Whenever something brings me downtown it’s always fun to try and find some new murals. After a few years of the festival murals are everywhere ripe for the picking. Murals wrap every side of this building making it far more interesting than it likely was before! Do you have any good street art where you are? 
Wanna see the front door? Check out my Thursday Door post!
This time of year marks the time of year in Sacramento where it’s too hot to do much of anything outdoors unless it’s bright and early in the morning. So, baby bulldog and I headed for Old Sacramento to watch the old steam trains. We had a nice little walk through old town enjoying the architecture and trains and fresh air. While old town is totally commercial and touristy I’ve been visiting my entire life and never get tired of it unless it’s too crowded. I look forward to taking my son here many more times over the years to explore Sacramento history and to just travel back in time for a few hours at a time.
We attended the open studio of artist Dacy Kolsky in downtown Sacramento recently and really enjoyed her art and the vibe of being in her studio. Check out her mixed media collage work! Her art has an neon Andy Warhol meets 80’s throwback vibe from the time before digital when everything was actually done by hand.
What’s your favorite piece? Support your local artists!
Email dacy@modernpoppy.com
The Crocker Art Museum is a downtown Sacramento staple. Every school age child comes here at least once.
The Crocker family earned their money from the railroad. They parlayed that money in to many other things ultimately affording the family to build a legacy Sacramentans will be forever grateful for. The Crocker’s showed interest in art and began collecting personally specifically Asian art and ceramics. Eventually the beautiful house and the art collection were gifted to the City of Sacramento for the purposes of creating culture in an early Sacramento.
The original house has been enlarged during the Crocker’s time there and recently underwent the building of a world-class architecturally modern wing added in 2010. I hadn’t visited since this beautiful wing was added and took the summer heat wave as an opportunity to enjoy their art & air conditioning.
Highlights of the exhibits are the house itself, outside large public art installations on the grounds, early California paintings, ceramics, Oceana exhibits, and a broad grouping of Asian art from the Middle East, India, Japan, China, and beyond.
If you have spent any time in downtown Sacramento you can’t miss these iconic landmarks located in East Sacramento off Alhambra. In recent years the ugly ol’ water tower has been gussied up with a cool light feature which somehow makes it new and interesting. And it juxtaposed with the fire training tower has always somehow garnered my interest. In an area where property is expensive and at a premium I still can’t believe these random icons are still standing. 
A young friend of mine expressed some interest in learning photography recently. I was going to take her to my backyard and teach her some basics about her camera. But, instead, another random opportunity presented itself. Mike’s Camera Shop in downtown Sacramento hosted a free photography meetup at the Sacramento Train Museum. I couldn’t think of a less interesting place to take a 12 year old girl so we headed out with promises that it would be a great place to practice her skills. It turned out we both had a blast taking photos of “creepy manikins”, welds, train wheels, cattle guards, old luggage, and to be honest things I don’t even know the name of. I considered it a success because my young friend took hundreds of photos and never got tired of looking at the details of cool old trains. She left boasting terms like depth of field, manual focus, and shutter speed. A highlight for me was watching her lay on the floor in order to get a cool shot with a “fuzzy background” as she called it. (Good photographers always get on the ground in my book!) We rewarded ourselves with an ice cream cone and a walk through Old Sacramento!
Train nerds rejoice. (You know who you are.) I took far more photos of train details than I care to admit. I hope you enjoy!
I consider this to be an “odd” subject to photograph so I am happy to submit the post to Cee’s Odd Ball Challenge!
Bulldog Travels / Photos By Jenny 