An exhibition at the San Diego History Center in Balboa Park assembles the genealogical research of students at High Tech High.
The High Tech High “Rubber Duckies” have discovered the fascinating stories of their ancestors, and have shared them online. The stories contain joys, struggles, successes and failures–they are memories of complex lives filled with humanity whose echoes still touch the living.
At the museum, visitors can scan QR codes to read the stories. Or you can read them now by clicking Pre 1900, 1901-1950, or 1951-Present. Then click Family History at the top of each story summary to read the student report.
Many of the students have immigrant ancestors with stories that will break or lift your heart. Some distant ancestors are quite surprising, such as William the Conqueror.
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Have you seen the amazing 300-foot mosaic wall along A Avenue at National City’s Kimball Park? If you haven’t, you really need to!
This extraordinary public art was created in 2015 by local students, community volunteers and the nationally recognized local organization A Reason To Survive (also known as ARTS). It is part of ARTS’ Creating Vibrant Neighborhoods Initiative. Numerous public art projects have beautified National City and uplifted young lives.
The long A Avenue mosaic wall depicts water flowing through National City’s watershed to the ocean. Tiles, clay shapes and small objects represent blue water, fishes, birds, animals and meaningful bits of life from the community. The wall stretches along a row of parking spaces just east of City Hall.
A Reason To Survive has been working for years to beautify our small corner of the world, and perhaps more importantly, to provide hope and inspiration to at-risk South Bay youth. Their innovative art programs have transformed literally thousands of young lives. The ARTS Center is located on 12th Street a short distance east of this wall.
I believe another mosaic wall that I blogged about this year was also a Creating Vibrant Neighborhoods Initiative project. That wall is near the National City’s War Memorial and Veteran’s Wall of Honor, also located at Kimball Park. You can see those photographs here.
I’ve taken additional photos of other nearby ARTS mosaics, which I’ll be blogging about shortly!
(One more thing. I hadn’t realized it at the time, but A Reason To Survive also helped to create the Manzanita Gathering Place in City Heights. See those photos here.)
Okay! Now enjoy a look at this truly amazing A Avenue wall…
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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!
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During my walk through Chula Vista last weekend I noticed a bunch of colorful murals at the MAAC Community Charter School. The school was closed, so I walked through the parking lot around the perimeter of the building to check out the artwork.
I recognized the piñata character Chucho, found in the spray paint art of Michelle Ruby (aka MrBBaby), which you can see in my first two photographs. The other murals I know nothing about. They are obviously designed to inspire students and celebrate heritage. As always, please leave a comment if you have more information!
According to the MAAC Community Charter School website: As an MCCS graduate I will maximize my P.O.W.E.R.: Potential, Ownership, Wisdom, Expectations and Respect.
From one mural it also appears that leadership is an important value.
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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!
Possibly my favorite part of today’s Grand Avenue Festival in Escondido was the robotics demonstration.
Students from several local high schools were showing their sophisticated robots, which can operate both autonomously and by manual control. These amazing robots are built every year to compete in the international FIRST Robotics Competition!
I saw one particular robot shooting balls into the air. One crazy looking robot with pipes sticking out of it was built to launch t-shirts!
All of the students I met were friendly and clearly smarter than me. Several provided technical explanations, which promptly went over my head.
I saw teams from Rancho Bernardo High School (Team E-Motion), Poway High School (Team Spyder), San Pasqual High School (Team SuperNURDS), and Escondido Charter High School (Team Daedalus).
Over the years, these local teams have had great success competing in the prestigious FIRST Robotics Competition. The acronym FIRST means For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology.
The games that challenge the competing robots are changed each year, so students must utilize creativity, logic, engineering skills and sheer ingenuity. Robotics is one fun way to implement STEM education in schools!
Check it out!
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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!
This year, the festival is primarily taking place in Memorial Park, where families can enjoy Arts in the Park. A full day of entertainment is scheduled for the big stage, and artist booths abound. The event is produced by the people of OnStage Playhouse, which is a community theatre located in Chula Vista.
I enjoyed the first hour or so of the festival, which included an inspiring dance performance as you’ll see in the upcoming photos!
Lots of family fun can be enjoyed at Arts in the Park during the 2021 Chula Vista Lemon Festival.Artes en el Parque includes music, dance, and an evening performance by the Fern Street Circus!A familiar piratical smile. I believe I’ve spotted it during past Comic-Cons!A smiling mermaid!Volunteers from Arts in the Park pose for a photo!Students from Chula Vista Learning Community Charter Middle School were making art! And the community joined them!Painting our beautiful Earth.A String of Stories at one of the school’s tables is about Sharing in Community.Unidos por la paz. United for peace.I took some photos as I waited in Memorial Park’s amphitheater for the entertainment on stage to begin.The helpful Honda people came by and offered me a water bottle! Thank you!
Do you know anyone who could use a helping hand? Check out the San Diego Honda Dealers “Random Acts of Helpfulness” web page here. Maybe they’ll provide some assistance! I hope so!
Okay! The program begins with a couple of short speeches…
Ashley Gardner from OnStage Playhouse is introduced. She was instrumental in organizing this great event. Hopefully it becomes a long-lived community summer tradition!
Then the entertainment begins!
An amazing, super positive and energetic hip hop dance group from Steele Canyon High School takes the stage! They’re the Club Groove Dance Team!
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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!
Anyone in San Diego who is interested in history, fashion, or the evolution of fashion should visit the San Diego History Center in Balboa Park.
A new exhibit opened on Sunday titled Fashion Redux 2021. Collaborating with the History Center, inspired by four plain-looking late 19th to mid 20th century woman’s uniforms, students from Mesa College’s Fashion Program have designed similar but more contemporary clothing!
The four articles of clothing in the museum’s collection that were considered by the students are: a WWII Uniform, Navy Nurse Corps, c. 1940s; a ZLAC Rowing Uniform, c. 1895; a Girl Scout Uniform, c. 1919; and a Knights of Columbus Uniform, c. late 19th or early 20th century.
Just seeing those old uniforms in the San Diego History Center is interesting in itself, but to see how fashion design students have chosen to alter century-old styles provides a glimpse into the creative human mind, and perhaps a sense of our culture’s present day aesthetic tastes.
The exhibit allows visitors to compare the different clothing in detail, and learn about the talented students who are participating in this Fashion Redux.
Here is some of what you’ll see…
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Do you know any kids who’d like to join the circus?
Listen up!
Kids between 6 and 17 years old who live in City Heights are invited to join the circus!
The Fern Street Circus is offering a free after-school circus program at their new Outdoor Community Center at 4108 University Avenue!
Those who participate can learn tightwire, juggling, acrobatics and clowning. They’ll gain confidence, make new friends, learn to work as a team and have a ton of fun!
Why spend the summer doing the same old ordinary thing when you can actually join the circus!
How do you learn more about this very cool program? You visit the Fern Street Circus website by clicking here!
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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!
Want to see something extraordinary and inspirational?
I had arrived yesterday at the 19th century schoolhouse now utilized by the Encinitas Historical Society, when I noticed a colorful tile mosaic mural wrapped around their dumpster enclosure wall.
When I asked about it, I learned the mosaics had been created by students from nearby Pacific View Elementary in 2003–the year that modern public school shut down. The final class of students produced this amazing artwork!
By looking carefully one can see the initials of students and simple images that record the experiences and desires of youth. You can see a love for art, friends, kindness, the ocean, sunshine, Encinitas and their Pacific View Elementary.
What a fine, enduring way to record important things in life.
Like the historic old schoolhouse that stands near this wall, the work of optimistic people in the past will continue to brighten our future.
If you’re curious about the old schoolhouse, which is headquarters of the Encinitas Historical Society, I’ll be posting lots of photos in the next day or two.
The historic 1883 schoolhouse, now home of the Encinitas Historical Society, can be seen just beyond that dumpster lid. The now closed Pacific View Elementary School can be glimpsed in the distance beyond the umbrellas.
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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 photos for you to enjoy!
This weekend I stepped into the San Diego Art Institute in Balboa Park to view their current exhibition, which is titled Measurements of Progress.
Graduating students (and a couple of professors) from UC San Diego’s 2021 Masters of Fine Arts program have contributed artwork that primarily concerns the ongoing human struggle to achieve certain ideals, particularly peace, liberty, and justice.
Given how the subject matter is largely political, it’s not surprising that some of the student art is ideological and simple. I was drawn to other more subtle, mysterious works that encourage the viewer to look open-eyed at a complex world and inward with questioning wonder.
A couple of pieces I really loved are sculptures made of fabric. Touched by soft light, they seem to hang in space like organic abstractions, sinuous, fragile, evocative, full of memory. One contains poetry.
Another strange, thought-provoking work is a series of prostheses that explores the “limited and flawed nature of human perceptions and the manner in which bodies experience the world…”
Another piece explores the cosmos in the artist’s own body. I’m not exactly sure what the 3-channel video depicts–possibly dyed slides under a microscope–but watching the movement of living cells in our immensely complex selves can make one less political, more philosophical.
Measurements of Progress is well worth checking out if you love endlessly fascinating productions of human creativity–particularly contemporary art.
The exhibition is free and will continue at the San Diego Art Institute through May 30, 2021.
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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!
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