Artist Pae White was commissioned by the Centre City Development Corporation, the Port of San Diego and the City of San Diego to create a public art proposal in collaboration with the design team for the first phase of the North Embarcadero redevelopment project.

Pae proposes to treat the restroom with raised, concrete letter surfaces and a bright, glossy orange interior that reflects light at night through openings near the top of the structure. Pae has also worked alongside the architects to design two pavilions, a café building and an information center which will all be located on the north-south promenade of the North Embarcadero, roughly adjacent to the entrance to the Broadway Pier.

Both the restroom and the pavilions feature words inspired by Richard Bach’s novel, Jonathan Livingston Seagull and which draw attention to the behavior of seagulls in an urban, seaside habitat. The text covers both the top and underside of each pavilion roof and, in some places, breaks through to allow filtered light and shadows in letter forms onto the ground beneath. Both the café building and the information center take their shapes from the letters in the pavilion roofs above. The translucent buildings, made of colored glass in dawn and dusk hues, seem to be extruded from the ceiling to the earth. Construction of the restroom, pavilions and buildings is part of the first phase of the North Embarcadero redevelopment which is scheduled to begin in 2010.

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This affordable housing development in Barrio Logan has been enlivened by colorful murals by a team of artists.Incorporating lots of community involvement via art workshops and inspired by the historic murals at nearby Chicano Park.Check out the website for the project here.www.laentradaproject.comThe artist's blog here, with videos of the murals in process.http://crolvswerc.com/blog/

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“Portals in Time” (2007) A permanent public art installation interpreting the major cultural and historic influences of a modern, multi-ethnic city.

While it would be tough to find a city in San Diego County with more home-grown civic pride, to many outsiders National City has always had the hard-scrabble, hairy-armed sensibility projected by the influential pop singer Tom Waits, who once hung out there. With his earthy songs and his inimitable, raspy voice that embodies mid-American authenticity, Waits still cherishes time spent in his teens working at Napoleone Pizza House on National City Boulevard, the city’s main drag.

In recent years, the city has launched major urban reinvestment efforts to revitalize National City Boulevard while enhancing the strengths of its old neighborhoods from which flows its signature civic pride. Major projects began to spring up along the boulevard in 2003 with completion of a new $ 1 million Chamber of Commerce Building followed a year later by the opening of the $ 20 million South County Regional Education Center housing a satellite campus of Southwestern College.

Both lay barely a block from Brick Row, an 1887 row house treasure listed on the National Register of Historic Places. To tie these elements together, and to send up an unmistakable flare signaling that respectful change was afoot, the city turned to noted public artist Paul Hobson to create a centerpiece of the new public promenade stretching from the Brick Blocks across National City Boulevard to the new Education Center.

The result is Hobson’s piece “Portals in Time,” completed in 2007. It consists of six colorful freestanding walls and archways, or “portals,” depicting National City’s distinct phases of history and identity: the Kumeyaay period; the Spanish period, the early agricultural period of the late 19th Century, the modern industrial period – as well as the city’s current identity as center of the San Diego region’s Filipino community.

The installation, a mélange of adobe block, brick, cement castings, stucco and colorful mosaics, some bathed in a curtain of water, creates a pedestrian promenade across National City Boulevard at Ninth Street. One end of the corridor is anchored to the entrance of National City’s historic Brick Row, and the other end opens onto the sidewalk threshold of the Education Center, a powerful statement of the city’s daring dream about its future.

The result is a site-specific icon that articulates community identity, values, energy and optimism while providing a needed “pocket park” on a busy urban thoroughfare. And if Waits’ earthiness still holds sway for some outsiders when thinking about National City, they might do well to remember the title of one of his signature songs: “You’re Innocent When You Dream.”

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Upon hearing of the unique design of the new Point Loma Marina on Harbor Drive, my friend and I went to check it out. The structure is impressive and we weren't disappointed - until we almost tripped across these nautically inspired sculptures obstructing the walkways, looking more like litter box droppings than bowlines. A surprisingly odd 'art' decision in an otherwise tastefully designed space.

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Located on 30th Street in North Park, this office and gallery promotes public art in several ways. First of all, the street signage is an art piece created out of recycled and scrap metal by the artist Walter Redondo. Secondly, the expansive glass storefront piques the interest and curiosity of pedestrians as they view the art work that is on display in the gallery. Finally, with events such as green scene, this gallery promotes art made of recycled and reclaimed materials, and demonstrates that we need not make waste.

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Suspended 12 stories high, “INDIGO WATERS” is a large scale, glass art sculpture. Thirty-three individually hand crafted panels of radiant blue glass are positioned in offset layers to reflect and refract light, celebrating San Diego’s beautiful energies of light and ocean. This outside public art piece spans 4 stories in height and weighs over 5,000 pounds yet playfully dances with changing light throughout the day. This elegant beacon of floating color inspires locals and visitors from the Gaslamp District to the ballpark, welcoming guests to the Hotel Indigo. You can play in the ocean and not get wet!

“Rhythmic wave relationships of shape and color form as I move vertically from shallow water to deep water. I move laterally from clear waters to turbid waters, thick with color and mystery. I celebrate calm waters and waters flowing with texture, I love our ocean,” said artist Lisa Schirmer , a long time San Diego resident. Schirmer truly enjoys dissecting nature's genius. “The Fibonacci Sequence and the Golden Mean are great playgrounds.” These are mathematical concepts that appear in nature. When she started to contemplate the design possibilities for the Hotel Indigo, she thought of translating these proportional relationships into compositions of color and shape. These concepts are part of the philosophy of the Hotel Indigo's branding.

The artist creates the color indigo (a hue of blue) by mixing blues and purples. Lisa worked with several color contrasts. These contrasts are the luminosity of hue, light-dark contrasts, cool-warm contrasts, saturation and extension. She used these color contrasts to define her color chord. Combining two planes of individually colored hand painted glass, the artist created new color harmonies. This resulted in 33 individually tempered, laminated units of colored shape requiring over one year to complete. Each unit is 38”x38” and each weighs over 68 pounds. The Golden Mean inspired the shape of the painted units, a combination of a square and a quarter circle.

By rotating and repeating this one unit only, an entire body of water was created, celebrating the beautiful San Diego ocean. The 33 units arranged in the Fibonacci sequence elegantly fit onto the curved wall of the beautifully designed building, 12 stories high. The water image cascades down to the 9th floor. The blues of the glass harmonize with the coloring of the building. Combining traditional two dimensional design with three dimensional positioning, Schirmer extends her composition. As the San Diego sunlight moves through the enameled glass during the day, colors are mixed, spilling onto the curved surface of the wall, animating the composition.

The shaped color actually moves with the daily passage of time. “In researching the Hotel Indigo site, I recorded how the sun moved across the space. I wanted to celebrate a sense of light and a sense of time. I thought stained or ‘enameled’ glass was appropriate. It is a method of creating color that is six centuries old, and it is permanent. The Fibonacci Sequence and the Golden Mean are ancient, timeless concepts. I appreciate the richness of the past minds. I value the extension of these past concepts into the present and the future, and I am thankful to celebrate God’s creation of color, nature and thought,” said the artist.

“THE GOLDEN MEAN IRONED OUT IN SILVER” Lisa Schirmer was commissioned to design the street level gates and the valet kiosk. The kiosk is ADA compatible. In addition, her design of the 9th Floor Terrace Privacy Screen is a beautiful foil for the San Diego skyline. These designs celebrate the Golden Mean in a body of silvery splashing waves. The metal was fabricated by Ocean Beach artisan Bill Brents. The InterContinental Hotel Group (IHG), Phelps Development and JWDA embraced the original Art Glass Sculpture, Metal Design and Photography throughout the hotel, employing many local artists and artisans.

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As part of a building renovation, an exterior 30 foot elevator shaft was added.Seeing an opportunity for a trompe l'oeil mural, the Credit Union Board retained John and Jeanne Whalen to depict historical imagery of a turn of the century fire station entrance with slide up fire door. The scene shows a steam powered fire engine and Rookie, a dalmation dog, poised and ready to respond to an emergency. As I am sure you know, trompe l'oeil means "to fool the eye" at first glance. Mission accomplished.

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Artwork was created for two Bookmobiles for the San Diego County Library. The theme was to show the library as a portal from which one can go into another world via books, music, videos, computers, concerts, and community classes. With the downturn in the economy, Library usage is booming because everything offered is free. Designed as mobile murals, two separate concepts were developed by artists John and Jeanne Whalen, to encourage patrons to take advantage of all of the wonderful services that our libraries offer. Dedicated at the County Administration Building by County Supervisers Ron Roberts and Dianne Jacob in April, 2009. The Bookmobiles move around daily, so please call Jose Aponte at 858-694-2384 to set up a time to locate them.

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Time Interwoven is a site specific installation commissioned by the San Diego County Regional Airport Authority. San Diego artist, Christie Beniston, created a custom glass and light installation as a welcome piece to Authority visitors and users of the commuter terminal. The work is located on the first floor elevator lobby.

The piece graphically demonstrates the choreography of human patterns as the warp and weft of travelers and employees move to and from destinations. In the broader scope of the entire airport, this weave of people provides a visual metaphor for the act of travel. While this graphic pattern may engage the viewer on a primordial level, the artwork is designed to be sleek and contemporary in its fabrication.

Travel is defined by time as well as distance. The horizontal threads of the weft can be read as the lines of latitude on a map, with the warp constituting the standard meridians of longitude. In the artwork, the vertical sections of color represent the 24 world time zones. Each zone is set on a 24-hour timer, and in the same way that a weaver moves the strand across the loom, light will travel continuously on the hour from one band to the next.

Upon viewing the artwork, one notes a field of continuous pattern except for a single interruption of light intensity. Traditionally, when weaving textiles, Native Americans would leave a flaw in the pattern to let the “soul” or spirit escape. In this design, the mark is positioned where San Diego would be located on the world map and represents the same “spirit” released by the inventiveness and ingenuity of San Diego's early aviation pioneers including Charles Lindbergh.The color panel containing San Diego is lit at the start of the work day (assuming that is 8am) a time for the most flow of traffic to the administrative offices. In addition to San Diego, names of other major cities are engraved along the bottom edge of the frame. Each, coordinating the longitudinal movement of light, indicating the start of the work day in other countries; thus providing additional interest and meaning to the artwork.

The artwork is composed of a grid of molded resin, finished in a 2-part epoxy with a clear gloss sealant. The glass background color is custom laminated glass housed in an aluminum frame. Behind each vertical band of color are two LED strips, the first row providing a continuous low illumination with the second row controlled by a timer allowing individual bands to have higher illumination each hour. This provides the effect of movement on the hour with the bands of color representing the 24 time zones. Finished size 8' x 6” x 15'

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The monstrosity know as the Pacific Portal. It was created by James Hubbell in 2006. IT IS A DEFINATE ONION. It is located on Shelter Island.

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