Tag Archives: early California

Asian Comics at the Bowers

By | |
Comments Off on Asian Comics at the Bowers

Bowers Museum
Santa Ana
August 31, 2024

at the main entrance

While at Comic-Con earlier this year, Meredith stopped by the booth staffed by the Bowers Museum and found out the museum has been featuring an exhibition on Asian comics, Asian Comics: Evolution of an Art Form. The exhibition closes soon (on September 8) so we made sure to drive up to Orange County while we could still see it.

The Bowers features art and artifacts from many cultures and puts together interesting special exhibitions. We went there once before in 2017 and saw fascinating exhibitions about Shackleton’s Antarctic expedition and the Chinese Empress Dowager Cixi. There are nice courtyards both at the main entrance and the side entrance facing the parking lot. The museum is well staffed with helpful docents, and docent led tours are available although we did not join any.

in the sculpture garden


We arrived in the morning, not long after the museum opened, and found ample parking in the main lot. The staff at the entrance alerted us that two galleries (Pacific Islands and China) would be closing early, so we made those our first stop. Meredith wore her “Museum Nerd” T-shirt and received many admiring comments about it.

heading into the Pacific Islands area

The Pacific Islands gallery, entitled Spirits and Headhunters, has extensive displays of artifacts, organized into the three main cultural areas, Melanesia, Micronesia, and Polynesia. There is a large map near the entrance showing all the islands and areas featured in the gallery. It was interesting to see how the available materials are reflected in the artifacts on display. For instance, where metal was unavailable, weapons were made from wood and shark teeth, and armor was made from woven plant fibers. We appreciated seeing the boat models and types of currency. Along with the artifacts were extensive explanations of social institutions, religious practices, celebrations, diet, warfare, and navigation.

The main event!

The Asian comics exhibition covered approximately 20 countries over a timespan from the 19th century to the present. Both original art and published reproductions were included. Near the entrance we saw Japanese woodblock prints from 19th century. Japanese art, especially manga, was well represented in the exhibition, in part because of its wide influence but also because it was often reprinted in books, which have survived. In comparison, comic art created in Korea and the Philippines was typically published only in magazines and so less often preserved. This phenomenon was not limited to Asia; in the US also, early comics were published in newspapers and magazines (comic books) intended to be read and then discarded.

A wide range of topics were represented in the graphic novels, comic strips, and other art on display, including (among other things) religion, supernatural bestiaries, heroes, Indian epics, and China’s four great classical novels. The novel Journey to the West, published in the 16th century, inspired the well-known manga Dragon Ball.

We also saw a wide-ranging display of comics with historical themes. Many periods and countries were represented such as: the partition of India and Pakistan; colonization of several countries both by Western powers and by Japan; and World War II. Examples of comics commissioned by communist governments for propaganda purposes were displayed, as were comics covering current social issues like gender equality and housing.

There was a section screened off for adults only in which explicit art was on display.

In the final part of the comics exhibition, we saw information about the modern manga industry, contemporary artists and trends, the history of censorship in several countries, the role of women artists and their struggle for equality, and media adaptations of comic art. There was a table where patrons could follow a “drawing tutorial” and draw their own manga.

Unfortunately the Asian comics exhibition will be closing the day we post this entry, but the Bowers is planning an exhibition that will appeal to comics fans also. Fantasy: Realms of Imagination will open October 26, 2024 and run through mid-February 2025. The museums website says this about it:

From epic visions to intricately envisaged details, Fantasy: Realms of Imagination celebrates some of the finest fantasy creators, reveal how their imagined lands, languages and creatures came into being, and delve into the traditions of a genre that has created some of the most passionate and enduring fandoms.

Journey from fairy tales and folklore to the fantastical worlds of Studio Ghibli. Venture into lands occupied by goblins and go down the rabbit hole. Explore the realms of the one ring and travel into the depths of Pan’s Labyrinth. And discover how the oldest forms of literature continue to inspire fantasy authors today.

Presented in partnership with the British Library, Bowers Museum invites visitors to discover 160 fantastical items that include costumes, historical manuscripts, rare first editions, drafts of iconic novels, scripts, maps, original artwork, film props, and immersive multimedia experiences.

A short list of things we liked in the rest of the museum:

  • The carved ivories in the China section
  • The silver artifacts in the nearby Miao room
  • The Pio Pico memorabilia in the Missions and Ranchos room
  • Plein air paintings in the California Bounty area
  • The carved gemstones

Unfortunately, the Native American (First Californians) gallery was closed for renovation.

The museum is open Tuesday through Sunday, 10 am to 4 pm. Accessibility is good. Adult admission is $18, with discounts for seniors and students. Parking next to the museum cost $6.99; we had no trouble finding a space, but when we left in the mid-afternoon that lot was full. There is a museum café offering sandwiches and salads, but we chose to eat a late lunch at a local sushi restaurant, Taberu Sushi, instead. The food there was outstanding!

Lemon Grove Outing

By | |
Comments Off on Lemon Grove Outing

Main Street Murals
Parsonage Museum
Lemon Grove
March 12, 2022


While Meredith was visiting her Dad in March, Bob went exploring. He was in search of some new history murals being painted in Lemon Grove, about a half-hour’s drive from home. Bob had read about those new murals in the San Diego Union-Tribune in February, and the story caught his eye. One feature that interested him was the inclusion of images telling the story of the Lemon Grove school desegregation case from the 1930s. As a history teacher, Bob knew of this incident, and he had shared with his classes many times over the years the story as told in a television program produced by the local PBS station, KPBS. The Lemon Grove Incident relates the events of the 1930s surrounding an attempt to segregate Mexican and Mexican-American children into a separate elementary school. It is told using re-creations and interviews with surviving children who experienced the event and participated in the lawsuit that ended the segregation. In the end, Bob did not find that mural this time—another search for another trip. But he did see other murals.

Bob searched online to see if there was any new information about the location of the murals and found “murals” mentioned on one website. He set out. He found murals that depicted the history of the town and city of Lemon Grove on the side of a commercial building on Pacific Avenue at the corner of Main Street, just south of the city’s famous landmark. “Those paintings — 65-feet wide by 18 feet tall, filled with art depicting the Kumeyaay people, the 15th and 16th century Spanish Conquest, 1800s Mexican heritage, 19th century buildings and a current look at Lemon Grove — were created over an eight-year span, starting in 2005.” [SD Union-Tribune, 18 April 2018]



Still not seeing the murals he was looking for, Bob wandered south towards Treganza Heritage Park (formerly Civic Center Park), which he had noticed when parking his car. On the east side of the park is the headquarters of the Lemon Grove Historical Society. At that location the Historical Society maintains the Parsonage Museum. (It is the firm belief of our youngest child, commented on many times, that her parents can find a little, out-of-the-way museum anywhere!) The building started life as the Atherton Chapel, the community’s first church, and was repurposed to house the clergyman’s family when a later church was built. The parsonage was moved to its current location.

Bob happened to be visiting on a Saturday and the museum was open. (It is open on Saturdays from 11 am to 2 pm.) A friendly docent told him a little bit about the history of the building and then left him free to wander. There are several rooms downstairs that are typical of such museums, housing collections of period clothing, artifacts, furniture, etc. Of interest were the items on display that told the history of the eponymous industry of the town including lemon size sorters, graders, shipping boxes, and photographs. There is a larger room that is used for exhibits that change periodically. The house had the standard display of a period kitchen with rooms upstairs that showed bedroom, children’s room, office, and bathroom. Poking around in the house was a very interesting and pleasant way to spend the better part of an hour. Admission is free; donations requested. (Please be generous!)

Epilogue: Bob heard from a teacher colleague that she had seen the completed murals he had originally set out to find. Now he has a good reason to revisit Lemon Grove.

Historic Grant Hotel

By | |
Comments Off on Historic Grant Hotel

Open House San Diego 2020
U.S. Grant Hotel
Downtown San Diego
March 8, 2020

We spent a pleasant Sunday afternoon touring several architectural sites on view to the public as part of the Open House San Diego program.  The Open House concept began in London, England in 1992 as a way to bring a wider understanding of architecture to the public.  The San Diego version began in 2017 with tours of sites in Banker’s Hill, Downtown, the Gaslamp District, East Village, and Barrio Logan.  It has expanded its range since then. On these weekends, places that may not normally be open to the public are available.  The OH! San Diego program is organized by the San Diego Architectural Foundation.  In 2018 we toured some of the sites in the Banker’s Hill area as part of the Open House weekend, but never got around to blogging about them.

This year we visited several sites in the Gaslamp District, starting with a self-guided tour at the U.S. Grant Hotel.  We picked up a handsome brochure that led us around the public spaces of the hotel.  The brochure was available on the OH weekend at a table hosted by volunteers, but may also be available to the public at the Concierge desk for tours at other times.  The hotel is located on the site of the original “downtown” hotel, the Horton House, built by Alonzo Horton when he created “New Town” San Diego in the 1860s.  The U.S. Grant Hotel was built by a consortium of businessmen affiliated with Ulysses S. Grant, Jr., the second son of President Grant.  Construction was interrupted in the wake of the San Francisco earthquake and fire in 1906, because of other demands for construction labor, but eventually the hotel opened in 1910.

The guide led us around the ornate lobby area, which holds historic images and information about the development of the hotel in the mezzanine level near the valet entrance.  There were no functions being hosted the day that we toured, and we were able to walk through all of the ballrooms and meeting rooms that are not on view when in use by private parties.  The Palm Court is an elegant space in the location of what was once the hotel’s dining room, and is named in honor of the former Palm Garden terrace, later enclosed to provide the “Presidential Ballroom” on the second floor.

Also on the lobby level is the beautiful and historic Grant Grill. The Grill was a meeting place for businessmen in its early years of the 1950s and 1960s; “Men ONLY Before 3:00 P.M.” read the sign at the time.  In 1969, that rule was challenged by a group of female attorneys who held a protest sit-in at lunch time, booking a table under an assumed, masculine name.  The rule was finally abolished after legal action was threatened.  One of the protesters later went on to become a member of Congress and another became a Superior Court judge.

We went up to the second floor and saw what seems to be the largest public space in the hotel, the Presidential Ballroom.  It boasts a stage area.  In the foyer on that level are portraits of all of the presidents and first ladies who have visited the hotel, while near the entrance to the ballroom are photos of presidential visits.

On the lower level we found several interesting architectural drawings, plans, and photographs of the hotel throughout its history.  In the 1930s, an eleventh floor was added to the hotel to serve as the studio and broadcast center for KFSD radio.

The elegant “Court” spaces, Chafee (pictured above) and Chairman’s, served originally as lounges for men and women preparing for or seeking respite from the events in the adjacent Crystal Ballroom.  The Crystal Ballroom is an ornate space that has been remodeled, most recently when the Sycuan Tribe purchased the hotel and modernized it in the early 2000s, but it retains the air of the original.  The travertine and marble are set off by the elegant pillars and gleaming chandeliers and draw the eye to the original fireplace at the far end.

Coming up: posts about the historic San Diego Trust and Savings Bank building, and sites in the Gaslamp.

Cuyamaca Gold

By | |
Comments Off on Cuyamaca Gold

Cuyamaca Rancho State Park
Stonewall Peak and Mine Museum
Between Descanso and Julian
October 7, 2018

We went hiking with some of Meredith’s rowing teammates in the Cuyamaca mountains. The group met and parked at the Paso Pichaco campground, then climbed up the west side of Stonewall Peak. We walked down the east side of the mountain and around a loop, coming back on the Cold Stream Trail, which runs parallel to State Route 79. The hike took us about 3 hours. The views from the heights were spectacular, and our geologist friend Beth explained the rock formations we saw.

After the hike a few of the younger hikers headed off to Nickel Beer Company in Julian to rehydrate themselves. The more studious of us, including the geologist, drove a short distance north to the site of the former Stonewall gold mine. The entrance to the mineshaft is visible, along with some rusting machinery, all behind a chain link fence. We visited the small museum, which displays historical photos and explains the history of the mine. It was one of several gold mines in the Julian area. It first opened in the 1870’s and operated, off and on, until the early 20th century. In 1926, just before a planned inspection of the timbers, the main shaft collapsed. Fortunately for the would-be inspectors, they had stopped to eat supper before entering the mine. More information about the history of the mine can be seen here.

Our two groups reconvened at Granny’s Kitchen in Julian for a late lunch. The food was great; this is definitely a place to remember for our next trip to Julian.

Both the hiking trails and the mine museum are within the Cuyamaca Rancho State Park, and visitors must display a pass to park in the lots at the campground and at the museum. Day passes cost $10 per vehicle. Free road parking may (or may not) be available, for those willing to hike in from route 79.

Bowers Museum

By | |
Comments Off on Bowers Museum

Bowers Museum
December 17, 2017
Santa Ana

We headed north to see the Bowers Museum, which has a large and eclectic art collection. Meredith’s sister Kathleen had suggested visiting it, and after several unsuccessful attempts to find a date in common with her, we decided to see it on our own.

We spent much of our time in two special exhibitions: first we saw Endurance, the Antarctic Legacy of Sir Ernest Shackleton and Frank Hurley, and next we visited Empress Dowager Cixi, Selections from the Summer Palace. We also toured the oldest parts of the museum and looked at the early California collection.

We were fascinated by the Shackleton exhibition. It is built around the stunning photographs and motion pictures taken by expedition photographer Frank Hurley, of the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition (1914-1917). The negatives have been newly digitized and show remarkable detail, and his compositions are striking. The museum has laid out the exhibition in chronological order, with brief explanations of the various hardships and twists and turns of the expedition’s journey, illustrated by Hurley’s photos and films. The museum is also screening an hour long documentary about the Shackleton expedition from the first sailing to Antarctica, through the long confinement in the pack ice, the row to uninhabited Elephant Island, the open water journey to South Georgia island, and the trek across that island to the whaling station, where Shackleton finally returned to the outside world. A replica of the boat in which Shackleton sailed from Elephant Island to South Georgia Island, a distance of over 720 nautical miles, is displayed in the courtyard of the museum just outside the restaurant.

The Empress Dowager Cixi (whose name is transliterated Tz’u Hsi in older western texts and pronounced “she she,” we think) was originally an imperial concubine. When her son became emperor as a child, she ruled as regent and continued her regency during the minority of her nephew. In all, she ruled China for nearly five decades, from 1861 to 1908. The special exhibition at the museum has many decorative items from her Summer Palace. The furniture on display includes a beautiful and ornate throne set. There are many beautiful Chinese art works, including some calligraphy and painting done by the empress herself. Beautifully embroidered silk gowns are displayed. Bob’s eye was caught by a large carved tourmaline stone mined in San Diego and exported to China, where it was carved as a decorative object. The Empress was interested in Western technology and art, and her interest is reflected in the collection, with objects such as English table clocks. Meredith enjoyed seeing the 1901 Duryea Surrey automobile which one of the empress’ generals imported from the United States as a gift to her. It had a three cylinder, 10 hp engine and was capable of speeds up to 25 mph.

The Shackleton exhibition runs through January 28, 2018. The Empress Dowager exhibition runs through March 11, 2018.

We had lunch at the museum restaurant, Tangata. Service and food were both excellent. It is somewhat pricey. It can be accessed by the general public as well as museum visitors.

After lunch, we visited the oldest parts of the California collection, the Native American and mission era rooms. The California collection is housed in the oldest part of the museum complex, the original building constructed in the 1930’s. There are some very beautiful woven baskets which Meredith‘s late mother Margaret would have loved. In addition to the artifacts on display, the Segerstrom gallery features a beautiful carved wooden ceiling.

We decided to leave for another day the rest of the museum’s permanent collections, which include such things as California plein air paintings, Mexican ceramics, Pacific Island art and artifacts, Pre-Columbian art, and Chinese and Japanese art.

General admission is $15 for adults on weekends, $13 on weekdays; the Empress Dowager exhibit had an additional entry fee. Students and seniors enjoy discounts, and children under 12 are free with paid adults. The museum is closed on Mondays. Parking costs $6, but is free with restaurant validation. Handicapped access is good. In the modern building, everything is at a level. In the older building, there are some steps down into the Native American room, but it was retrofitted with a wheelchair lift.

Where the West Is Fun

By | |
Comments Off on Where the West Is Fun

San Diego County Fair
Del Mar Fairgrounds
June 4, 2017

We headed to the San Diego County Fair on its opening weekend. We always enjoyed going to fairs when we were children. Meredith remembers going with her father to the Barnstable County Fair in Massachusetts and with her grandparents to county fairs in Maine. Bob visited fairs in western Massachusetts, including the Three County Fair in Northampton, the Cummington Fair, and the Eastern States Exposition. When our children were small we took them to the sprawling Los Angeles County Fair in Pomona, a splendid and overwhelming experience. Meredith’s mother Margaret entered items in the LA fair a couple of times, winning a blue ribbon for her Seminole jacket back in the 1980’s.

This time we started with the Old West theme exhibit near the entrance, then headed to the infield. We watched the Turkey Stampede, a fun and silly set of turkey races. We strolled through the model farm vegetable beds, then toured the “pollinator” area with a sample bee hive (safely under glass) and a butterfly enclosure. We really enjoyed going in and looking at the butterflies close up!

We opted for our usual (high calorie) fair favorites for lunch: Roxy’s garlic batter fried artichokes and Navajo fry bead, washed down with craft beer in the Paddock area. While we ate, we enjoyed listening to several bluegrass groups performing on the Paddock Stage, particularly a quartet called the Virtual Strangers.

The home arts building was our next stop, and we concentrated on the second floor. Meredith loves the handmade quilts, and it is fun to see what people chose to collect and share. In the fondant cake section we were amused to see a cake with a Star Wars theme, and Meredith sent a photo to her sister, who also loves Star Wars. The polymer bead club had a display table set up and was encouraging passers-by to make beads, which Meredith did.

We went on to the Swifty Swine pig races, which are a must-see for both of us. But who doesn’t love watching piglets run around a track to win an Oreo cookie? Absolutely ridiculous! On the way we wandered through the livestock barns and watched a couple of 4H competitions. After that we walked back to the garden exhibits near the main gate, including both the exterior garden landscapes and the cut flowers displayed inside.

We finished our fair visit listening to Tom Griesgraber playing the Chapman stick on the O’Brien Stage. We first discovered Tom at the fair several years ago, and always try to catch his act if we can.

The fair runs through July 4 this year. We used free offsite parking at the Horse Park, just east of the fairgrounds, and took the shuttle bus to the fair gate. Buses run frequently and get to use a back gate, so that is probably not only the thriftiest but possibly the quickest way to get to the fair. Full price admission is $18 for adults, $11 for seniors and children 6 and over; children 5 and under are free. Several discount deals are available, and the fair website has further information. Handicap access is good; most of the fairgrounds are at ground level, and there are elevators within the buildings.

Marston House

By | |
Comments Off on Marston House

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.

Brahms and Cowboys

By | |
Comments Off on Brahms and Cowboys

California Center for the Arts
Escondido
January 29, 2017

Meredith was out of town on the last weekend in January, so Bob decided to check out the California Center for the Arts in Escondido. His attention had been drawn to it by advertising for a performance of Brahms’ German Requiem. Escondido Choral Arts organized the presentation, which featured an introduction to the work and recorded testimonials by members of the choral groups involved as to their often quite moving relationships to the Requiem, as well as what Bob thought was a fine performance.

Since the music did not begin until three in the afternoon, he took advantage of the trip to Escondido to visit another part of the Center, the Museum. The facility is spacious—two large, airy halls that are paralleled by hallways which can also be used for display. The hallways have large windows all along that look out on the adjacent Grape Day Park. The current exhibition is Cowboys and Vaqueros: Legends of the American West. It runs January 14 through February 26, 2017. In the smaller of the two halls were a mix of paintings, photographs, and artifacts that celebrate different peoples who made their mark on the history of the Old West: Native Americans, Hispanic Americans, African Americans, and European Americans. Bob was taken by a photograph of an African-American family outside their sod hut and another of the Robinson Hotel. That hotel was started by an African-American family in Julian, California, in the nearby mountains. When they sold it after a number of decades, it became the Julian Hotel, which still stands today. He also liked the side saddle that belonged to a young lady who was in the first graduating class from Escondido High School—her family lived in the San Pasqual Valley, too far to commute, so she stayed in town during the week and rode her horse home on the weekends!

In the larger hall there was a focus on paintings, drawings, and sculpture. Many of the sculptures were by Mehl Lawson, the curator of the show. His works in the show were in bronze, reminiscent of Frederic Remington, but with a very different surface texture or patina. The works throughout the show were very largely contemporary—from the 1990s into the current decade. Bob very much liked one large scale Impressionist painting, Eastern Sierra Landscape by Alson Skinner Clark and owned by the University Club of Pasadena. Executed in 1919, the picture shows a covered wagon dwarfed by the majestic mountains in the distance and lost in the desert of the foreground.

In the hallways adjacent to the exhibition halls, there was a display of student work from local schools related to the show. Mostly these were drawings or paintings, but one project had been to design cattle brands—one young lady welded her own and with it there was a description of the process she went through to make it.

A smaller room located at the end of the large hall farthest from the entrance was being used to show the work of a local documentarian. Corazon Vaquero (Heart of the Cowboy) is a gripping piece. Usually when one passes by a video that is playing in a museum setting, if it runs more than ten minutes one loses interest and moves on. This film is a very terrific look at the daily life of people who live in the dry, mountainous lands in central Baja California. Bob watched about half an hour and then had to move on to get to the concert. Researching the film later, he found that it was made by Cody McClintock, who grew up in northern San Diego County, and is narrated by his father Garry, a master saddle maker who lived in Descanso and passed away in the fall of 2015.

There is plenty of free parking adjacent to the Center. Handicap access seemed fine in the museum and the concert hall. There is a small gift shop in the museum, which is open Thursday-Saturday from 10:00 to 5:00 and Sunday from 1:00 to 5:00. The current exhibition runs through Sunday, 26 February. The next exhibition, coming in April and May, is called The Second Time Around: The Hubcap as Art. The young woman at the museum entrance told Bob that so far there are no other exhibits planned for the year due to funding constraints.

Women on the Water

By | |
1 Comment

Women’s Museum of California
Liberty Station
San Diego
December 1, 2016

We attended a reception and preview showing of the new exhibition Women on the Water at the Women’s Museum. The exhibition will run through January 29, 2017. The exhibit celebrates women on the water in San Diego, both sailing and rowing. A large part of the story on display celebrates the history of ZLAC Rowing Club. Founded in 1892, the club is the oldest continuously existing women’s rowing club in the world. Club documents and artifacts are displayed at the museum. Also featured are the women of the America 3 sailing team, and the San Diego Yacht Club.

wmc_zlacvolunteers

The ZLAC items on display were selected and organized by ZLAC volunteers Carolyn Thomasson and Arline Whited, in consultation with the museum curator. The ZLAC Foundation paid for production of the posters explaining the club’s history. (ZLAC is near and dear to our hearts. Our daughters rowed there. Meredith is a current member and past president of the club, and is active with the ZLAC Foundation as well.)

wmc_boatflag

Most of the museum space is a single gallery which features changing temporary exhibitions. Earlier this year, for instance, there was an exhibition entitled Rocking the Political Boat, about feminism in the 1960’s and 70’s. There is also a smaller section of the museum with an exhibition about the history of women’s suffrage, Marching Toward Empowerment.

wmc_suffrage

The museum is in the Liberty Station area of San Diego. This area was formerly the Naval Training Center and has been repurposed as a development with museums, restaurants, shopping, and housing. The museum is open Wednesday through Sunday, 12 to 4. Wheelchair access is good. Admission is $5, $3 for students and seniors. Parking is free.

Sheriff’s Museum

By | |
Comments Off on Sheriff’s Museum

Sheriff’s Museum
Old Town San Diego
November 6, 2016

We have been meaning to visit the Sheriff’s Museum ever since we spotted it on a training hike we did last year, from Clairemont to downtown, in preparation for walking the Camino in Spain. Until we stumbled on this museum at the east edge of Old Town, we did not know it was there.

sheriff_museum_sd

We enjoyed a Sunday brunch at Miguel’s Cocina, then walked a block east to the museum. It is larger than we thought, looking at the building from the outside. The museum collection is housed in a two story building. The ground floor displays contain many artifacts, such as badges and vintage communications equipment. In the courtyard are several historic cars. The top floor has more thematic displays, including the history and role of women in the department, major incidents like the Heaven’s Gate mass suicide and Santee shootings, and separate displays for specialty units. The final room is devoted to deputies who have been honored for bravery and a memorial for deputies killed in the line of duty.

The collection is quite extensive, well laid out, and clearly labeled. Bob was particularly interested in two things: an old map of California and the display honoring all of the Sheriffs in San Diego history. The map caught his eye because this good sized wall hanging showed a huge San Diego County–one of the original twenty-seven, it stretched to the Arizona border and north to the Nevada border half way to Lake Tahoe, including what are now the counties of Imperial, Riverside, and San Bernardino, and part of Inyo. Not being a native Californian, his knowledge of its history has some gaps. The display honoring the Sheriffs had a couple of points of interest. The first Sheriff, Agoston Haraszthy, was an immigrant from Hungary and was one of the founders of the modern California wine making industry. A 1953 photograph of the then Sheriff and his deputies included one deputy, John Duffy (with requisite buzz-cut), who would later be the county’s twenty-sixth Sheriff. He was in office from 1971-1991; Bob and Meredith arrived in San Diego during his tenure.

This museum would be a good place for a family outing; the exhibits appeal to all ages. There was a retired deputy serving as docent who answered our questions and made us feel welcome.

Admission is free, although donations are encouraged. Handicap access is good, with an elevator connecting the two floors. The gift shop has a good selection of items. There is no on-site parking; we walked over from where we had parked for brunch.