Spanish Village Art Center — Attraction in San Diego

This is one of San Diego's best-kept secrets. We love the colors, the artisans, and their delightful art.

If you catch it on a good day, you can see glass-blowers in action, sculptors chipping away at a new piece of art in the Sculpture Garden, jewelers at work faceting stones at the Gem & Mineralogical Building. That's my favorite place. Inside you can find all the stones that Earth has created. Larimar, Gaspeite, Jasper, the list goes on. If you are visiting from out of town and don't have much time, this is the place to go to discover a special something for that special someone.

A couple of months ago, we stepped into Studio 39 and purchased two bowls hand-made by Richard White. He's been performing his art for decades and you can tell by the way the bowls look and feel. The way they aren't perfectly duplicate; each one is an art piece unto itself. On our most recent visit to the Spanish Village, we stepped into Studio 39 once again and met the artist himself. He's both a poet and a potter; it shows in his work. Now, when we use those bowls for a chicken noodle soup on a wintry San Diego evening, or a salad in the middle of a hot San Diego summer, we think about our encounter with the artist and how much we enjoy our home town, San Diego, and its amenities like the Village.

Stroll around and check out for yourself the watercolors, oil paintings, pottery, glass and stone art, jewelry and all-around...

Eclectic, local, artists gather together in a number of studios (which happened to be numbered) to show their crafts to consumers. The village is artsy and upbeat with the multicolor stones that pave the courtyard spurring one to want to reach for a crayon and join in the festivities.

Musicians, often, assemble in the center of the village to fill the air with guitar, percussion, and an occassional singer.

People walk from shop to shop, often accompanied with their pets, and meander through the diverse artistic mediums that are proudly on display. Each shop has a different flavor and the aritsans take turns during the week to meet and greet potential customers.

I found a unique glass and metal pendant that I just couldn't resist from booth number 7 which also includes hand weeved scarves, porcelin pottery, and photographic collages.

The San Diego Zoo and historic merry-go-round are adjacent to the north side of the village and the museums border it to the south. There is also the flower gardens across the streets that contain thousands of different roses to liven the senses.

Lunch at the the Japanese Gardens and listen to the bell-tower as you watch the jets coming in for a landing to the nearby airport. It's the best of both worlds where the beauty and calm of country life has been tastefully encased in the center of one of America's most...

We visited this area first time in the evening around 7 pm. It felt very nice and mahipal watching the area with the beautiful purple flower trees. The are had a lot of music classes like a guitar class, singing and a dance performance nearby. We decided to go there the next day in the morning as it opens from 11 am to 6 pm. We saw a lot of different artist stores open and shopped at a free shops. The totem store had a lot of different beads and the artist explain how we need to choose beads to give her to make the totem. The center has a lot of jewellery,silk clothes ,paintings,ceramic stores.The whole place has a wonderful feeling to be around people, lovely music, cafe ,painting ,hand made cards stores and the colorful floor stones which added to the whole ambience. We shopped at Denise Strahm store and even bought a few prints of pictures clicked by her. We loved the award winning painting of artist Randy David Riccoboni. We also shopped for handmade cards by local artists and loved the Batik print cards from Bela Breziner store along with a couple sterling silver jewelery. I loved the whole feel of the village, wish we had gone on a Tuesday as they have classes taught by the local artists of the area. It is a must...