Tag Archives: Balboa Park

Family Holiday

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Timken Museum of Art
Balboa Park
December 28, 2018

We closed out 2018 with a trip to our favorite local museum, the Timken. It was a banner week for us because all three daughters, our son in law, and our new grandchild all visited together, overlapping by several days.

We first bought lunches from food trucks and ate out on the Plaza de Panama.

We then strolled through the Timken Museum lobby, looking at the hand made holiday decorations which were hanging both overhead and on the large tree at the back of the lobby.  They are an annually recurring exhibit, Jewels of the Season.

We next viewed the special exhibition of Rococo art.  (It closed a few days after our visit.)

We then dispersed to enjoy the permanent collection, particularly the Russian icons and San Diego’s only Rembrandt, “Saint Bartholomew.”  He is back in town after being loaned out to museums elsewhere.

The Timken offers free admission, so it is a great option for the thrifty or an easy add-on to other activities in Balboa Park.  Donations are welcomed and encouraged, however.

The next special exhibit at the Timken will be Metonymies: A Dialogue with 20th Century Works from the Sonnabend Collection, which runs from February 8 through April 28. We plan to visit again soon.

Speed!

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San Diego Air and Space Museum
Balboa Park
November 12, 2018

We took advantage of the Veterans Day Monday holiday, which Bob had off work, to visit the special exhibition at the Air and Space Museum, Speed: Science in Motion. We had been alerted by a Union Tribune article to the fact that the original Bullitt Mustang would be on display there, just from November 4-19. Meredith is an avid Mustang fan, so this was a “must see” for us.

Two different Mustangs were used in filming the 1968 Steve McQueen movie. The one used in the stunt jumps was damaged in filming and sent to a salvage yard. The “hero” Mustang used in other scenes was purchased by a private party and only recently rediscovered. We found a bonus when we arrived at the museum. Next to the Bullitt Mustang was displayed a beautifully restored Dodge Charger of the same vintage as the one seen in the movie’s chase scene. We had not actually seen Bullitt until that weekend; we made a point of streaming the movie a few days before our visit, so we would appreciate what we saw.

Although Steve McQueen’s Mustang has moved on and is no longer on display at the museum, the Speed exhibit remains. It is displays what the museum describes as “an exciting lineup of the fastest planes, jets, rockets, cars, motorcycles, boats, bicycles in the world.” We saw the land speed record setting bicycle ridden by Denise Mueller-Korenek behind a pace car to a world record of 183.9 miles per hour, and a Formula One race car, among other high speed vehicles. There are hands-on displays, such as a model differential, a video timing reflexes, and model cars that can be sent down tracks. The school kids who were enjoying the day off were entranced by the hands-on activities and could not have cared less about the Bullitt car.

After leaving the Speed exhibit, we walked through the rest of the museum. The PSA area brought back memories for Meredith, who used to fly PSA between the Bay Area and Los Angeles in the 1970’s.

We were wearing our memorial Veterans Day poppies, as we had been for several days. When we were in Canada for Remembrance Day four years ago we were struck by how poppies were everywhere, on every lapel. Since then we have tried to do our bit to revive the poppy wearing custom in our country, distributing Buddy Poppies obtained from the VFW to our friends and acquaintances.

We lingered in the World War I area, reading about the primitive planes used in that war and the men that flew them, then moved on to the World War II displays.

Our Balboa Park Explorer passes were sufficient for museum admission, but we had to pay an extra $5 for admission to the Speed exhibit.

Pacific Standard Memories

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San Diego Museum of Art and Mingei International Museum
Balboa Park
January-February 2018
LACMA
Hancock Park
March 18, 2018

Over the winter we attended several exhibitions, now gone by, in the Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA series. Life got away from us, so we did not write them up here at the time. We did enjoy getting in touch with Latin American art spanning many centuries and revisiting some museums we had not been to in a while.

The first Pacific Standard Time series celebrated mid-twentieth century Southern California arts; it ran from October 2011 to April 2012. We took Meredith’s mother Margaret to six or more exhibitions in that first series. It was fun discovering small venues and offbeat subjects. Margaret was very taken by a vintage Studebaker Avanti on display at LACMA (the Los Angeles County Museum of Art) and joked about driving off in it while the guard was looking the other way. The thought of Margaret leaping out of her wheelchair and hotwiring a collector car still brings a smile. That first series of Pacific Standard Time visits took place before we started our blog.

The newer LA/LA series explored artistic connections between Latin America and Southern California (mainly Los Angeles) and ran from September 2017 to early 2018. Both PST series were organized by the Getty Museum, which brought together dozens of So Cal museums, each with their own special focus exhibit.

Earlier this year, we saw: (1) Modern Masters from Latin America: The Pérez Simón Collection at the San Diego Museum of Art; (2) Art of the Americas: Mesoamerican, Pre-Columbian Art from Mingei’s Permanent Collection at the Mingei Museum; and (3) Painted in Mexico, 1700–1790: Pinxit Mexici at LACMA.

In January, we saw the Pérez Simón Collection show at the San Diego Museum of Art in Balboa Park. It brought together art (mostly paintings) from eight different Latin American countries, spanning a little over a century, from the late 1800’s to now. We particularly liked the landscape scenes and portrayals of people in their daily lives. The abstract pieces interested us less. After we finished seeing the Perez Simon collection, we stopped in to see a visiting Monet painting, which was on loan from the Denver art museum and has since been returned.

The next month we headed to the Mingei Museum, also in Balboa Park. We had not been there in years, and it was fun to get reacquainted. The term “mingei” means “everyone’s art,” and this museum features objects from around the world made for everyday use. Although some are very beautiful, none were made purely to be decorative. Their Pacific Standard Time exhibition displayed an extensive collection of objects, particularly ceramics, from a variety of pre-Columbian cultures in Mexico, Central America, and South America. We particularly liked seeing the Mayan textile fragments – so fragile they were shown under dim lighting.

While in the Mingei we also strolled through a display of Native American weaving from the American Southwest. There were some strikingly handsome pieces on display, and the curator’s explanatory signs were very thorough. Two thumbs up on the Mingei visit; we will definitely come back.

Early this year we purchased a Balboa Park Explorer one year family pass, and we used the pass for both the SDMA and Mingei visit.

In March, we met up with Meredith’s sister Kathleen to see Painted in Mexico, 1700-1790: Pinxit Mexici at LACMA. This was an exhibition of Mexican painting during the 18th century. Over 120 works were on display, many of which had never been shown publicly before, and some were specially restored for this exhibition. Religious paintings predominated, but there were secular themed paintings as well. The works displayed were high quality, sophisticated pieces; this New World art can definitely take its place alongside the best of the Old World. We saw the exhibition on its final weekend in Los Angeles; it went on the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, where it will be on display through July 22.

We looked through several other LACMA areas. Outside we were amused by a sculpture that looks like a balloon animal. A little hard to take seriously, but hey, we took a picture, didn’t we?

Earth Day in the Park

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Museum of Man
Timken Museum
Balboa Park, San Diego
April 22, 2018

We used our Explorer passes and visited Balboa Park. As part of the Explorer program we receive a monthly email bulletin telling us what is new in the park. We had picked out three things to see, but in the end saw just two of them.

We parked in Hillcrest and walked across the Laurel Street bridge, stopping in at the Museum of Man. We went there to see its new Post Secret exhibit. Post Secret is an ongoing project, created by artist Frank Warren. On his website new cards are posted weekly.

The museum website describes the exhibit, which displays a selection of cards submitted over the years:

Would you share your secrets with a stranger? Secrets are the currency of intimacy. They reflect our darkest thoughts, brightest hopes, and every emotion in between. They’re deeply personal, but extremely relatable. They allow us to feel alone, together. For over a decade, millions of people from all over the world have been anonymously sharing their secrets with Frank Warren, founder of the community art project, PostSecret. Each postcard submission is a unique work of art handmade by people who needed to share and release their secret into the world.

These submissions range from the trivial to the profound, sometimes funny and other times very sad. Some writers struggle with suicidal thoughts, and Warren worked for a time as a volunteer on a crisis hotline. The exhibit and his website both give links to suicide prevention resources.

It was Earth Day, so the park was hosting the annual fair. We saw many booths set up along the way we walked, from the Museum of Man to the Plaza de Panama. (And we understand there were other booths, scattered throughout the park.) There were many food tents set up on the plaza.

We tried to get in to the Museum of Art to see a new exhibition, but that museum was closed. We thought that was a little curious, thinking that Earth Day would been a good outreach opportunity for the museum. Stymied in that attempt and needing to kill some time before the Timken Museum opened at noon, we bought some pierogis and beignets from the food tents and sat by the koi pond to eat an early lunch.

The Timken Museum – possibly our favorite museum in the entire Southland – was hosting an exhibit entitled The Romantic Impulse in the American Landscape Tradition in its special exhibit space. (This exhibition runs through June 3, 2018.) There were about a dozen works, mostly oil paintings. They included Thomas Moran’s Opus 24, Rome from the Campagna and Albert Bierstadt’s Weser River, Minden Germany. We particularly like Bierstadt’s use of light in his painting. Nearby we saw William Keith’s painting In the Santa Cruz Mountains, a beautiful depiction of a waterfall. Most of the works displayed were from the 19th century, but there were several more recent works. We enjoyed the background music, a half hour loop “soundscape” of Romantic music, including Respighi’s Pines of Rome. Admission to the Timken is always free, and they have a very good permanent collection. Do be sure to drop a contribution into the box at the entrance, though.

After we were done we dropped by our favorite Hillcrest watering hole, the Brew Project, and enjoyed some tasty beers.

Africa Rocks!

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San Diego Zoo
Balboa Park, San Diego
January 7, 2018

We have explored various places and things in the New Year, but have fallen behind in blogging about them. We started off 2018 with a visit to the San Diego Zoo, to see its new exhibit, Africa Rocks. We arrived first thing in the morning, and so saw the animals when they tend to be most active.

“Africa Rocks” can be entered either from the top, in which case the entrance is a bit to the right as visitors enter the zoo, or from the bottom. We went down into the canyon first and then walked up through the exhibit.

We first saw Cape Fynbos penguins and leopard sharks, swimming together in an enclosure. These South African (not Antarctic) penguins were fun to watch, and it was a while before we walked on to the next set of animals.

We next saw several kinds of brightly marked turtles from west Africa and Madagascar, along with a west African dwarf crocodile. Moving on to the land animal enclosures, we watched fossas leaping from branch to branch; across from them were lemurs.

There was an energetic ratel (or “honey badger”) playing with a gourd. We read that it breaks open bee hives to eat larvae. This is definitely an animal that knows what it wants and goes after its target single mindedly!

Within the Africa Rocks exhibit is a two-level aviary containing at least 15 different bird species. We liked the black headed weavers, which were small and had beautiful yellow bodies; the white bellied “go away” bird (got to love the name — larger, crested, and noisy); the yellow crowned bishop; and the multicolored Fischer’s lovebird.

We watched the leopards for a while, and were interested by the interaction between the pair – an adult female and an adolescent male. We went on to see baboons and eagles. At the top of the Africa Rocks exhibit the pre-existing kopje area, which includes dwarf mongooses and rock hyrax, has been incorporated.

After leaving Africa Rocks we strolled through the koala area, watched some flamingos squabbling, then left the zoo. One of the nice things about being zoo members – which we have been ever since moving to San Diego – is that we feel free to see part of the zoo and then leave, and do not feel that we have to see the entire park in one visit.

Japanese Friendship Garden

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Japanese Friendship Garden
October 29, 2017
December 29, 2017
Balboa Park, San Diego

The Japanese Friendship Garden is an oasis of beauty. We have often walked by its entrance, near the organ pavilion in the heart of Balboa Park, but had not been inside it for many years. We very much enjoyed our recent visits, the first on a quiet Sunday afternoon in October, the other just this past week.

The garden is located on a 12 acre plot within the park. It is a “friendship” garden because it symbolizes the bond between San Diego and its sister city Yokohama. The garden displays and celebrates Japanese culture, and uses Japanese gardening techniques with plantings suited to the San Diego climate.

In the upper garden we enjoyed the watercolor paintings displayed in the exhibit house, and we sat a while contemplating the dry stone garden. There is a koi pond in the upper garden, and we encountered more koi in the lower garden. They are large and splendidly colored animals!

The path meanders down into the canyon, from the upper to lower garden areas. Along the hillside we saw azaleas in bloom. There is a long water feature in the lower garden, which starts as a dry waterfall, then segues into flowing water, down to a pond around the Inamori Pavilion on the lower level. The garden is managed so that there are always some plants in bloom. We are looking forward to the cherry blossoms in the spring!

Some of the regular paths are a little steep, but there are alternate paths for wheelchair visitors.

Regular admission is $10; there are discounts for students, seniors, and military. Children under 6 are free. San Diego residents can get in free on the third Tuesday of each month.

There is an open air cafe outside the garden serving rice bowls, sushi, edamame, sandwiches, salads, and a variety of teas as well as other beverages. We ate there on our second visit and enjoyed our food. Since it is outside the garden, park visitors can eat there whether or not they are visiting the garden. Two of Bob’s former students saw him there, and they chatted while we waited in line to order.

Our second visit fell on the same day as the Cotton Bowl, and our middle daughter was in town, so we all put on our Buckeye regalia. In addition to the Japanese Friendship Garden, we visited the Timken and looked at the nativity scenes set up near the Organ Pavilion. (After the park visit, we headed to Mission Beach to hang out with other Buckeye fans and watch the game.)

Monet in Balboa Park

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Timken Museum
Botanical Building
Balboa Park, San Diego
October 8, 2017

We visited the Timken Museum of Art to see a special exhibition, Monet’s Étretat: Destination & Motif. The central items in the exhibit are two Monet paintings on loan from the Metropolitan Museum in New York: Étretat: The Manneporte (Étretat) and The Manneporte near Étretat, painted in 1883 and 1886, respectively. Both feature scenes at Étretat, on the coast of Normandy. There are two other paintings of Étretat on display in that gallery: The Cliffs at Étretat (1890) by William Henry Lipppincott and Sunset, Étretat (1892) by George Inness. The exhibition also includes photos and background materials about Étretat. The exhibition will run through December 31, 2017.

Étretat has a special place in our hearts. In 2000 we took three weeks off work and traveled in Europe with our three daughters, then ages 10-15. We had planned and saved for the trip for many years. As we planned it, we looked through the Michelin guidebook for France. Meredith was taken by a photo of the dramatic limestone cliffs at Étretat, so we added it to our itinerary. The scenery was beautiful and well worth the detour. Seeing the current Timken exhibit, which includes guidebooks from the 19th century and vintage stereoptican photos, we now know we were just part of a long line of tourists stopping there.

We love Monet — who doesn’t? — so when we heard about this exhibit, we figured it was a must-see for us. The Timken is a small museum, and the exhibition takes up just one small gallery, their special exhibition space. But this is the sort of thing the Timken does well — specific focus, quality not quantity.

As we have said before, the Timken is possibly our favorite museum. It is free, for starters. (Do drop a donation in the collection box, though!) The collection is good, and it is a pocket size art museum which is easy to see in a short time. Handicap access is good. Parking is free in the park, but allow for a bit of a walk, or take the parking tram, especially on a weekend.

On our way to the Timken, we stopped to listen to a bagpipe band near the House of Scotland. We took a walk around the center of Balboa Park afterwards, stopping in the Botanical Building by the lily pond (also free).

The San Diego Museum of Art also has a special Monet exhibition Reflections on Monet on display currently, which runs through January 21, 2018. We have not seen it yet, but hope to do so. It features a special viewing of Monet’s 1904 painting Le Bassin de Nympheas.

Marston House

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Marston House
San Diego
February 4, 2017

We visited the Marston House in February, using our Macy’s Museum Month discount pass. Entrance to the house itself is only with a guided tour, and tours run each half hour. We had just missed one tour by about 5 minutes so spent some time walking around the exterior, examining the house from the outside and enjoying the gardens. It was pleasant strolling, though not the season for roses. We also admired the walled laundry area, for hanging out the wash, and peeked into the cellar. Later, the docent told us it is a half cellar rather than a full one, because the house is built into a slope. The cellar housed the utilities and was used by the help.

When our turn to take the next tour came, we were the only ones on it. The docent was very well informed and very enthusiastic. He told us all about the Marston family members who had lived in the house, the architect, the furnishings, the original construction and various modifications of the house, and the recent history of preservation efforts. He also gave us a context for the architectural details, comparing the Marston House to the Gamble House in Pasadena. (We saw the outside of the Gamble House once, back in 2014, and would like to go back sometime and tour the interior; the Marston House experience has piqued our interest.)

The downstairs has beautiful woodwork. The redwood from the forests of northern California give the rooms a warm feel. The docent pointed out a nice detail—butterfly key joints between some of the boards lining the walls. The music room has hidden racks in the walls. Mr. Marston’s study has lovely built-in bookshelves, and he forbade the installation of a call button there to help maintain the contemplative atmosphere; most other rooms in the house are connected to the indicator in the butler’s pantry. Bob thought that the use of pocket doors gave the downstairs a very clean look and nice sense of flow from room to room.

The house is tastefully furnished with period pieces, though little that was owned by the Marstons remains. The Marston family used the house until the 1980s, when it was given to the City of San Diego. At that time, the furnishings were reclaimed by family members. Since then, the museum has worked to find replacements that fit the setting, even getting a period bathtub.

The tour provides access to the first and second floors of the house. The first floor was designed for entertaining and the dining room opens onto a sizeable patio. One famous visitor was Theodore Roosevelt, who came to dinner when the former president attended the Panama-California Exposition in 1915. The attic area was also finished and used as sleeping quarters by the family, but it is not currently open to visitors. A neat detail throughout the house is the raised thresholds and floor levels in the baths and closets. The docent kept reminding us to watch our step. He speculated that the architectural quirk was meant to make it easier to sweep the primary floor levels cleanly and to easily sweep out those smaller spaces, into the adjacent hallways or larger rooms, although no one knows for sure.

The house was completed in 1905. George W. Marston was a self-made man who came to San Diego and made his money in the retail industry, owning a successful local department store. The house was begun with a Tudor style in mind, but once Marston hired Irving Gill to finish the project, Gill altered it as much as possible to fit his vision of the Arts and Crafts Movement. The exterior retains some Tudor characteristics while hinting at the Prairie School. Inside, there are many typical Gill elements including coved floor to wall transitions in the public rooms, casement windows with transoms, and enclosed bathtubs.

Tickets for the tours are sold in the gift shop located in the adjacent carriage house/garage. The house is open Fridays through Mondays, except Christmas Day, from 10 to 5. Tours leave every half hour, last tour at 4 p.m. Regular admission costs $15 for adults, with discounts for seniors, active duty military, students, and children under 12. (The Macy’s discount gave us 50% off.) Being a mansion of a certain age, the museum is not readily accessible to those in wheelchairs.

While there are no dining facilities adjacent to the house, the area has many cafes, restaurants, and pubs. After our visit and a walk in the park, we enjoyed excellent craft beer at The Brew Project on Fifth Avenue, itself located in a 1902 Craftsman House. We enjoyed the brew pub and plan to go back and try it for lunch or dinner.

Timken New Year’s Eve

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Timken Museum of Art
Balboa Park
December 31, 2016

We love the Timken Museum of Art; as we have said before, it is perhaps our favorite museum. It is a small museum located in the heart of Balboa Park, next to the (larger and unaffiliated) San Diego Museum of Art and the arboretum. Admission is free, although donations are encouraged.

We went there on New Year’s Eve to catch the last day of the exhibition Jewels of the Season, displaying many wonderful hand made ornaments created by local artists Florence Hord and Elizabeth Schlappi. Bob had gone to see it a week earlier with our middle daughter and son-in-law; this was Meredith’s first visit. Annually since 1988, the Timken has set up a Christmas Tree and displayed on it a selection of ornaments from the collection, which totals over 2000 pieces. Starting last year, the exhibition was expanded and is now an extended installation with more ornaments hung overhead and displayed in cases, in addition to those shown on the tree.

We browsed through the permanent collection as well. The museum is small, but for its size offers an excellent assortment of European and American paintings. It boasts the only Rembrandt painting in San Diego, Saint Bartholomew.

December 31 marked the last day of the Jewels exhibition; be sure to see it next holiday season! The Timken has another special exhibition coming up: Witness to War: Callot, Goya, Bellows, which will run from January 27 – May 28, 2017. We are also looking forward to the fall, when the Timken, in collaboration with the Metropolitan Museum of Art, will bring a small group of Monet paintings to San Diego. Details of that exhibition have not yet been released.

On our walk through the park, we stopped to enjoy the Nativity and related scenes displayed near the organ pavilion. According to the Union Tribune, the original sculptures were done over 70 years ago by noted Los Angeles artist Rudolph Vargas. They have been displayed at the park each Christmas season since 1953. In recent years they had become worn and tattered. Over the past year, local artist Barbara Jacobson donated her time, and together with numerous lay volunteers refurbished the entire set. The figures and backdrops look spiffy now, thanks to their efforts.

Turkey Trot

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Father Joe’s Villages Thanksgiving Day 5K
November 24, 2016
Balboa Park
San Diego

We woke up before dawn and went to Balboa Park to run a 5K this Thanksgiving. This “turkey trot” is a benefit for Father Joe’s Villages, serving the homeless. We attended the open air Mass at 6:30 a.m. on the Plaza de Panama, in front of the art museum. We then walked west over the Laurel Street bridge to the start line.

4-together-at-start

We had meant to sign up for the fun run option, but somehow ended up in the timed runner category. (Meredith had registered for the event on her cell phone, and figures the mistake is due to old eyes trying to read fine print on a small screen.) Bemused, we went to the separate Speedy Turkey start line and chugged along at our own pace, including a few walking breaks.

8b-post-race

It was a big scene, and we had fun taking in the crowd. We are not sure of the exact head count, but we saw numbered bibs in the 8000’s. After we finished we stopped to pick up the pumpkin pie we had pre-ordered with our race registration.