Mine-a-Lisa mural, Grape Street offramp to the I-5

The other night when TC and I picked up Bert from the airport, I noticed that the old mural on the Grape Street onramp to the 5 was replaced!

This was another reason why I wanted to return to Little Italy, so we could see this new art piece in the daylight...

It was a pixilated Mona Lisa of all things! Very cool and quirky.

Here's Nat King Cole's version of the song, "Mona Lisa"

According to wikipedia's entry on this song,
"Mona Lisa" is a popular song written by Ray Evans and Jay Livingston for the film, "Captain Carey, U.S.A." (1950). The title and lyrics refer to Da Vinci's Renaissance era portrait. The song won the Academy Award for Best Original Song that same year.

It's also one of my mom's favorite songs. She loves Nat King Cole and I have to say, we grew up listening to him. He has one of the smoothest crooning voices.

Back to this version of the Mona Lisa, which I later found out was called, the "Mine-A-Lisa", inspired by the popular "Minecraft" game in which the user can build their own cities and characters using blocks.

When I saw it at night, I thought it was blurry since we passed by it pretty quickly. It turns out that the pixilation was deliberate and actually quite clever. At least I know my eyes are as screwed up as I thought they were, ha ha.


The 20 by 20 foot mural was painted by school children from Little Italy's Washington Elementary STEAM magnet school. Consisting of 1,600 handpainted tiles, the mural was put up last September. The previous mural featuring tuna fishermen was taken down yet again in March 2015 because it was damaged and considered a hazard.

This is what used to hang on that wall:

(photo by Vilma Ruiz Pacrem/posted on Sept. 26, 2013)

Then it was empty a few years later:

(photo from my "Mad Fix Coffee + breakfast @ Caffe Italia", October 2015)

I have to say, this was a clever way of incorporating community involvement, pop culture and a nod to the Italian heritage of this particular part of San Diego.

Article:
"Welcoming visitors with a "Mona Lisa smile" San Diego Downtown News, Sept. 2, 2016

Intro video about Minecraft:


Location:
Grape Street offramp to south I-5
Little Italy, SD

La Ley's children love this game and could spend hours on it if left unchecked. Another friend's kid has a pixilated Minecraft "sword" made from a flexible foam that she loves playing with.  I guess I'm old because I don't quite get it and could see other ways of occupying my time. Each generation is different I suppose!