Leaving marks in
west-side San Diego
a photo essay
If I took you on an art tour of San Diego, would you expect me to show you this?
A Pompompurin. A Sanrio character – you know, the group that makes Hello Kitty.
Marked on a priority mail label and slapped to the back of a street sign. Down here next to San Ysidro. Down here next to lower income neighborhoods, yet with homes averaging over half a million and apartment rent going over $1,000 because we're in San Diego.
But look at that cute lil’ heart by Pompompurin. Doesn’t it make you wanna smile?
On the back of this metal sign, art leaves a mark.
Chula Vista Public Library Civic Center Branch
Chula Vista Public Library Civic Center Branch
Right here at the Chula Vista public library, there’s a set of colorful, circular structures. It’s been there for decades. Modern-esque with a retro spin? A bubbly invite to a place of mental expansion, knowledge collection. It’s red like the Pompompurin, but now we have yellows, oranges, and a hint of green.
In the company of the written word, visual art leaves a mark.
Chula Vista Smiles, Downtown Chula Vista
Chula Vista Smiles, Downtown Chula Vista
There are more colorful, circular tear-drop-like forms here in Downtown Chula Vista, each form shaped by a local painter and depicted as bubbles leaving a child’s bubble blower. Unlike the bold, passionate red of Pompompurin and the more orange and yellow transitions of the library sculpture, these hues take on a cohesion of what appears to be, for the most part, more purple hues and lower saturation. I can picture a childlike whimsy emerging from kiddos stepping in to — yes — get their teeth cleaned.
In front of a downtown pediatric dentistry, art leaves a mark.
Downtown, I-5 South exit
Downtown, I-5 South exit
When you pass by the border into San Ysidro and Chula Vista and National City, you come to Downtown San Diego, which almost acts as a dividing line between North County and South Bay. There, you may spot a peculiar pixel art piece over your shoulder as you move from Hawthorn Street onto Grape. “Ciao,” friends, we have some Leonardo Da Vinci fanart in this space under the bridge with a mixture of the warm hues we have been seeing. It’s a step back from the purple tints: now we’re back to reds but all bold, all proud, all color, color, color…
Off the I-5 freeway, art leaves a mark.
La Jolla
La Jolla
In La Jolla, home of cliff-side ocean views, narrow, windy roads, and million-dollar homes, we have a square-like mural plastered to a brick building, above a parking lot. See the colors? The oranges, purples, greens? They match the mural on the children’s dentistry. Look at what similar hues, similar values, can do. Colors are tools. But minds make art.
Hanging mere inches above a parking lot, art leaves a mark.
Corner Bakery, Westfield UTC
Corner Bakery, Westfield UTC
Unlike the public library statue, this sculpture can fit in a person’s hands. Maybe. But mine are definitely too small.
The beauty of sculpture is that, like acrylic or oil paint, minds make the art. So at the public library we have, out of earth’s building blocks, a set of see-through lollipop-like things. Here, we have a stereotyped baker with a subtle cartoon twist, too formed from earth’s building blocks. It has similar colors as well: warm tones.
At a corner bakery, art leaves a mark.
If I took you on an art tour of San Diego, would you expect to see this?
Another Pompompurin. We saw one in South Bay on the back of a street sign. Here’s one in North County by the university, in the UTC mall. Another little dog friend, but now yellow: his original form. On a much smaller priority mail sticker, eyes opened this time. It’s almost like he finally understands that he can be his authentic, yellow self and open his beady eyes to the world around him. It’s like he’s had an epiphany.
Or maybe the artist just wanted to draw him like that.
When creatives pin their paintbrushes to a wall in our San Diego, our eyes pay attention.
No matter the medium, no matter the income-level, art can excite and disappoint a diversity of peoples, uniting them to enjoy (or despise) art in the public space, art that we see as we wait at the bus stop or drive by in our Toyota Corollas or speed by on our Huffy bikes.
And even if our eyes get bored of seeing these pieces over and over and over and over again as we sit in traffic on a one-hour commute, we still notice them.
Even if we have to drive 378 of those one hour commutes to finally shift our necks in the right direction to see them and remember. Even if, art will make us think, engage, withdraw ...
... it will make us do something.
Because art does leave a mark.
Not only in Balboa Park museums but also on our streets.
Not only in the wealthier spaces but also among the less fortunate.
Not only as spray painted mysterious letterings but full murals and characters and settings that depict the created realm or our given imaginations.
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