Mural titled I Pescatori by artist Renee Garcia, 2003. Depicts tuna fishermen who lived in Little Italy (many were Italian immigrants) fishing off the coast of San Diego.
Camera in hand, I captured even more examples of fantastic, colorful artwork. Most of these pics were taken on India Street north of Ivy Street.
This painting of two dancers was in the front patio of a shop or cafe or restaurant of some kind–I forget what, exactly. I had to snap a quick pic.Ben-Hur Coffee. A cool old advertisement on the side of an old brick building in San Diego’s hip Little Italy neighborhood.Just a fun artistic tile on a building wall that I noted as I walked up India Street this morning.Several murals that together are titled Eredita Italiana. By Yakov Kandinov, 2004. According to a nearby plaque, this is a Precious Cheese Art Mural Project.A portrait of a proud Italian family that might have lived in this neighborhood.One of the grouped murals depicts the historic Our Lady of the Rosary church in Little Italy.Looks like someone else was walking up the sidewalk on India Street–and they had wet shoes!Just a fun sign on a Little Italy antique shop’s door. The Bungalow Store.A radiant Madonna above the front door of El Camino, a crazy, kitschy Mexican eatery and bar in San Diego’s Little Italy.Many faces of beauty on an exterior wall of El Camino.Old, faded graphic on wood wall shows a troupe of Mexican mariachis.Colorful application of kitsch on the outside of El Camino.A large smiling senorita mural looks right at you.Caballero muy guapo in Little Italy!
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Many outdoor sculptures are being introduced into Balboa Park. The exhibit is titled Art of the Open Air. It’s a unique project of the San Diego Museum of Art.
During the past week, a number of sculptures in the San Diego Museum of Art’s collection have been carefully moved into the Plaza de Panama, a large outdoor gathering place in Balboa Park. For the next two years, anyone in San Diego will be able to freely enjoy the sculptures, and see them in changing light, beneath different skies. Moving such large pieces has taken a lot of work, but I noticed today that the installation, titled Art of the Open Air, is approaching completion.
Included in the unique outdoor exhibition are works by world-famous artists Joan Miró, Auguste Rodin and Tony Rosenthal. I wasn’t able to approach the artwork too closely–right now, while the sculptures are being readied, they’re still roped off. The same goes for a new piece in the museum’s May S. Marcy Sculpture Garden, which I also photographed from a bit of a distance. I put some identifying information in the photo captions.
Art of the Open Air is set to run from February 11, 2016 through February 13, 2018. I can already see that Balboa Park is going to be more lively and interesting than ever!
Alexander Calder. Spinal Column, 1968. Steel. A sculpture being installed in the San Diego Museum of Art’s outdoor May S. Marcy Sculpture Garden.Lynn Russell Chadwick. The Watchers, 1960. Bronze. Now stands in Balboa Park’s beautiful Plaza de Panama, part of the Art of the Open Air exhibition.Auguste Rodin. The Prodigal Son, 1905. Bronze. Installed in the northwest corner of the Plaza de Panama, where the sculpture Youth Taming the Wild (Horse Trainer) used to stand.I can’t find anything about this piece, but it seems strangely familiar. If you know what it is, leave a comment! UPDATE: I learned the bronze sculpture is called Mother and Daughter Seated, by Francisco Zuniga, 1971Two very fine sculptures that will soon will be approachable in Balboa Park’s Plaza de Panama.Joan Miró. Solar Bird, 1966. Bronze. Standing guard near the entrance to the San Diego Museum of Art.Tony Rosenthal. Odyssey III, 1967. Aluminum.Photo across front of the San Diego Museum of Art, the north end of Balboa Park’s Plaza de Panama. Outdoor art is being installed.Luis Jiménez. Border Crossing/Cruzando el Rio Bravo, 1989. Fiberglass with acrylic urethane finish. Stands outside the May S. Marcy Sculpture Court and Panama 66.Monumental totem-like sculpture depicts artist’s immigrant grandfather carrying wife and son, crossing the Rio Grande from Mexico.A large sculpture seems to stride into the life-filled Plaza de Panama in San Diego’s historic Balboa Park.
Native American Kumeyaay from the San Diego area work near the foot of an ewaa, a dome-shaped hut made of sycamore and oak tree branches.
Over two years ago, when Cool San Diego Sights was relatively new, I blogged about some amazing public art near the Santa Fe Depot in downtown San Diego. I provided just a brief glimpse, really.
The artwork, titled The Tracks We Leave Behind, created by Betsy K. Schulz in 2008, is so utterly fantastic, so absorbing, I’ve decided to blog about it once again. Whenever I walk past (which is often), I like to pause an extra few seconds beside my favorite column, which features gorgeous mosaics that depict wild nature and the Native American Kumeyaay people, who have lived around San Diego for about 12,000 years.
Living in this place we set fires to open the land and make the seeds grow. We fish all year, both near shore and deep. We walk to the canyons and the mountains–hunting, gathering food and trading . . .Public art titled The Tracks We Leave Behind, by Betsy K. Schulz, 2008, includes the image of a Kumeyaay hattepaa (coyote) howling.Beautiful handmade mosaic tiles form a Kumeyaay ispa (eagle) in flight.The bald eagle has captured a Kumeyaay hiiwaa (fish).Yellow Sycuan Suncups grace this gorgeous, detailed public artwork in downtown San Diego.The yellow bloom of a prickly pear. This sculpted tile mosaic is so phenomenal, you almost can’t remove your eyes from it!The native Kumeyaay people (also called Kumiai, Ipai-Iipay, Tipai-Tipay, Diegueño, Kamia) have lived in the San Diego region for around 12,000 years.Public art in San Diego depicts Cinon Duro Mataweer, spiritual leader (kuseyaay or tribal shaman) of the Ipai (formerly northern Diegueño) Native American Indian tribe.
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Funny faces peer from the wall of a local business on West Washington Street in Mission Hills.
Here come some fun photos of urban art in Mission Hills. Was it two weeks ago or three, when I walked this way camera in hand, on my way to the Serra Museum? How time flies . . .
Most of this warm, good-humored art was observed along West Washington Street, which is the main east-west artery in Mission Hills. You might notice that birds are a big theme in the neighborhood. The north-south streets are named after different birds and are arranged in alphabetical order.
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I noticed that our fine feathered friends are often featured in Mission Hills urban art. Perhaps because north-south streets are named after birds, in alphabetical order.Another side of a creatively decorated utility box.A third fun side! A human and two happy birds add good humor to the sidewalk!Wonderful metal bird sculptures can be seen in the median on West Washington Street.Shiny, silvery birds take to the air, among palm trees in Mission Hills.Another large bird sculpture seems ready to lift off into the sunshine!Some fun public art by a parking garage. A nice place to sit for a spell.More street art in Mission Hills, a neighborhood north of downtown San Diego, west of Hillcrest and east of Old Town.Large painted flowers add color to an otherwise ordinary intersection.A bold, artistic sign entices people to grab a cup of coffee nearby.One restaurant, The Patio on Goldfinch, has unique outdoor tables. Your food is placed upon historical maps of San Diego!Greenery painted on an old brick wall seems to blend with lush trees along the sidewalk.I spotted a cool doorstep by the sidewalk. It seems a resident’s dog and a cat have their own special place!
A bronze hero stands guard on the sand in Ocean Beach. The long OB pier stretches out into the Pacific Ocean in the background of this photo.
Not far from Ocean Beach’s main lifeguard station, a hero stands day and night with unblinking eyes focused on the nearby water. This noble hero is made of bronze.
The bronze lifeguard statue, created by artist Richard Arnold, was installed in 2013. It commemorates the creation of the San Diego Lifeguard Service after 13 people tragically drowned in dangerous rip currents off Ocean Beach in 1918.
The sculpture represents a typical lifeguard, with head up scanning the Pacific Ocean surf. It’s a very fine addition to a very cool beach neighborhood.
Colorado sculptor Richard Arnold, who grew up in OB, at one time was a junior lifeguard.
The muscular bronze lifeguard statue holds a rescue tube and a pair of swim finsColorado artist Richard Arnold created this bronze sculpture. It memorializes 13 tragic drownings in 1918, and the subsequent creation of San Diego’s lifeguard service.Beachgoer with two boogie boards passes between the bronze sculpture and the main Ocean Beach lifeguard station.A couple of surfer dudes carrying surfboards approach the memorial plaque, a few feet from the lifeguard tribute statue.Today, lifeguards in San Diego rescue between 4000 and 6000 people every year. They are real-life heroes.
Altered photograph of a Henry Moore sculpture, located in San Diego Museum of Art’s popular sculpture garden.
Oh, no! Here come some “artsy” photos!
Today I walked through Balboa Park’s beautiful May S. Marcy Sculpture Garden. The grassy space, which is free to the public, contains several pieces of artwork belonging to the San Diego Museum of Art’s collection.
The garden’s most recognized sculpture is probably Reclining Figure: Arch Leg, which was created in 1969 by renowned British Modernist artist Henry Moore.
As I walked around the curvaceous sculpture, it occurred to me that different interesting photos could be taken depending on the angle and perceived distance. So I engaged in a bit of experimentation!
(Fear not! I didn’t touch the sculpture or step on the flowers! But I did lean over like crazy–and minutely cropped some images– to get the “close-up” images.)
Henry Moore’s 1969 bronze sculpture Reclining Figure: Arch Leg, on the grass in the San Diego Museum of Art’s May S. Marcy Sculpture Garden.Sunlit bronze sculpture photographed from a different angle. I adjusted contrast, brightness and sharpness, and cropped according to my eye.Same sculpture, different frame, different paths of reflected light. The physical object is itself unchanged, but has become something new in the mind of the viewer.The Modernist sculpture’s fluid curves and organic quality is suggestive of human form.Raw nature interacts with human art. A camera focuses on nearby details the casual eye might miss.The form of an abstract sculpture becomes more mysterious when the defining outer edges are eliminated with photo editing.A warmly glowing bronze surface, and a pair of eyes.The sculpture’s red-tinged bronze skin reflects Southern California sunlight.A closer view reveals craters and furrows. Small glimpses of beauty within a larger whole.A strangely perfect, silvery surface.Looking up into the light. Both self-contained art and the outer world are composed of the same elements, and can evoke identical wonder.
Sculpture of woman fish processor holding a large tuna. This area south of downtown was once the home of many San Diego canneries.
A month or two ago, during a leisurely walk from downtown to the pier at Cesar Chavez Park, I was thrilled to discover some truly amazing public artwork!
The Cannery Workers Tribute at Parque del Sol is tucked away in a place where very few people go. You’ll find it just a bit north of the Coronado Bay Bridge (which you can see in some of my photographs), near the entrance to Cesar Chavez Park.
The large gleaming sculpture honors thousands of hard-working people who were employed by San Diego’s tuna canneries decades ago. I’ve blogged about our city’s once-thriving tuna industry on several occasions. Not only was San Diego home to the world’s largest tuna fishing fleet during much of the 20th century, but numerous canneries dotted our bayside. In the 1950s, the tuna industry provided more than 17,000 local workers with a living. Many of the jobs involved cleaning and packing fish that would be shipped around the world.
According to the Port of San Diego website, this public artwork is situated in a spot where workers at a nearby cannery would take their break. “During the 1970s, former cannery maintenance worker Roberto Carrero and co-workers dug a hole and planted a small tree. This, now large, coral tree was incorporated into the artwork.”
Four bronze plaques mounted on bits of old machinery recall the history of this area and the once-thriving tuna industry. Click the plaque photos to read them.
The Cannery Workers Tribute sculpture was created in 2009 by Valerie Salatino and Nancy Moran, with assistance from Sheila Moran. It is indeed a very cool sight!
Coral tree planted by a cannery maintenance man decades ago is an important feature of the Cannery Workers Tribute at Parque del Sol.A high arch of gleaming fish seems to rise above the nearby Coronado Bay Bridge. This public art is located in Barrio Logan, near the entrance to Cesar Chavez Park.Few people pass this way. This public art is definitely a hidden San Diego gem.A large catch of ocean tuna seems to burst from a basket!The advent of the cannery industry in the early 1900s. For most of the 20th century, San Diego was the tuna fishing capital of the world.The people included Italian, Japanese, Mexican and Portuguese fishermen, and many cannery workers. Fishing boats have no schedule. When the cannery bell rang, it was time to go to work.The process was smelly and messy! For tuna to go into a sandwich or salad bowl, it often traveled up to 7000 miles!The end of the San Diego tuna fishing era came in the 1980s, due to foreign competition, high expenses and other factors.Another photograph that you might enjoy.An arch of abundant fish above tuna cannery workers. Public artwork that honors an important chapter in San Diego’s history.
UPDATE!
I took additional photos on a later walk past the park…
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Three magic benches are visible in this photo. Can you spot them?
I discovered three magic benches during my walk through Balboa Park this afternoon! All three are situated in front of the Old Globe Theatre, one of San Diego’s great cultural treasures.
How do I know these benches are magic? It’s very easy to see! Just examine the following photos, and read the captions!
The first bench is dedicated to that magical playwright Shakespeare! As you might recall, the Bard is associated with the original Globe Theatre, which was in London.The iconic face of William Shakespeare on the side of a fantastic public bench in Balboa Park’s Old Globe Courtyard. Sit here and be inspired!A jolly character from the Shakespeare comedy The Merry Wives of Windsor.A famous scene from Hamlet. Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio; a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy…The Old Globe Theatre in San Diego is where you want to see Shakespeare’s famous plays, including the tragedy Julius Caesar.Here’s the second magic bench. Looks ordinary? Don’t be deceived! Sit or lie here, and you might mysteriously be transported far away!And finally, the magic piano bench. Anybody can sit here and play music through January, courtesy of the San Diego Symphony’s PLAY ME: Pianos In Public Spaces event!
To learn more about the ten public pianos that have been placed around San Diego, check out my previous blog post!
To experience magic in wonderful Balboa Park, head over to the courtyard in front of the world famous Old Globe Theatre!The Old Globe has another great lineup for 2016. World-class entertainment in amazing Balboa Park!
Gentleman who saw this fun piano in the middle of Horton Plaza sat down and started playing. The San Diego Symphony is spreading music around the city!
Ten pianos have been placed around San Diego for the public to play! Any ordinary person passing by can just sit down and perform music to their heart’s content!
This very cool and unique “event” is being put on by the San Diego Symphony. Their PLAY ME: Pianos In Public Spaces installation is part of this month’s Upright and Grand Piano Festival, and will continue through February 8.
Feeling inspired? Feeling musical? Feeling like a maestro? Would you like to play some wonderful piano selections for your admiring fans? Then head on over to one of the ten public locations! They are: the Symphony Towers lobby, the Quartyard, the downtown Central Library, Horton Plaza, The Headquarters, the Coronado Ferry Landing, the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego (downtown location), Liberty Station, Balboa Park (by the Old Globe Theatre) and the California Center for the Arts Escondido!
The San Diego Symphony’s PLAY ME: Pianos In Public Spaces program has placed ten pianos around the city for ordinary people to enjoy!A colorfully painted piano in the lobby of Symphony Towers in downtown San Diego. I swung by here in the very early morning when few people were around.A cool guy plays this public piano at the Central Public Library in downtown San Diego. He heard about this very unique event and came on down to tickle the ivories.One of ten pianos placed around San Diego for the public to enjoy. Many library patrons coming through the front door were treated to unexpected music!This piano has a big cyclops eye. It sits outside in the Quartyard in San Diego’s East Village.Few people were about the Quartyard on Saturday morning. It’s a cool eating and event venue that’s fairly new in this hip neighborhood.Amazing talent takes a seat in Horton Plaza. This gentleman was walking through the shopping mall and saw the piano. He sounded like a professional musician!This fellow enjoyed playing another public piano, which has been placed at The Headquarters, near Seaport Village.All ten pianos have unique artwork, painted by various local organizations. The instruments were tuned by experts at the San Diego Symphony–and they sound amazing!Kids twirl to piano music in the wide courtyard of The Headquarters, which is located in San Diego’s old police headquarters.Finally, I saw this piano in front of the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego’s downtown location, which is next to the Santa Fe Depot.Sign says that we are proud to present this piano painted by Combat Arts as part of the San Diego Symphony’s Upright and Grand Piano Festival’s city-wide installation. We invite you to play!Piano in public for any random passerby to enjoy. Veterans who painted this instrument are part of an art-based museum program to help combat troops recover from PTSD.
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A carefree girl rides a scooter on one side of the North Park parking garage.
Here are some fun images I photographed during my recent walk through North Park. A number of murals decorate the multi-level parking garage located just south of University Avenue, between 29th and 30th Streets.
I performed all sorts of internet searches to learn more about this artwork, but have come up with nothing. Perhaps someone out there knows something.
Anyway, I really like these simple, light-hearted graphics! They definitely add to the cool vibe of North Park. It looks to me like a very imaginative artist had lots of fun creating them!
Because these photos were taken from a bit of a distance (and some were faint), I had to adjust their brightness and contrast quite a bit.
UPDATE!
Silly me. The artist’s name is on one of the images.
These were created by Blair Thornley. Sponsored by the Redevelopment Agency of the City of San Diego.
A couple of unique characters out for a drive. Fun murals decorate the sides of North Park’s multi-level parking garage.This cool guy is riding in some sort of vehicle painted with the word Paradigm. If it’s a manual transmission, I suppose he must engage in paradigm shifting.Looks like some sort of hip creature carrying a tray of glasses, and some spoons. I like the style of this artwork.This one seems to depict a restaurant hostess taking a call while sitting atop her workplace.Three more fun murals. If I recall, these are on the north-facing side of the garage.A bird in a bib ready to chow down.An amusing box-dog about to eat some letters in a bowl. I love it!
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