The tallest building in Ireland — The Elysian apartment complex in the city of Cork — tops off at 17 stories, a little over one-sixth the number of floors at Chicago’s mammoth Sears Tower. San Diego artist Deirdre O’Byrne cops to the chasmic difference in a couple respects. In the first place, she’s lived in New York and Houston, the tips of whose skylines almost touch the outer Martian atmosphere; and early on, she toyed with a career in building science as she took in the workaday successes of her architect father. But dad seemed to think O’Byrne would have more fun in graphic design — and a trove of low-lying Georgian architecture lay at her feet in her native Dublin, the inspiration there for the taking. The works you see at the right are prime examples of O’Byrne’s present-day stock in the watercolor and oil trade, culled from 35 years’ study, travel and devotion to the visual arts, fine and applied. Big fat citified buildings certainly have their qualities in this Mission Valley resident’s mind’s eye, but only as they complement a downtown core. Anything less washes away a city’s character and its residents’ sense of place. O’Byrne, after all, has seen it happen before. Even in fabled Dublin. But this is San Diego, O’Byrne’s residence for nine years and the steward of a true neighborhood environment the likes of which she’s rarely encountered. “I think the different communities really make San Diego stand out,” she told Downtown News. “Little Italy, the Gaslamp [Quarter], Hillcrest, North Park: They all have distinct little characteristics, all kinds of different architecture. And the signs (like the paintings of the overhangs you see here) are all different too, which is kind of interesting. “I started off with the Little Italy [sign] because it’s my number one favorite place,” O’Byrne explained, adding that she plans to paint all 12 city-funded markers that dot the San Diego area. She prefers the plein air approach, which is a fancy term for painting on location. No photographs or visual aids for her — the rewards lie within the climate alone. “It’s all about the emotion and the feeling,” O’Byrne, 49, said. “I’m not just painting a photograph. A photograph doesn’t give you the sounds, the smells, the whole atmosphere. It doesn’t create that excitement. When I paint on the spot, I’m painting my feelings and emotions of what I’m seeing in front of me. I’d rather be in the middle of it. My preference is to always paint from real life. “If you want your painting to look like a photograph, then why not just take a photograph? And it’s about color, too. Why not use color where you can? It makes you feel good.” Presumably, the jaywalker in the Little Italy piece has lived to see another day. If not, she’s a casualty of Downtown’s urbanization, which began in earnest in the mid-1980s with the opening of Horton Plaza. The Gaslamp’s sleaze factor and Little Italy’s physical deterioration eventually vanished. But O’Byrne is concerned Downtown may swing the other way. “That’s one of the things I hope San Diego’s going to be really careful about,” O’Byrne said, “and not wipe out a lot of the history and the beautiful old buildings that have so much character. I know every city grows. I’ve seen them. I’ve lived in Manhattan, Florida, Houston, Seattle and now here. Houston was nothing, and now it’s grown into all these skyscrapers. And in the nine years I’ve been here, the amount of building that’s been going on is phenomenal.” And there’s so much more to go. Centre City Development Corporation (CCDC), the city’s development arm, says that the Downtown population, now at just over 30,000, will triple in slightly more than 20 years. The C Street Revitalization Master Plan; a new federal courthouse; prospects for a North Embarcadero makeover; the Kettner & Ash mixed-use development; plans for the Civic Center renovation and more: CCDC would love to see ’em in place by the time the new folks get here. O’Byrne will be glad to learn that many of the projects include plans for generous green space; moreover, the city is working toward the creation of more open space for Downtown in the coming years. She won’t be so pleased to hear that the current recession is costing the city dearly. The fiscal 2009 Department of Park and Recreation budget — about $83 million — would take care of about one-third of all the deferred maintenance costs at Balboa Park alone. And in a March 20 letter to Mayor Jerry Sanders, Councilmember Donna Frye predicts that the city’s immediate budget deficit could be $60 million, 33 percent higher than the city’s current projection. If the recession chokes off growth, it may also force the contractors to rethink their plans, resulting in fewer encumbrances on the landscape — a landscape that O’Byrne thinks has weathered the urbanization storm fairly well. “I’m glad to see there’s a cute little house in Little Italy they’re going to save,” O’Byrne explained. “They’re actually going to take it up off the ground and move it somewhere,” out of harm’s way amid some planned construction. “And the skyline from Coronado actually looks pretty good. But San Diego’s all about tourism and its beaches. If you put all the modern architecture in, where’s your beaches?” And then, indeed, where would O’Byrne be? “I’d have to move. I’d have to go to the south of France or something and paint over there.” As it turns out, she’s already been to the south of France. “It was fun,” she said. “I met some people from Ireland there. The Irish will always go to where there’s sunshine, and that’s why San Diego’s so great for me. San Diego is a painter’s paradise, with all the beaches and beautiful scenery and, again, those little communities. That’s what I hope they’ll save. I hope the planning committee people are keeping that in mind.” We’ll see. For more information on O’Byrne, featuring her work on people, seascapes and animals, go to odoodle.com.