PB Rec Center Mosaic Mural Project (Pacific Beach Community Surf Garden)

The Pacific Beach Recreation Center is an important public space that has served our community for more than 65 years. Unfortunately, it is in dire need of a facelift and improvements. The exterior and interior are in average to poor condition. Further, the Rec Center compares unfavorably to the neighboring Pacific Beach Middle School and Beach and Bay Family YMCA, which have received major upgrades, improvements, and new construction.

The PB Town Council is working with San Diego artist Rob Tobin to beautify the Rec Center with mosaic murals, part of an overall improvement project to update the space inside and out. The Pacific Beach Community Surf Garden will include a permanent installation of two one-of-a-kind large-scale mosaic art pieces depicting flowers and a sunset. See the flier.

Surfboards donated by the community will be mosaicked and used to create giant, colorful flowers and foliage on the north wall. Here’s a conceptual image:

The south wall will also feature a mixed-media paint and mosaicked surfboard mural but depicting a colorful sunset mandala, something like this:

Making the Surf Garden Possible

Thanks to the immense support from the community, Phases I & II of the Pacific Beach Community Surf Garden were successfully funded and are nearly completed! We would like to thank all of those who donated to make this project a reality.

Tile donations are now closed thanks to reaching our goal. If you are still interested in purchasing a tile to be forever included in this project and want to make a sizeable donation, please reach out to general@pbtowncouncil.org and we would love to arrange something.

Share on Social Media!

This is a big project, and we need all the exposure we can get! Here are images for sharing on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.

Also, here’s a flier you can send to your friends.

Rob Tobin, San Diego artistMeet the Artist

Rob Tobin is a local artist specializing in community participatory art.

As director of creativity for the nonprofit A Reason To Survive (ARTS), Rob worked with schools and communities to facilitate large-scale mosaic murals and mentored many young artists.

Here is a video in which Rob shows us his work on community projects:

Here are some works around San Diego that have been completed: