Search Results for “Johanna Poethig” – Public Art and Architecture from Around the World

Search Results : Johanna Poethig

Give me your tired, your poor…

Posted by Cindy on September 16, 2013

Sep 162013

Welsh and 5th Street
SOMA

Thanks to a recent upgrade to this mural I can write about it. It was originally done in 1992 and has been so faded it was difficult to see.

The mural is by Johanna Poethig who has been in the website so very many times.

Staff members from the San Francisco Human Services Agency contacted her about restoring her mural, “To Cause to Remember,” better known as the Statue of Liberty mural. It’s located on the side of a homeless shelter in the city’s South of Market district.

On the 40-foot by 80-foot wall, Lady Liberty lies on her side with chains on her feet and her hand outstretched.

According to Johanna’s blog:

“Everyone who comments on the mural mentions the chains first of all. . . . This symbol, the fallen Liberty, speaks to the issues of poverty, immigration, mental illness, incarceration, drugs, war veterans, families and the elderly.

“The image has been published in books about street art. In my 30-year career as a muralist and public artist, this work of art has weathered the test of time. The Liberty in recline has proven herself to really mean something to the people who live with her chains and to those who remember what she means.”

The assistants were all students at Cal State Monterey Bay Visual and Public Art School.

If you would like read more of Johanna’s ruminations on the mural click here.

Strong Roots, Healthy Tree

Posted by Cindy on January 25, 2013

Jan 252013

Olive and Polk
The Tenderloin

This mural was done in 1989. It is titled Strong Roots, Healthy Tree and is by Johanna Poethig who intertwined images from Laotian, Vietnamese, and Cambodian cultures. Johanna is responsible for numerous pieces of public art around San Francisco

Since the 1970s, a growing number of Vietnamese, Laotian and Cambodian immigrants have settled in the Tenderloin. The first large migration of Vietnamese into the United States came in the 1970s with elites who fled their home country after the fall of Saigon in 1975. The second wave of immigrants to enter the city in the 1970s consisted of a group of people who have been labeled the “boat people.” Most of these Vietnamese immigrants are ethnic Chinese. These immigrants were attracted to the Tenderloin area by its low rents and high rates of tenant turnover. The influx of Vietnamese, as well as Cambodian and Laotian families to this district has added a family element to the area, with children and youth making up a growing proportion of a community with few open spaces. It has also led to an increase in nonprofit agencies serving a wide range of the community’s needs.

The mural was funded by private donations and sits on the back of the building that once housed the Southeast Refugee Resettlement organization. It is 40 X 60 ‘

SOMA – Labyrinth-Habitat

Posted by Cindy on January 30, 2012

Jan 302012

SOMA

8th and Natoma Streets

Labyrinth – Habitat 1999

Johanna Poethig with Episcopal Community Services

Ceramic and paint

Commissioned by the San Francisco Art Commission – Arts in Community Program.

Johanna Poethig has been in this site many, many times. This mural is on the side of one of the Training Centers for Episcopal Community Services – The Cannon Kip Community House.

According to Johanna’s website this is what the mural is about:

In every culture and on every continent the labyrinth is one of the oldest and most universal symbols. Some of these existing labyrinths, such as the ones at Val Camonica (North of Italy), Kom Ombo (Egypt), as well as various sites in North and South America and Asia, date from 1800 to 1500 B.C. Built on sacred locations, they possess magical powers and various symbolic meanings.

The labyrinth both creates and protects the center, and allows entry only on the correct terms. Entry is thus a step on the path of knowledge. The Hopi Indians, the labyrinth form on which this design is based, called the labyrinth the ‘Mother Earth’ symbol, and liken it to their own underground sanctuaries, the Kivas. It was from here the Hopi emerged from the preceding world. ‘All the lines and passages within the maze form the universal plan of the Creator, which a person must follow on the Road of Life.’

The title of this mural is based on a labyrinth scratched onto a painted pillar 2000 years ago, in the house of Lucretius, a classic author( Pompeii before ad 79), with the text: Labyrinthus, hic habitat Minotauros.
This project will involved residents of Canon Kip in writing and tile glazing workshops in the creation of “Labyrinth – Habitat”. The writing workshops engaged participants in thinking about their own life paths in relationship to the ancient and universal form of the labyrinth. Finished text was then be transferred and fired onto tile. These tile became part of the mural which is a combination of paint and ceramic.

Episcopal Community Services of San Francisco helps homeless and very low-income people obtain the housing, jobs, shelter and essential services.

SOMA – Youth Art Project

Posted by Cindy on December 22, 2011

Dec 222011

SOMA

501 Minna Street at 6th

This set of small mosaic murals are part of the ArtSpan’s South of Market Youth and Public Art Project.

Lead artist, Johanna Poethig who has been in this site numerous times is director for the Inner City Public Art Projects for Youth, a program of San Francisco’s South of Market Cultural Center and Artspan. They have completed a body of ceramic public art works installed throughout downtown San Francisco

These are a result of the Stop, Look, Listen to Me program which operates on $32,000 from the city’s Neighborhood Beautification Fund, and has the support of the Art Commission and private benefactors.

Richmond District – Rochambeau Playground

Posted by Cindy on September 26, 2011

Sep 262011

The Richmond District

Rochambeau Playground

25th Avenue between California and Clement

The artwork celebrates sports at Rochambeau Playground. Two concrete pillars clad in ceramic tile are topped by an 8-inch mosaic tennis ball and a 22-inch mosaic basketball. They mark the end of the handicapped ramp and the wall between the children’s playground and the blacktop courts.

The work is by Johanna Poethig who has shown up numerous times in this website.

The Tenderloin

Posted by Cindy on August 21, 2011

Aug 212011

The Tenderloin – San Francisco

149 Mason Street

This block of Mason Street is looking so much brighter now that Glide has moved into the block. This is on the outside of GLIDE Economic Development Corporation’s 149 Mason Street Studios, an eight-story building which features 56 furnished studio apartments designed for people who have been chronically homeless.

The colorful tiles are by Johanna Poething. Her prolific amount of work has shown up in this website many, many times. According to her website, Johanna Poethig is a visual, public and performance artist who has exhibited internationally and has been actively creating public artworks, murals, paintings, sculpture, and multimedia installations for over 25 years

If you are interested in learning more about the housing project you can go to Glide’s website here.

SOMA – Freeway Prophecy

Posted by Cindy on August 9, 2011

Aug 092011

SOMA – San Francisco

Clementina and 8th Street

Freeway Prophecy

Subtitled “a surrealistic look at the future of transportation” this is another mural by Johanna Poethig sharing “lead artist” credit with Sofie Siegmann. “Freeway Prophecy” was a major coordinated production crediting, besides Siegmann, nine other Artist Collaborators, seventeen Youth Artists and the Writers Corps poet Donna Ho.I am hard pressed to actually understand the definition of this mural, but if you would like a rather ethereal, and complicated description you can find one here on this blog.

the trees have grown to cover so much of the mural, but if you are in the neighborhood, stop by and take a look.

The Tenderloin – Humming With Life

Posted by Cindy on August 4, 2011

Aug 042011

The Tenderloin – San Francisco

Hyde and Golden Gate

This is panel one of a new mural on the U.S. Postal Service office building at the corner of Hyde and Golden Gate. It was done by Johanna Poethig, whose work we saw in The Tenderloin National Forest and Tutubi Plaza. This mural is titled humming with life. If you hop over to her blog. where she has posted lots of pictures of the activities that took place around her while she was installing this blog you get a sense of how apt the title its.

This is directly from her blog – “Humming With Life”, the title of this mural is an understatement. The Post Office building at the corner of Hyde and Golden Gate is a magnet for drug dealers, crack addicts and homeless folks looking for a spot to lie down. The Tenderloin has long been the neighborhood that offers services to the down and out so this is where they live with the vibrant mix of cultures and community in the North of Market of downtown San Francisco. The Civic Center Post Office does not sell stamps or send mail. It has endless rows of post office boxes for people without permanent addresses.”

She has truly added a bright spot in a rather sorry part of town.

Update: The Post Office is slated for demolition.

The Tenderloin National Forest

Posted by Cindy on July 12, 2011

Jul 122011

Steel Gate by Kevin Leeper

I stopped short when I saw this beautiful gate. It is the entry to Cohen Alley off Leavenworth, near Eddy. This is the Tenderloin, an area of town that starts many a conversation. It has a fascinating history, if you are interested, head over to wikipedia. I was amazed at the things I learned about this area.

What most people think about the Tenderloin is high crime, but at the same time the high concentration of apartment buildings in the Tenderloin gives it the densest population (people per square mile) in the city, and also the highest proportion of families and children.

It is also one of the poorest, with a median family income of around $20K, a figure that is less half the overall city average. The area has a large number of immigrants from Asia, Southeast Asia and Latin America, and the 2004 demographic summary stated that the Tenderloin is home to the city’s entire Cambodian population.”

Kevin Leeper is a San Francisco Art Institute graduate and part time teacher at Diablo Valley College. He designed and fabricated the gate in 1993 in response to the local residents wish to have a more secure area at night. What this door opens onto is “The Tenderloin National Forest”. In 1989 a group of artists formed the nonprofit Luggage Store Gallery. The artists annexed the 25 by 136 foot alley and began slowly transforming it. The idea to build a forest was sparked when the group covered the area with rolls of sod as part of one of its many public events. The forest consists of cherry, cypress and Japanese maple trees plus a pair of redwoods, the tallest of which is four stories high. Edible plants and herbs grow in raised boxes, and aloe, cactus, ginkgo and ferns are scattered throughout.

I was unable to find the artist that did this mural.

The site is now officially sanctioned by the city, which charges the gallery a symbolic annual rent of $1. It is left open for visitors daily between roughly noon and 5 p.m.

These “Guardians” are by Johanna Poethig. We have seen her work in Tutubi Plaza

This is the bottom half of Woon Socket. The top half can be seen over the fence in the first photograph. This is by Ricardo Richey and Andrew Schoultz.

These amazing mosaics are entitled cultural geometry by Rigo 23 a Portuguese muralist, painter, and political artist.

I borrowed this from the San Francisco Chronicle, I just really needed you to see the entire mosaic. This was obviously taken during the installation, the greenery is so much more lush and the trees so much bigger, you would not get this shot today.

Tutubi Plaza – Dragonflies

Posted by Cindy on June 2, 2011

Jun 022011

Tutubi Plaza – SOMA – San Francisco

This little area has become a hub for the Filipino Community in the San Francisco area. Tutubi means dragonfly in Tagalog. This mural is by Johanna Poethig.. Johanna was born in the Philippines, so I am sure this was especially important to her. She received her BFA from UC Santa Cruz and her MFA from Mills, she presently is an arts educator at Cal State U in Monterey. She has an amazing array of public work that you can see at her website. Many of them are in San Francisco.

Behind this wall is a children’s park. The fence that surrounds it is also part of the Redevelopment project. The fence surrounding it is by Amy Blackstone.