Someone in San Diego has a funny bone. They wrote a whole mess of silly but pithy quotes with chalk on the Cabrillo Bridge sidewalk. You know, where joggers and walkers pass over Highway 163 heading into Balboa Park. The scribe must’ve done this days ago, because the chalk is fading.
Depicted in this photo is the astute observation: Seven days without love make one weak.
Take a look at the deliciously, crazily, wonderfully picturesque Studio 13 in Balboa Park’s always surprising and colorful Spanish Village! This quaint little studio is both funky and folksy, a wild mixture of creative artistry!
You know, I wouldn’t mind living in such a happy place. Perhaps in the middle of a green meadow with unicorns grazing nearby…
This morning I took a stroll through Spanish Village on the north end of Balboa Park. Spanish Village is a wonderful, colorful place where many local artists have small studios. Not many people were about yet, just one older gentleman setting up some impressionist paintings in the courtyard. I snapped a number of pics of the motley, surprising studios, and this photograph is pretty striking.
The silvery, sexy mermaid sports a naval cap atop her long hair and stands ready to defend Studio 18!
I love this small bronze sculpture just in front of the San Diego Museum of Art in Balboa Park. Because it stands inconspicuously in the seldom-visited northwest corner of the Plaza de Panama, few people ever wander over to look at it. Which is a shame.
This piece of art is titled Youth Taming the Wild (Horse Trainer) and was created by Anna Hyatt Huntington in 1927. She is also responsible for the huge, iconic El Cid statue near the center of the plaza, between the fountain and the Spreckels Organ Pavilion.
I love the expressed energy in this work of art and the careful natural detail. One can see why this fine artist is considered one of the top equestrian sculptors.
I live very close to the historic Ginty House on Cortez Hill. I noticed today they’ve put holiday red, white and blue bunting on their porch rails, to celebrate Labor Day.
The beautiful old Victorian house, in the Stick Eastlake style, was built in 1886 by businessman John Ginty at the very highest point on affluent Cortez Hill. In 1999 the house was saved from demolition and moved to its present location. Registered as an official Historical Landmark, it was recently named one of the top ten “Dream Homes” by San Diego Magazine.
Cool features include the “Fairhead Stone” horse carriage step jutting up beside the sidewalk, a four-way fireplace, and a two-car garage with a hydraulic lift!
UPDATE! I took this pic on Memorial Day 2014…
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When descending Cortez Hill, I often walk south down 8th Avenue past the big colorful banner on the Copley Symphony Hall building. I enjoy the huge, energetic image of Jahja Ling conducting the San Diego Symphony Orchestra.
The above photograph was taken from the City College gymnasium on Park Boulevard. It’s a perfect spot to snap pics of downtown skyscrapers looking west.
Here’s another photo of the fantastic mural shown in my previous post. It provides a wider view. This outstanding example of super cool street art can be found on the outside wall of Pokez, an artsy vegetarian Mexican restaurant in downtown San Diego.
The mural’s design is jam-packed with brilliant color, urban style and symbolism, and feels both organic and futuristic. It reminds me somewhat of the spray-painted “space art” you see occasionally being created by street performers in Seaport Village, the Gaslamp, or Balboa Park.
And here’s yet another pic:
This might be the most awesome street art in downtown San Diego…at least, that I’ve seen. This fantastic, super vibrant mural adorns the east wall of Pokez, a popular vegetarian Mexican restaurant on E Street at 10th Avenue. The riot of neon bright colors is so crisp and exciting one just stands transfixed on the sidewalk, immersed in the rampant creativity.
As I photographed the spray-painted mural, a young lady walked by and commented that she really liked it, too!
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Here’s the right side of a tile bench painted by San Diego school kids. Check out my previous post for the left side and a brief explanation.
I love to sit on these fun tile benches near the Maritime Museum of San Diego and gaze out at the water. I have a weakness for this sort of inexcusable, lazy inactivity. Oh, well. Loafing wide-eyed on a sunshiny day is my personal definition of exciting urban living!
Here are more photos of the colorful benches along this stretch of the Embarcadero…
Along the Embarcadero near the Maritime Museum of San Diego you’ll discover a great walkway at the edge of the bay.
One can look straight down at gentle water lapping wood pilings, see small fish darting below like silver points of light, watch least terns wheeling in the sky and diving, see black cormorants hunting underwater like feathered submarines…and gracefully soaring pelicans, and sailboats racing, and a blue sky, and huge ships coming in carrying cars from Asia, and airplanes landing at Lindbergh Field, and a glittering downtown skyline nearby, and the distant lighthouse on Point Loma…
You get the idea. It’s an extremely interesting stroll at any time of the year!
Along the walkway, twelve colorfully tiled benches await those who’d like to sit. The tiles were painted by many local K-6 student artists in 2004, Celebrating the Big Bay, in partnership with the Port of San Diego and the San Diego Children’s Museum.
The benches contain pictures of the ocean, fish, fantastic sea creatures, gulls, whales, ships, mermaids, palm trees, and happy, smiling stick figure people, as envisioned by artistic children with a paint brush.
The above photograph shows the left end of one bench.
Below, someone fishes nearby…
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