An extraordinary sculpture by renowned artist James Hubbell can be enjoyed near the center of downtown El Cajon. His interpretation of mythical flying horse Pegasus stands in the succulent and cactus garden at the Olaf Wieghorst Museum!
I took a tour of the museum today, viewing the fine art of internationally recognized painter of western scenes Olaf Wieghorst, who lived for a time in El Cajon.
As we strolled through the museum’s lush garden, I was surprised to see this wonderful sculpture by James Hubbell, another beloved artist. Hubbell’s studio is located in the nearby mountains.
If you love outstanding art (or the Old West or amazing gardens) you must pay a visit to the free Olaf Wieghorst Museum. I’ll be blogging much more about this surprising museum in the next few days!
The sculpture Pegasus near the rustic home of Old West artist Olaf Wieghorst. His house can toured at the Olaf Wieghorst Museum.Pegasus, by James Hubbell, was a gift of the East County Chapter of the Fine Arts Society of San Diego.An abstract bronze Pegasus flies gracefully in downtown El Cajon.
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Picadillo Folklorico and El Movimiento are two works of public art decorating the exterior of the San Ysidro Branch Library.
Visitors to the library might crane their necks to gaze up at these two large steel screens, but closely observing the intricate water-jet cut designs in each can be difficult. So I took a few photos that provide a better look at some of the detail.
The artists who created Picadillo Folklorico and El Movimiento are Einar and Jamex de la Torre, “brothers and artistic collaborators who were born in Guadalajara, Mexico, and maintain studios in Baja California and San Diego.”
According to the San Diego Civic Art Collection description, the two pieces were inspired by the Mexican folk art of paper-cutting and traditional Moorish screens.
By examining these close-up photographs, you can discover all sorts of interesting little figures incorporated into each design. Many of the figures appear like ancient pictographs, perhaps representing real or mythical creatures.
All of the elements combine to create the impression, in my own mind, of complex, outwardly expanding life.
What do you see?
(The same two artists created amazing public art inside the San Ysidro Library. I’ll post those photos coming up!)
El Movimiento
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There are plans to place a monument to William Heath Davis in downtown San Diego. I learned about the project today. Drawings and details from the proposal were on display at the Gaslamp Museum‘s booth at the Pacific Islander Festival!
The bust of William Heath Davis will be placed in Pantoja Park, downtown San Diego’s first city park, which he also created. The photo above shows how the sculpture will generally appear.
You can expand my images of the information signs to read details!
…Kanaka Davis grew fond of San Diego’s warm weather and envisioned a thriving seaport, commercial center, and residential community along the waterfront which he dubbed New Town San Diego. With other investors, Kanaka Davis bought 160 acres of waterfront land, laid out streets, created Pantoja Park…
Seventeen years later, Alonzo Horton added his subdivision to the east of New Town, which today is the Gaslamp Quarter. Both Kanaka Davis and Alonzo Horton were the pillars that created downtown San Diego…
Project is a pedestal monument with a plaque and head bust… Pantoja Park…was founded by William Heath Davis in 1850. The proposed monument describes the founding of Pantoja Park…
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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 (formerly known as Twitter)!
Herb “The Mechanic” stands in Escondido by an old-fashioned gas pump gazing out at passing traffic. Herb’s smile is permanent–because it’s made of bronze!
This nostalgic sculpture was a Public Art Project completed in 2007, commissioned by the City of Escondido. The artists are T.J. Dixon and James Nelson. Their extraordinary work seems to be everywhere I walk around San Diego! Find more photographs of sculptures created by T.J. Dixon and James Nelson by clicking here.
Visit the artist website here and see a whole lot more!
Would you like to make an “appointment” with The Mechanic? Drive past 1404 South Escondido Boulevard and keep your eyes open for a friendly smile!
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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 (formerly known as Twitter)!
For much of the 20th century, Naval Training Center San Diego was the place where Navy recruits learned what their new life at sea would be like.
Today, NTC Liberty Station occupies those old Navy buildings and barracks. The popular San Diego destination contains museums, artist studios, shops, offices, restaurants . . . and thought-provoking installations of public art.
A Dime to Call Home is sculptural art that I photographed during my last visit. The unusual art, made of cement, soft clothing and nautical rope, is located near some archways along Liberty Station’s North Promenade. It was created by artist Michele Montjoy of Oceanside, California, and installed in 2019.
A nearby sign explains:
Using sculptural forms reminiscent of sea bags and nautical rope, A Dime to Call Home is a conversation about the shifts of identity, location and routine that recruits encounter when they enter the military, as well as the connection they have to their family, home and previous life.
I took several photographs.
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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 (formerly known as Twitter)!
If you’ve never visited the Athenaeum Music & Arts Library in La Jolla, now would be a great time to go. They’re currently presenting the 31st Annual Juried Exhibition in their beautiful, light-filled Joseph Clayes III Gallery.
During my La Jolla walk yesterday, I stepped into the Athenaeum merely to savor the handsome architecture and furnishings of this special, unique library. As I turned from the entrance into the main gallery, I was pleased to discover this juried exhibition. The very different pieces–including sculptures, paintings, drawings and photographs–were created by twenty-five artists. (How prestigious is this annual exhibition? Three hundred artists submitted their work for consideration.)
Visit the Athenaeum to enjoy the great pieces in this gallery and elsewhere in the library. You’ll appreciate the passion of artists who love to create.
Check the Athenaeum Music & Arts Library website here to learn more!
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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 Twitter!
The Serpent Tree has vanished from Waterfront Park! The big, colorful sculpture by famous artist Niki de Saint Phalle has been put into storage, I’ve been told.
The north half of Waterfront Park is being redeveloped. A dog park, basketball and pickleball courts, and other recreational facilities will soon be built. Will the amazing Serpent Tree reappear in the park? I haven’t yet heard what its fate will be.
Today I noticed a banner on the construction fence describing the project. It shows how this part of Waterfront Park will eventually appear.
If you’d like to view photos of Serpent Tree shortly after it was installed in 2015, click here!
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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 Twitter!
Georgia O’Keeffe. Henry Moore. What do these two famous modernist artists, who lived on two separate continents, have in common? Love of nature. And a singular exhibition now open at the San Diego Museum of Art!
I enjoyed a very special tour of O’Keeffe and Moore a few days ago and I’m still deeply moved while thinking about it.
I, like many people, have always loved the paintings of Georgia O’Keeffe. However I knew precious little about Henry Moore, apart from a curvaceous sculpture he created, Reclining Figure: Arch Leg, that stands in the sculpture garden at the San Diego Museum of Art.
When compared side by side, the abstract work of both artists is strikingly similar. Organic, sensuous, familiar, elemental, inspired by forms found in nature. It’s no surprise that their art seems to be distilled from flowers, landscapes, bones and clouds. Because both artists loved nature and closely studied these things.
Both Georgia O’Keeffe and Henry Moore collected bones, driftwood and smooth river stones. Their studios resembled work areas at a natural history museum. In one gallery at the San Diego Museum of Art, recreations of the two artist studios are displayed for visitors to enjoy.
I was surprised to learn that O’Keeffe created sculptures, and that Henry Moore, the sculptor, also painted. The exhibition contains over a hundred pieces between the two artists.
Here is some of O’Keefe’s beautiful work:
The White Flower (White Trumpet Flower), Georgia O’Keeffe, 1932. Oil on canvas. “I have painted what each flower is to me and I have painted it big enough so that others would see what I see.”Red Hill and White Shell, Georgia O’Keeffe, 1938. Oil on canvas. A moon snail shell from the Atlantic shore in the New Mexico desert.Ram’s Head, Blue Morning Glory, Georgia O’Keeffe, 1938. Oil on canvas. Juxtaposition of skull with a flower.
Museum visitors admire Georgia O’Keeffe’s recreated studio which was located at Ghost Ranch in New Mexico:
Abstraction, Georgia O’Keefe, 1946. White lacquered bronze. Inspired by spiral of ram horns.
And here’s Moore at work, and a recreation of a studio in rural Hertfordshire:
Moore Working on the Elmwood Reclining Figure 1959-64. Photographer unknown.Recreation of Henry Moore’s Bourne Maquette Studio, which was named for a stream near the old farmhouse where he lived and worked.
A few of Moore’s sculptures, some of which are models for even larger pieces:
Working Model for Seated Woman, Henry Moore, 1980. Plaster with surface color. Enlarged from a small maquette created in 1956.Mother and Child, Henry Moore, 1978. Stalactite. Inspired by two seashells. (You don’t often see a sculpted piece of stalactite!)Working Model for Oval with Points, Henry Moore, 1968-69. Bronze. Inspired by the interior of an elephant skull.
This truly extraordinary exhibit is made possible by the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum and Henry Moore Foundation. It will be on view at the San Diego Museum of Art in Balboa Park until August 27, 2023.
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I post new blogs pretty often. If you like discovering new things, bookmark coolsandiegosights.com and swing on by occasionally!
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Check out the above very cool sculpture. It represents an epic battle from My Hero Academia, the “Historical Battle in Kamino.”
This sculpture is the centerpiece of a new exhibition that opened today, just in time for Comic-Con 2023!
I’m not all that familiar with this manga series, but the colorful displays definitely caught my attention this morning as I wandered about the lower level of the museum. Around the statue are action-packed graphics that depict various characters and scenes that fans love from My Hero Academia.
If you’re a fan of manga or anime, and you’re going to Comic-Con this year, jump on the shuttle from the San Diego Convention Center to Balboa Park. It stops a very short distance from the Comic-Con Museum!
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I’m covering Comic-Con again this year. To see all my current and past blog posts concerning Comic-Con, click here and scroll down!
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!
More history was made today! Two life-size grizzly bear sculptures were transported from the San Diego studio where they were made and lifted by crane to the roof of the San Diego Automotive Museum!
A golden grizzly bear now stands atop each front corner of the museum!
The San Diego Automotive Museum occupies the California State Building, which was built for the 1935-1936 California Pacific International Exposition in Balboa Park. These new bears help restore the historic building to its original appearance.
I wasn’t present for today’s “great bear lift” but I received these great photos to share! Not only were the two bears mounted on the reinforced rooftop, but two new flagpoles were installed above the building’s front entrance.
These landmark improvements to the Palisades area in Balboa Park are the work of the Committee of 100, who’ve been working to preserve Balboa Park’s historic architecture, gardens and public spaces since 1967.
Would you like to see these amazing bear sculptures up close? I was fortunate to get a very close look earlier this year! I posted those photographs and more fascinating details here!
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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 Twitter!
Cool San Diego Sights! 