious eyes watching the colorful, sunlit kites flying high above the park descend to Earth, they will fall upon Morning.
Donal Hord sculpted Morning between 1951 and 1956. His works around San Diego include Woman of Tehuantepec, at Balboa Park’s House of Hospitality; Aztec, at San Diego State University; Guardian of Water, in front of the San Diego County Administration Center; and Literature West and Literature East, at the old, now vacant San Diego Central Library on E Street.
As a young man Hord was influenced by what he saw at Balboa Park’s 1915 Panama-California Exposition, particularly the architecture of Bertram Goodhue and the sculptural work of the Piccirilli Brothers. Later in life he was influenced by Scottish sculptor, Archibald Dawson, and Mexican muralist, Diego Rivera.
Morning. Donal Hord, 1902-1966. Presented to the citizens of the State of California by the San Diego Unified Port District. August 1983.The Morning sculpture by Donal Hord stands on the grass at Embarcadero Marina Park North. Thousands of people pass it every day as they walk near Seaport Village.Morning, sometimes referred to as Morning Statue, shows a man waking, stretching, preparing for another day. At the base are various symbols, including representations of the sun and the moon.Morning was acquired by the Port of San Diego in 1983 and installed on the waterfront. Until then, the sculpture was located at Donal Hord’s residence.A gull and its sculpted human perch together greet a sunny morning beside San Diego Bay.
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Amazing, revolutionary holographic painting by visionary San Diego artist Tom Liguori. Photo taken through a window. Image contrast and sharpness adjusted. Photo cropped to eliminate reflections.
You might recall that earlier this year I blogged about some genuinely revolutionary holographic art. I had discovered some dazzling paintings in the windows of downtown’s old Gaslamp 15 movie theater, which has now been closed for almost a year. The paintings were created by Tom Liguori, a retired local entrepreneur, who is working to develop a completely new holographic art form.
Well, I noticed a new crop of his holographic paintings in the same windows the other day, so I’ve taken more photos. This new batch of works, if possible, seems even more vibrant and visually interesting. Some paintings are presented on a turning carousel allowing the sidewalk viewer to perceive their three dimensional quality. Placing my camera right up to the window glass, I tried hard to take photos without morning street reflections, and I’ve cropped some of the resulting images and adjusted contrast and sharpness to present this spellbinding art to the best of my ability. But you really have to see the holographic effect in person!
I was fortunate to meet Tom Liguori by chance a few months ago while I was walking around the Gaslamp. He was out on the sidewalk with some photographers, who were documenting one of his fantastic paintings. He’s a super friendly and interesting guy!
To see my earlier blog post, which I published in June before I met Mr. Liguori, click here. I didn’t adjust the images of those paintings a great deal, and the street reflections are much more evident. In that earlier blog post I also provide much more background about this new art movement, and what it all means to Mr. Liguori, an artist with an interest in physics and philosophy. Fascinating stuff!
I see he now has a website, where you can learn even more. This revolutionary artwork is available for purchase. To check his website out, click here!
Another work of fantastic, light-imbued art by Tom Liguori, a retired businessman who experiments with proprietary holographic paints.Colors and light change appearance in this holographic painting as the point of view shifts. This almost looks like an abstract still life.Several brilliant paintings turn in a spotlight on a carousel. One can see these at the now closed Gaslamp 15 movie theater on Fifth Avenue.A shield-like work of holographic art seems to produce streams of light in this photo. But it’s actually reflections on the window from the nearby street.One can get lost in this shining, jewel-like art. Wonderful!
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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 fun photos for you to enjoy!
Sun God sculpture, by French-born sculptor Niki de Saint Phalle, at University of California San Diego.
I absolutely love this sculpture. It’s called Sun God. This colorful public art was created by renowned French sculptor Niki de Saint Phalle. There are several other sculptures by the artist around San Diego, as you might have seen previously on my blog. Here and here and here.
Yesterday I walked through UCSD’s Muir College to get some photos of the Sun God. And there it stood, perched eternally on its living green arch, reflecting the golden San Diego sunlight amid tall eucalyptus trees. What a sight!
This much-loved landmark at University of California San Diego was created by Niki de Saint Phalle in 1983. She was known for producing large, colorful figures that appear to have emerged from mythology or highly imaginative tales of fantasy. While the Sun God is frequently outfitted by mischievous students with outlandish attire, the fourteen-foot-high bird remains unmoved. It merely gazes across the human landscape from its lofty station in the sky, thinking otherworldly, godly, inscrutable thoughts.
Science is taught in the buildings across the way. I doubt those professors have an adequate explanation for the Sun God. It is a true work of art.
The impressive, brightly colorful Sun God stands with wings spread wide in sun-worshiping San Diego.A path of stones leads through the Sun God’s green archway.Plaque reads SUN GOD, Niki de Saint Phalle, 1983. It’s on loan from the Stuart Foundation.Sun God faces Muir College classrooms, where science is taught. UCSD is one of the top public universities in the United States.The Sun God bird sculpture with a shining crown of gold rises powerfully, mysteriously into the blue sky.
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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 fun photos for you to enjoy!
Colorful faces and complex depth are elements of a public mural located in Golden Hill.
I haven’t taken a walk through Golden Hill for several months. But this morning I discovered some photos of a cool Golden Hill mural languishing in my computer. I forgot!
This public art at the corner of 25th Street and B Street celebrates the diversity and the vibrancy one encounters in San Diego’s small Golden Hill community. It’s an enlarged version of a 8.25 by 19 inch mixed media collage, created by artist Giancarlo Pia in 2013. I love how three dimensional and richly colorful this mural is!
Giancarlo Pia. Golden Hill, 2013. Mixed Media Collage. This mural is dedicated to the residents of Golden Hill and reflects the vibrancy and diversity of the community.Many lively images can be seen in this artwork. The rich culture and history of Golden Hill is celebrated.A very cool mural at a street corner in Golden Hill.
UPDATE!
Here’s a much better complete photo of the mural that I took on a later walk…
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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!
Bronze sculpture of young girl dipping finger into shallow basin of water. The Ellen Browning Scripps Memorial is located at the La Jolla Recreation Center.
During my recent walk around La Jolla, I paused for a bit to admire a beautiful bronze sculpture at the La Jolla Recreation Center. The life-size likeness of a girl dipping a finger into a basin of water is officially called the Ellen Browning Scripps Memorial. Created by artist Mary Buckman and dedicated in 1997, the gentle artwork remembers a very important figure in San Diego history: Ellen Browning Scripps.
If you live in San Diego, you surely recognize the name Ellen Browning Scripps. She and her brother created a vast business empire as newspaper publishers. During her life she gave most of her wealth away to good causes. She spent much of her life in La Jolla. Indeed, she lived right across Prospect Street from the present-day sculpture; her old residence is now home to the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego in La Jolla.
This sculpture by Mary Buckman is dedicated to the memory of Ellen Browning Scripps. June 28, 1997. A beloved sculpture by James Tank Porter occupied this site from 1926 until its disappearance in 1996.People enjoy a nearby bench at the La Jolla Recreation Center on a sunny December day.Inscription on the bench is from Robert Louis Stevenson’s A Child’s Garden of Verses. I’m sure we should all be as happy as kings.A beautiful work of art remembers San Diego journalist and philanthropist Ellen Browning Scripps.
Here are several photos I took at a later time…
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I wrote a short story about a girl gazing into a fountain. Would you like to read it? To feel a mixture of joy and sadness, click here.
Colorful dots on the side of a building in downtown San Diego.
Every walk through the city is a voyage of discovery. Everywhere you turn there are sudden surprises of color, form and depth. An inquisitive scientist might see geometric order; an artist might discern shades, intimations, emotion.
This morning, during a walk through downtown, I photographed dots, squares, cubes and a rather crazy tangle.
Six blue squares on the north side of the Columbia Place building.Steel cubes on west side of the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, which is housed in the Santa Fe Depot’s old baggage terminal. Art by Richard Serra, 2005. Litter atop cube 1 is by Anonymous. Idealized (though rusty) art meets messy (real) life.A crazy tangle of electrical lines in the entrance of the David C. Copley Building in downtown San Diego. A sculpture at MCASD. Power Maze with Sconce, Roman de Salvo, 1998.
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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!
Check out some photos of cool, creative door handles that I’ve spotted while walking around San Diego. I snapped a couple of these photographs months ago, and unfortunately I’ve forgotten where I took them. I guess I’m not terribly organized! Or perhaps I’m just lazy and took no notes.
Electric guitar door handle at Hard Rock Cafe in San Diego’s Gaslamp Quarter.Two door handles made of artistically bent rebar.These door handles at the Yard House don’t contain beer. One must step inside.Interesting door handles together form a disk and raised leaf.One very ornate door handle in San Diego.A lion’s head handle on a rusty gate.
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I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk! 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 fun photos for you to enjoy!
Christmas angels peer out of a window at Silver Crossing in Seaport Village.
Radical changes are coming to nearly 40-year-old Seaport Village. A redevelopment plan that was recently approved will transform the quaint collection of shops and restaurants on downtown’s waterfront into a massive complex called Seaport San Diego. The new development will contain even more shopping and dining options, several hotels, a 480-foot observation tower, a public beach, aquarium, Smithsonian attraction, and more.
Many of the shops that people have come to know over the years will vanish. Admittedly, Seaport Village today is a touristy hodgepodge. One wouldn’t really expect to see a New England lighthouse in Southern California. But no matter. I still enjoy meandering through on a sunny weekend! There are buskers aplenty and live music and people-watching and the nearby grassy park with kites flying in the breeze. And onion rings and pretzels and ice cream!
And there are the windows. Kaleidoscope windows. Windows winking with color. Windows painted with unexpected images. Windows full of gaudy trinkets, the typical souvenirs, whimsical novelties, and even a rare treasure or two you’ll find nowhere else.
Here are a few of the windows.
A lady holding a colorful bouquet in the window of Seaport Deli and Salad Bar.Beach, clouds, muffin and coffee in a window of the Seaport Cookie Company.Exotic masks for a masquerade in one window of Upstart Crow Bookstore and Coffeehouse.Floral designs around one window of the Seaport Fudge Factory.Window mural painted by San Diego artist Joel Sharp in 1996. You can find it in Seaport Village at Margaritas Kitchen and Cantina.Christopher M., known as The Painter of Chefs, has samples of his work displayed in one window of Exclusive Collections Gallery in Seaport Village.Delightful characters fill the window at The Mugger in Seaport Village.A window full of irresistible treats at the Seaport Cookie Company.There are several smiling faces in this Upstart Crow window. Can you spot all three?Zoltar the fortune teller will read your future from his own small window.Coral and other beautiful objects in a window of Seaport Village Shell Co. Limited.Tourists might take home a glittery San Diego sombrero once they glimpse these in the window of Mexican Fiesta.Sunflowers and blue window frames at Frost Me Gourmet Cupcakes in Seaport Village.
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This blog now features thousands of photos around San Diego! Are you curious? There’s lots of cool stuff to check out!
Here’s the Cool San Diego Sights main page, where you can read the most current blog posts. If you’re using a small mobile device, click those three parallel lines up at the top–that opens up my website’s sidebar, where you’ll see the most popular posts, a search box, and more!
To enjoy future posts, you can also “like” Cool San Diego Sights on Facebook or follow me on Twitter.
Mural painted on the north side of 600 B Street, home of the San Diego Union Tribune. It depicts a man sitting on an actual wall reading a newspaper. Loose windblown pages transform into colorful butterflies.
A mural is being painted on the north side of the building at 600 B Street, a high-rise that is the new home of the San Diego Union-Tribune newspaper. The large mural overlooks a fenced park-like space that once was the playground for a downtown child care center.
I saw the colorful new mural behind scaffolding this morning while walking to a nearby trolley station. The artwork cleverly depicts a person reading a newspaper, while “sitting” on a wall that juts from the building. The man doesn’t seem to notice that windblown pages are rising skyward, transforming into butterflies.
The image is quaint, almost nostalgic, as if it were lifted from the pages of a treasured children’s book. Undoubtedly the San Diego Union-Tribune is the inspiration for this mural. It’s a funny choice of images, considering the fact that physical newspapers seem to be gradually fading away. But whatever the digital age might bring, the written word, like language itself, will live on…
UPDATE!
Here’s a photo I took after the mural was completed:
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I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or Twitter!
Cool San Diego Sights! 