Balboa Park*

Balboa Park

Balboa Park is one of the oldest dedicated public recreational areas in the US.  It is a 1,200 acre urban park with open spaces, gardens, museums, theaters and the San Diego Zoo.  We've been twice now.  It is simply a wonderful place to spend time whether just people watching or museum going.  The architecture of the main promenade and boulevard is Spanish Colonial Revival and is the location for most museums.  Some of the landmark buildings remain from the 1959 Panama-California Exposition and the 1935 California Pacific International Exposition.

We have visited the San Diego Museum with its typical holdings of European, American and some Asian art, and the Museum of Photographic Arts where we saw a fabulous exhibit by Flor Garduno titled Trilogy.  The show consists of 3 subjects: fantastic women, bestiality and still life.  Her control of the darks, blacks really, is superb.  Most of the photos have large areas of the deepest blacks.  Of particular interest to me was the way she would place a black woman with or adjacent to a white woman against a dark background.  The white woman was stark and immediately noticeable.  The black woman would appear gradually to the viewer bringing to mind all sorts of sociological questions.  

Sunday afternoon we attended the organ recital at Spreckles Organ Pavilion joined by the lovely Kathy Midgley. This organ is the second largest pipe organ in the world with 4,725 pipes ranging from pencil size to 32 feet.  The performance was open-air, the stage a vaulted ornate structure similar to the Hatch Shell in Boston.  San Diego has a civic organist, Dr. Carol Williams who performed the concert.  She was very amusing as well as talented.  It was nice sitting in very warm sun, listening to the 2nd largest pipe organ in the world with friends and watching the constant arrival of airplanes to SD airport.  Oddly, their was no noise from the planes to interfere with the music.  

Spreckles Organ Pavilion

Following the concert Wayne and I went to marvel at the Moreton Fig trees, giant trees. The tiny little red spot in the photo is me hiding among the roots.

Morton Bay Fig, Balboa Park

More photos at flickr.

*Balboa Park by Bruce Springsteen