Cindy

Evan Bissell captures Artists on the Streets of SF

 Posted by on September 1, 2012
Sep 012012
 

Folsom and 17th
Mission District

“I write to organize my thoughts.
I spit poems because it feels empowering
to know there is a room full of people there to listen.”

This is Luara Venturi, a local spoken word poet, as depicted by Evan Bissell.

The Intersection for the Arts’ show “Somewhere in Advance of Nowhere* youth, imagination and transformation” took place in 2008. Bissell’s paintings of young artists from Youth Speaks were put around the city as a teaser for the show.  The site for each was chosen by the subject, the location being one with some personal meaning to the poet. In this case, Venturi chose the former address of Youth Speaks which used to be housed nearby.

Evan has other pieces around San Francisco depicting fellow artists. Bissell is a 2005 graduate of Wesleyan University with a double major in Painting and American Studies with an Ethnic Studies concentration.  He was trained in 2011 as a circle keeper by Sujatha Baliga.

If you would like to hear Luara read her poem, you can do so at this webpage.

Muertos in the Mission

 Posted by on August 31, 2012
Aug 312012
 

Valencia Street

Between 15th and 19th Streets

Mission District

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 These tree grates are part of Phase One of the Valencia Streetscape Improvement Project.  They were designed by DPW architects John Dennis and Martha Ketterer and manufactured by Iron Age Grates company.

Phase one of the Valencia Streetscape Improvement Project included removal of the striped center median, sidewalk widening, bulb-outs, more accommodating curbside loading zones for trucks, improved traffic, parking and bicycle lane alignments, the removal of the striped center median, pedestrian scale lighting, art elements, bike racks, and new street trees.

The project included the replacement and addition of 76,000 square feet of sidewalk and the installation of pedestrian bulbouts to provide traffic calming, facilitate street crossing and add space for gathering. Additional improvements included the planting of 106 Brisbane Box and London Plane trees along the sidewalks, new trash receptacles, 69 bike racks, 32 wheel chair accessible curb ramps, 26 roadway-scale lights and 46 pedestrian-scale lights. Four Victorian-themed street posts, uniquely designed for Valencia Street through the San Francisco Arts Commission, were also installed. This public art feature entitled ‘Valencia Street Post’ was installed by artist Michael Arcega.

The cost of the program was $6.1 million and was funded through a combination of a multi-year federal transportation bill called the Safe Accountable Flexible Efficient Transportation Equity Act (“SAFETEA“) and two Transportation for Livable Communities (TLC) federal grants with local matching funds.

Hermes and Dionysus Shake it Up

 Posted by on August 30, 2012
Aug 302012
 

411 Sansome Street
Financial District

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This bronze, done in 1986, titled Hermes and Dionysus-Monument to Analysis is by Arman. (1928-2005)

 The French-born American artist Arman told an interviewer in 1968. “I have never been — how do you say it? A dilettante.” Arman’s vast artistic output ranges from drawings and prints to monumental public sculpture. His work—strongly influenced by Dada, and in turn a strong influence on Pop Art—is in the collections of such institutions as the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Tate Gallery in London and the Centre Pompidou in Paris.

Born in Nice in 1928, Armand Pierre Fernandez signed his early work with his first name only; he retained a printer’s 1958 misspelling of his name for the rest of his career. After studies at the Ecole Nationale des Arts Décoratifs in Nice, Arman went to Paris to study art history at the Ecole du Louvre.

Enamored by the artistic energy of New York in the ’60s, Arman moved into the Chelsea Hotel in 1967, and became an American citizen (adopting the official name of Armand P. Arman) in 1973.

Throughout his career, Arman remained passionately engaged with human rights issues important to him. For five years, he served as President of the New York Chapter of Artists for Amnesty International. In 1990, on the occasion of a major retrospective of his work that was to be the inaugural attraction at the Museum of Contemporary and Modern Art in his hometown of Nice, Arman made a major statement against religious prejudice. Only weeks before the scheduled opening, Nice hosted the convention of the Front National, a right-wing French political party whose guest of honor had been a German Neo-Nazi. The Mayor of Nice honored the F.N., and in the uproar that followed made anti-Semitic remarks. In protest, Arman cancelled the retrospective, and, as a consequence, waited until 2002 for his work to be exhibited in the city of his birth. Some friends had advised Arman not to mix politics with art. He responded, “If you are not willing to mix with politics sometimes, politics may one day mix with you—whether you want it or not.”

After passing away in 2005 his wife, Corice Canton Arman, formed the Arman P. Arman Trust, which handles his work today.

 Hermes and Dionysus is part of the Embarcadero Center Art Collection. The collection was created by Embarcadero Center developer David Rockefeller and Embarcadero Center architect John C. Portman, Jr., who shared the vision of integrating fine architecture with fine art.

Parisian Street Artist Tags the Asian Art Museum

 Posted by on August 29, 2012
Aug 292012
 

McAllister and Hyde
Wall of the Asian Art Museum
Civic Center

 

UPDATE: The artist on this is actually an artist from Iowa that goes by TheUpside.

 

Apparently the UpTown Almanac and I spotted this one at the same time.  Here is what they wrote:

Tim Hallman, the Asian Art Museum’s Communications Director, dropped us a line about the beautiful piece:

I think the Asian Art Museum got “tagged” by this famous Parisian street artist. No confirmation from the artist yet, though. It appeared overnight on the McAllister Street side of the building, near Hyde. We didn’t hire her, but we like it.

The artist in question is Mademoiselle Maurice, who has been lighting up the streets of Paris, Hong Kong, and Vietnam with her rainbow-patterned origami art for the past few months.

 

Arnold Genthe’s Photography at CCSF Chinatown Campus

 Posted by on August 28, 2012
Aug 282012
 

Washington and Kearny
Chinatown

Diligence is the path

Up the mountain of knowledge

Hard work is the boat

Across the endless sea of learning

This is the Washington street side of the new Chinatown campus of San Francisco City College.  This particular window is the library.  The archival photograph is by San Franciscan Arnold Genthe.  This young immigrant girl in traditional Chinese dress gazing out at the city is the cover photograph for the book Genthe’s Photographs of San Francisco’s Old Chinatown.

She is framed by a couplet, in English and in Chinese calligraphy, metaphorically extolling the cultural virtues diligence and hard work as the “path up the mountain of knowledge and the boat across the endless sea of learning.” For years this poem has been displayed on the student bulletin board at the Filbert campus, but no one is quite sure of its origin.

Genthe’s autobiography, As I Remember (1936), is the chief source of information about his life. In it, Genthe recounts a cosmopolitan upbringing in Berlin, Frankfurt, Korbach, and Hamburg. His father, Hermann Genthe, was a professor of Latin and Greek and, later in life, founded and served as director of a gymnasium or preparatory school.

Under his father’s tutelage, young Arnold grew up well versed in topics from poetry to classical literature

In 1895 he accepted an offer to tutor the young son of Baron F. Heinrich von Schroeder when the family moved to San Francisco. Thus began a new life for Genthe in America.

Genthe’s first photographs were made while in the employ of the von Schroeders to illustrate his letters home.

Genthe became involved in photography at a crucial juncture in the history of the medium. The introduction of the hand-held camera and easier methods for development and printing encouraged many people to try photography.

Genthe opened his first portrait photography studio in San Francisco in 1898 and became very active in the city’s cultural and social milieu. At the socially prominent Bohemian Club, he mingled with artists, writers, theater people, community and business leaders, and entertained famous out-of-town visitors. Through contacts at the illustrated weekly The Wave, he met Frank Norris, Jack London, and Mary Austen.

Even as the San Francisco earthquake and fire in 1906 destroyed Genthe’s studio, equipment, books, and art collection, he used a borrowed camera to document the events as they unfolded. Genthe and Ashton Stevens, drama critic for the San Francisco Examiner, toured the ruins with visiting celebrity Sarah Bernhardt.

Intrigued by San Francisco’s Chinatown, he shot a series of photographs documenting life there before the destruction of the city in 1906. About 200 photographs in the series survive.

Dancing Dahlias on Claude Lane

 Posted by on August 27, 2012
Aug 272012
 

8 Claude Lane

Union Square/Financial District

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This mural, (on  the outside of Claudine Restaurant) is by Vogue TDK.  According to an interview he did with 1:AM he got into graffiti in late 1984, after school, I turned on the TV to the local PBS station and caught the start of the documentary “Style Wars”.  There was a scene where there was a MTA train moving down the tracks, then the train curves to show some graff and that was it.  I was hooked and knew that is what I was going to do.

As far as why he is the artist he is today: I always did some sort of art throughout school.  With the help of my parents, after graduating high school, I attended Academy of Arts in San Francisco, majoring in graphic design.  After two years of that, I switched majors to illustration for another two years.  During my schooling at the Academy, I incorporated my spray painting in both my homework and random jobs. A lot of what I learned at school translated on to the constant painting I did at the 23rd Oakland tracks.  On the flip side, what I learned from my fellow graff peers and what I learned on my own also started appearing in my schoolwork.

 The mural that flows to the interior of the restaurant is by Leon Loucheur, who is responsible for the Make Moves mural in SOMA.   Leon is part of the Chamber Made Group.

Muni brings art to an industrial building

 Posted by on August 25, 2012
Aug 252012
 

700 Pennsylvania

Potrero Hill

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The Muni Ways and Structures Facility is located at 700 Pennsylvania Street at the base of Potrero Hill. The facility centralizes several Muni functions, including, among others, a machine shop, welding, carpentry, painting, and locksmith. Although the size and shape of the complex is unchanged from its former role as an overhead-door factory, it has been given a colorful new life through the work of San Francisco artist Robert Catalusci. The exterior walls are now painted ox-blood red and graphite with silver and copper-green accents. In addition to custom paint design, the artist designed massive steel gates and four 18-square-foot sculptural panels over the building’s four roll-up doors. The three-dimensional ‘waffle’ pattern of the gates and panels is painted in high-gloss silver that is slightly reflective so that the structures appear to change with the light throughout the day.

Catalusci’s gate and panel designs and bold paint application were inspired by the industrial and transportation orientation of the complex. He selected color to symbolize the ethnic diversity of the design team and Muni workers. For instance, he chose red as the color of international workers, and graphite and silver for their associations with industry and metal work. The artist worked in tandem with city architects, in particular Howard Wong, AIA, and the rest of the design and construction team throughout the five-year renovation project. In addition to the custom paint design, Catalusci, who hails from a family of builders, drafted plans for the huge gates and produced final drawings.

As a fine artist, Catalusci usually creates multi-media and large-scale three-dimensional sculpture based on architecture. He holds a B.F.A. from the San Francisco Art Institute and has exhibited regionally, in several private venues and at the San Francisco Arts Commission Gallery and the Capp Street Project.

Robert Catalusci’s work on the design and construction of the 700 Pennsylvania Muni Ways and Structures Facility was commissioned by the San Francisco Arts Commission for the San Francisco Municipal Railway. The commission is a result of the city’s percent for art ordinance, which provides for an art allocation of 2% of the cost of construction of new or renovated city structures.

Joseph B. Strauss, Golden Gate Bridge Engineer

 Posted by on August 24, 2012
Aug 242012
 

Golden Gate Bridge

 

Joseph Strauss (1870-1938) was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, to an artistic family of German origin, having a mother who was a pianist and a father, Raphael Strauss, who was a writer and painter. He graduated from the University of Cincinnati in 1892.  Strauss graduated with a degree in economics and business.

He was hospitalized while in college and his hospital room overlooked the John A. Roebling Suspension Bridge. This sparked his interest in bridges. Upon graduating from the University of Cincinnati, Strauss worked at the Office of Ralph Modjeski, a firm which specialized in building bridges. At that time, bascule bridges were built with expensive iron counterweights. He proposed using cheaper concrete counterweights in place of iron. When his ideas were rejected, he left the firm and started his own firm, the Strauss Bascule Bridge Company of Chicago, where he revolutionized the design of bascule bridges.

Strauss was a prolific engineer, constructing some 400 drawbridges across the U.S. He dreamed of building “the biggest thing of its kind that a man could build.” In 1919, San Francisco’s city engineer, Michael O’Shaughnessy, approached Strauss about bridging the Golden Gate, the narrow, turbulent passage where San Francisco Bay meets the Pacific Ocean. Strauss caught fire with the idea, campaigning tirelessly over the next decade to build the bridge. He faced enormous opposition from the “Old Guard” — environmentalists, ferry operators, city administrators, and even the engineering community. Yet in November 1930, a year into the Great Depression, voters at last supported a bond issue for Strauss’ bridge. The ambitious project finally had its green light. On May 27, 1937, the bridge opened to the public. Returning to his other great love, poetry, Strauss composed verse for the occasion, exulting, “At last, the mighty task is done.” It would be the last mighty task of his life. Exhausted, Strauss moved to Arizona to recover. Within a year, he would die of a stroke. – The Bancroft Library, UC Berkeley

Strauss alienated many people in his quest to build the structure — his first suspension bridge. Obsessed with claiming credit as the span’s creator, he minimized the acknowledgement given to Charles Ellis and Leon Moissieff, the two visionaries who actually worked out the significant engineering challenges of building the bridge. Strauss’ detractors blocked the statue of the chief engineer proposed for the bridge plaza; his widow would eventually fund its creation in 1941, inscribing it, “Joseph B. Strauss, 1870-1938, ‘The Man Who Built the Bridge.'”

The sculptor for the statue was Frederick W. Schweigardt. Born in Lorch, Germany on May 3, 1885. Schweigardt studied at the Munich and Stuttgart Academies and with Auguste Rodin in Paris. He immigrated to America in 1930 and the following year settled in San Francisco. He was active in San Diego during the time of the California Pacific Exposition in 1935. He died on Sept. 21, 1948 while visiting in Albany, NY.

The sculpture itself is bronze and stands 7 feet tall, it was done for a commission of $10,000.

Photo Courtesy of San Francisco Public Library

Newscopy: STATUE TO STRAUSS–Mrs. Annette Strauss today pulled the strings that unveiled a memorial statue of her late husband, Joseph B. Strauss, who designed and built the Golden Gate Bridge. The statue stands at the toll plaza between two pillars overlooking the Golden Gate. It was executed by Frederick W. Schweigardt, San Francisco sculptor.”.

The bridge plaza was remodeled and upgraded for the Golden Gate Bridges 75th Anniversary. There is now a  new Bridge Pavilion and new Cable Overlook, (named for an impressive sample of the cable of this suspension bridge). There’s a new main plaza leading out to the relocated statue of Joseph Strauss. Down from the plaza are other view terraces, one of which incorporates part of the c.1902 Lancaster battery structure, a reminder of when this was a military installation. The Bridge Round House (a restaurant until the ’70s) and the 1938 Bridge Cafe were both restored as well.

San Francisco’s Fire Chiefs House

 Posted by on August 23, 2012
Aug 232012
 

870 Bush Street

In Memorium

Dennis T Sullivan

1838-1906

By fire shall hearts be proven, lest virtue’s gold grow dim, and his by fire was tested, in life’s ordeal of him. Now California renders the laurels that we won “dead on the field of Honor” her hero and her son.

Dennis T. Sullivan was the revered chief engineer of the San Francisco Fire Department at the time of the Great Earthquake and Fire. He was at the Chief’s Quarters, 410 Bush Street, during the disaster, and was mortally injured when he fell through the floor and into the cellar. According to eyewitnesses, brick chimneys and the dome of the California Hotel crashed 60 feet through the adjoining fire station, which housed Chemical Company No. 3, as well as Chief Engineer Sullivan and his wife Margaret.

Sullivan lingered near death for four days and finally died at the Presidio’s U.S. Army General Hospital, where he was taken when the Southern Pacific Company Hospital at Fourteenth and Mission streets was evacuated because of the fire.

City Architect John Reid Jr. designed the new Fire Chief’s residence in the 1920’s to look like a firehouse. San Francisco was the country’s first city to have a separate building for its chief. It is now Official City Landmark No. 42.

According to the San Francisco Municipal Record of October 1925:

Some time after Chief Sullivan’s death a fund of more than $15,000 was raised by subscription to build some sort of a memorial to his memory. It was placed out at interest owing to the fact that the trustees of the fund were unable to agree upon what sort of a memorial should be built.

For several years the matter of building a home for the Fire Chief in the place of temporary shack that had been provided after the fire of 1906 by the City on Willow avenue, an alley west of Van Ness avenue, had been under discussion. The matter had been delayed owing to differences of opinion as to a location for the home, and the further fact that, owing to the very great advance in the cost of building material, an appropriation of $15,000, provided by the Supervisors, had become wholly inadequate for a building in this district, which was within the fire limits and was required to be of fire-proof construction.

At this juncture and after two appropriations had been made for two succeeding years in the annual budgets, and when hope that the building would ever be erected was almost despaired of, the trustees of the Sullivan Memorial Fund decided to assist in the building of the home and that is should be known as the Sullivan Memorial. The original amount of the Sullivan subscription had been increased, through the interest earned, to almost $20,000 and, together with the $15,000 provided by the Supervisors, was sufficient to build the home shown in the accompanying picture.

The plaque was designed by M. Earl Cummings whose work can be found all over San Francisco.

 

San Francisco Municipal Record:

On either side are two bronze doors which swing open and which enclose the garage in which the automobiles of the Chief stand always in readiness. The door to the right of the picture is the entrance leading up to the home itself, which is located on the second and third stories. On the ground floor at the left of the building is a window of the room for the Fire Chief’s operators. There are three beds in the room, and other conveniences for the men, who sleep there, one man always being on duty. The house is connected directly with the Central Fire Alarm Station.

The present fire chief does not occupy the house.

Professor Wangari Maathi

 Posted by on August 22, 2012
Aug 222012
 

Haight and Pierce Street

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The main character of this mural is Professor Wangari Maathi.

Wangari Muta Maathai was born in Nyeri, Kenya (Africa) in 1940. The first woman in East and Central Africa to earn a doctorate degree. Wangari Maathai obtained a degree in Biological Sciences from Mount St. Scholastica College in Atchison, Kansas (1964). She subsequently earned a Master of Science degree from the University of Pittsburgh (1966). While serving on the National Council of Women she began a broad-based, grassroots organization focused on women planting trees in order to conserve the environment and improve their quality of life. Through this Green Belt Movement she has assisted women in planting more than 20 million trees on their farms, schools and church compounds.

Wangari Maathai is internationally recognized for her persistent struggle for democracy, human rights and environmental conservation.

In December 2002, Professor Maathai was elected to parliament with an overwhelming 98% of the vote. She was subsequently appointed by the president, as Assistant Minister for Environment, Natural Resources and Wildlife in Kenya’s ninth parliament.  In 2004 she became the first African woman to receive the Nobel Peace Prize.

She died in 2011 from ovarian cancer.

The remaining characters depicted are typical San Francisco residents.  The Street Sheet, held up by the man on the left is a homeless newspaper published as a way to disseminate information and for the homeless to make money.

There were two artists on this piece.Kate Decicco and  Delvin Kenobe. Kenobe is an artist who is very versatile in style from surealism, photorealism, abstraction, and illustration and animation. His goal is to create change in the world by creating socially conscious works that directly tap into the soul of the viewer.

 

 

Get your insane Cheesburger here

 Posted by on August 20, 2012
Aug 202012
 

7th and Mission

SOMA

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 This hamburger, and many others around town, are by Steel.  He is a man in the pursuit of a good time.  He enjoys good jokes, good friends and good  cheeseburgers.  In his spare time he does artwork in San Francisco and anywhere he travels.

 Another of his talents is designing hats.  Check out his “Murder at Midnight” at Goorin Brothers.   Murder at Midnight is part of the 1331 Minna Line of hats by Goorin Brothers.

The 1333 Minna Line is a limited edition artist line founded in San Francisco. The collection began with a few local artist partnering and has now expanded to a universal roster of illustrators, tattooers, graffiti writers, painters, designers and photographers. The principles of community and collaboration are found in every piece.

Slow Down, Children at Play on Tehama Streeet

 Posted by on August 19, 2012
Aug 192012
 

449 Tehama

SOMA

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This mural is on the Tehama Street side of the Cingular Wireless building at 951 Howard Street.  It was painted as a neighborhood beautification and community enhancement project. Cingular Wireless sponsored the mural entitled “Slow Down: Children at Play,” and features the faces of neighborhood children and pets intertwined with forms that reference the shadows from the trees and architecture of the street.

Supervised by Sharon Anderson, it was painted with the help of lots of people from the neighborhood.

According to the Fog City Journal July 30 2006 Article:

“Our network team is in this building,” Cingular director of public relations Lauren Garner told the Sentinel.

“We spent a lot time painting over the graffiti and when Sharon and Laura approached us to do the mural we knew it was a perfect solution because we really wanted to be a good corporate neighbor with the community because we work here as well.”

Sharon Anderson, a six-year resident of Tehama Street, related the mural history.
“My neighbor Laura Weil saw the wall and saw that it needed to have something here in this open space, so we’ve been talking for a couple of years about what to do and how to do it,” Anderson opened the press conference. “At some point I realized, ‘Hey, I’m an artist – I can do this.’ “But we needed a lot of help so between Laura and I… we just began slowly getting the Tehama Street Neighbors Association involved and we approached Cingular. “So between Cingular, Tehama Street Neighborhood Association, we came up with the mural which features shapes and forms from the neighborhood.

Benny Bufano at Fort Mason

 Posted by on August 17, 2012
Aug 172012
 
Fort Mason Green
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Peace by Benny Bufano

Benjamin Bufano has many pieces throughout San Francisco.

This statue, featuring a child within a larger statue represents the peaceful blending of cultures.

The green sits on the hill above the actual fort.  Called Fort Mason since 1882, the location at Point San Jose, as this area was known, was originally little more than a field of sand dunes. Following the Spanish American War, however, the military realized the need for its own shipping facility on the San Francisco waterfront.

As the United States began establishing a presence in the Pacific, Fort Mason’s shallow cove was soon home to  three piers and  four warehouses.  By World War II, the fort was the headquarters for the San Francisco Port of Embarkation and over 20 million tons of cargo and more than a million troops were deployed through here. Fort Mason loaded ships like the Liberty Jeremiah O’Brien, which can now be seen at Pier 45.  Also active through the Korean War and the early 1960s, Fort Mason ceased transportation depot operations in 1964.

In 1972, due to legislation introduced and supported by Congressman Phil Burton, Ft. Mason and 34,000 acres of shore land were designated as a National Park. Known as the Golden Gate Recreation Area, it became the largest urban National Park in the world.

Fort Mason is once again in for some changes.  On May 6th the San Francisco Chronicle ran a story announcing that the city is hosting a design competition seeking “creative and practical design concepts” for the 13 acres of parking lots and former military buildings that sit midway between Aquatic Park and Marina Green.

 

Herakut and Rusk Paint the Tenderloin

 Posted by on August 16, 2012
Aug 162012
 
The Tenderloin / Polk Gulch
Hemlock and Polk
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The area under this fire escape in Hemlock Alley has been the home to many worldwide known graffiti artists. Roa was featured here not too long ago.

This piece is by Arkut, Hera (who often paint as Herakut) and Rusk, all from Germany.

HERA, 27 years of age, born in Frankfurt, is looking back on a straight and classic art education with taking lessons from old weirdo artists, starting from when she was eight. That plus her never-ending years of studying Graphic Design account for her preferences today: she says, she would rather paint in the rain than do work at a desk. Even though that kind of weather might get you sick and makes it hard to foresee the final result of your piece because it keeps washing all pigments off the wall – it is still better than doing some tedious office work.

AKUT, 31 years, decided to take a ride when the graffiti wave reached his hometown Schmalkalden. Together with CASE, TASSO and RUSK, he formed the MA’CLAIM Crew, which is nowadays worldwide renowned for their photorealistic style in graffiti. AKUT studied Visual Communications at the Bauhaus University in Weimar.

RUSK is from Berlin.

MA’CLAIM has a wonderful blog if you are interested in seeing other works.

Stylefile interviewed Arkut and Hera, the interview is very enlightening and what I found interesting is that Hera mentioned that she was especially fond of Os Gemeos, whose work you can see here.

Dancers and Musicians on the Performing Arts Garage

 Posted by on August 15, 2012
Aug 152012
 
Civic Center
Performing Arts Garage
Grove and Gough Streets
 
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The Dancing Musicians and The Dancer by Joan Brown 1986-1986  Bronze
Joan Brown has several pieces around San Francisco.  These pieces were commissioned by the San Francisco Arts Commision.  The flautist and guitar player are twelve feet high and five feet wide and sit on the outside of the fifth floor of the garage.  The smaller dancer sits on the first floor. The simplified silhouettes are based on the classic Greek black-figures found on Etruscan pottery.

Future’s Past by Kate Raudenbush

 Posted by on August 14, 2012
Aug 142012
 
Hayes Valley
Patricia’s Green
 This photo is courtesy of the Black Rock Arts Website and was taken at Burning Man.
 Future’s Past by Kate Raudenbush

The Hayes Valley Art Coalition explains the piece like this:

Futures Past is a sculptural environment of two contrasting worlds. The 12-foot pyramid reflects the architectural temples of the renowned collapsed civilization of the Maya. The tree honors the jungle ruins of Ta Prohm in Angkor, Cambodia. Together they illustrate a cautionary tale for our modern world and our digital gods, with an interior alter that holds a black sand hourglass that marks the passing of an era of unbridled over consumption and pollution. It’s purpose is to foster an awareness of the effects of our actions in the present moment: our future’s past is now.

The laser-cut welded steel sculpture reaches 24 feed in height and weighs 7,000 pounds. The pyramid welcomes explores inside at the ground level but is not climbable.

This is how the author Kate Raudenbush explains her piece.

Future’s Past was commissioned by the Burning Man event in August 2010 in the Nevada desert. The theme this year was “Metropolis: The Life of Cities”. I chose to address the concept of modern development by creating a cautionary tale of collapse. Future’s Past is a modern ruin, an architectural artifact found in the future. Once built as a monument to technological progress, this pyramid of system circuitry has been abandoned through unchecked consumptive collapse, but reclaimed by the resilience of natural forces, and evolved consciousness, symbolically represented by the roots of a sacred Bodhi tree, a symbol of Siddhartha’s seat of enlightenment, and our own.

She describes herself: Kate Raudenbush is a New York City based artist who creates allegorical environments as a form of social dialogue. Mixing visual symbolism cross-culturally within human history and mythology, geometry and architecture, her art finds inspiration within the micro and macro viewpoints of our natural and manufactured worlds. She utilizes welded and laser-cut metal, acrylic, mirror, sound and light to shape her designs into climbable, enveloping environments and sacred spaces that are given more meaning with each visitor’s participation. In this way, the artwork is not just an object to behold, but also an experience to be lived.

The chrome post that is sitting in front of this piece is a Ghinlon/Transcope by Po Shu Wang that you can read about here.

Kenzo’s Octopus on Fell Street

 Posted by on August 13, 2012
Aug 132012
 

Civic Center/Hayes Valley

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155 Fell Street

 This is titled Big Octopus and is by Kenzo. Kenzo, (Aleix Gordo Hostau)  is from Barcelona, you can see his other work around San Francisco here or his own flicker photo stream here.

Around San Francisco with Victor Reyes

 Posted by on August 12, 2012
Aug 122012
 
Around Town With Victor Reyes
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23rd and Mission
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This was done by Victor Reyes in 2010.  Reyes has several murals around San Francisco.

Reyes has been painting since the early 90s, and has shown extensively around the world in cities and countries such as Bosnia, Germany, Switzerland, Taipei, Japan, and Miami. Reyes is inspired by his peers, including a community of new California artists “The Seventh Letter,” who play an integral role in the development and motivation for his body of work.  Reyes, who has no formal art training, moved to San Francisco in 1998 and took a variety of jobs for rent money – he’s a freelance illustrator now.

Reyes did the black and white on this mural that can be found on Washburn off Mission near 9th Street.  The colors were done by Steel and Revok.

 

 

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This is the Mission Street side of the same building.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Around Town with muralist Amanda Lynn

 Posted by on August 11, 2012
Aug 112012
 
Amanda Lynn around Town
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Sunday Flamenco by Amanda Lynn – 2012
18th and Mission

Amanda Lynn works by day restoring and painting motorcycles and metal sculptures. When she is not working, she paints figures on doorways and walls around San Francisco and throughout the country, usually accompanying graffiti mural productions. As well as concentrating on her fine art career of painting seductive female imagery on large scale canvases.

She studied at the Academy of Art in San Francisco and received a Bachelor’s of Fine Art with an Illustration major. You can see more of her work here on her website or here in this site.

9th and Mission – SOMA

Alabama and 22nd

 

Mission Cultures Mosaics

 Posted by on August 10, 2012
Aug 102012
 
The Mission District
Start on Hoff and 16th cross the Street and continue on Julian
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Gold Rush
Low Riders
 Immigration
 Asian Influence
 Carnival
These panels were done in 2001 by students participating in the St. John’s Educational Thresholds, Panel Project as part of the Urban Artworks program.
They represent various parts of Mission District heritage and culture.
In 2008, after 35 years, St John’s Education Threshold Center changed its name to Mission Graduates.  Mission Graduates is a nonprofit organization that increases the number of K-12 students in San Francisco’s Mission District who are prepared for and complete a college education.

I Can Cheezburger’s Invisible Bike

 Posted by on August 9, 2012
Aug 092012
 
Chinatown
End of Quincy Street
 Josh Zubkoff’s Invisible Bike
This was taken right after the piece was finished in 2008

This is the image the mural originated from.  It is from Ben Hu’s blog I can Cheezburger

Josh graduated in 2003 from UC Santa Barbara, with a B.A. in Studio Art.  He is presently a system administrator with AdInfuse in San Francisco.

His website shows the vast array of mediums he enjoys working in.  Josh documented a goodly portion of what was going on from beginning to end on his blog.  You have to scroll through quite a bit, but it is actually very, very funny and worth the read.

 

Wood Line by Andy Goldsworthy

 Posted by on August 8, 2012
Aug 082012
 

Wood Line by Andy Goldsworthy
Presidio

 

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This is the second piece by Andy Goldsworthy in the Presidio. The first is Spire.
In 2010, Goldsworthy looked to a new part of the park for inspiration – a historic eucalyptus grove near the Presidio’s oldest footpath, Lovers’ Lane. Eucalyptus were planted here by the U.S. Army more than a century ago, with lines of cypress trees occasionally weaved in among the regimented rows. Outcompeted, the cypress declined, leaving a large gap in the grove.

Goldsworthy fills this empty space with a quiet and graceful sculpture. Where Spire reaches for the stars, Wood Line flows elegantly into the valley of the Tennessee Hollow Watershed. To create the piece, Goldsworthy laid eucalyptus branches on the ground to form a sinuous line that, in his words, “draws the place.” The wood was sourced from various Presidio projects that required tree removal, including Doyle Drive reconstruction, environmental remediation, and habitat restoration.

Wood Line is located within the cypress grove near the intersection of Presidio Boulevard and West Pacific Avenue, just off Lovers’ Lane.

Make Moves

 Posted by on August 7, 2012
Aug 072012
 

Make Moves
SOMA
170 South VanNess

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This is a 1:AM gallery mural

The mastermind behind the Make Moves mural is 1:AM Art Director/Co-Owner, Roman Cesario.  The 1AM mural is a collaboration between their in-house artists.  They are Leon Loucheur , Robert Gonzales , Gavin Fuller , Roman Cesario , and Jessico Serrano.  This mural represents the ability to overcome, hustle , grind, work together , and rebuild. Anyone can be or do anything , there are no limits.  Roman and the team  at 1AM have a vision to spread positive messages through vibrant murals that will motivate and inspire people

There is a photo of it without any cars on Leon Loucheur’s website and also 1:AM Gallery’s site.

Philo T. Farnsworth

 Posted by on August 6, 2012
Aug 062012
 

1 Letterman Drive
The Presidio

Philo T. Farnswroth (August 19, 1906 – March 11, 1971) was an American inventor and television pioneer. Although he made many contributions that were crucial to the early development of all-electronic television, he is perhaps best known for inventing the first fully functional all-electronic image pickup device (video camera tube), the “image dissector”, the first fully functional and complete all-electronic television system, and for being the first person to demonstrate such a system to the public. Farnsworth developed a television system complete with receiver and camera, which he produced commercially in the firm of the Farnsworth Television and Radio Corporation, from 1938 to 1951. In 1999, TIME magazine included Farnsworth in “The TIME 100: The Most Important People of the Century.

This sculpture sits on the grounds of the Letterman Digital Arts Campus and is by Lawrence Noble.

Eadweard Muybridge

 Posted by on August 4, 2012
Aug 042012
 

1 Letterman Drive

The Presidio

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Eadweard James Muybridge was an English photographer who pioneered photographic studies of motion and in motion-picture projection. Muybridge was the inspiration for the umbrellas sculpture by Benjy Young.  The horses galloping across the top of the pedestal are of extreme significance. His study of horses in motion, sponsored by Leland Stanford, was instrumental in ensuring him a spot in California history.

This sculpture sits on the Letterman Digital Arts campus and is by Lawrence Noble.

 

Gigantes in the Mission

 Posted by on August 3, 2012
Aug 032012
 
The Mission District
San Carlos and 19th
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All of us are equal
Some of us grow up to be Giants…
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This mural is by Precita Eyes.  This is the description of the mural from their website:
The “Gigantes” mural project can be read in three concepts; History, Community, and the Future. It features Hispanic players, two of whom are Hall of Famers. Historically, the Giants have been a significant landmark for San Francisco, the Bay Area, and the community of fans who surround them. For this reason the mural includes all four stadiums to represent the four stages of Giants history in placement of the bases on a baseball diamond that stretches from one end of the mural to the other.

Beginning from the left in New York’s Polo Grounds, the mural shows a line of pitchers as follows: Juan Marchal, Gaylord Perry, and a pitcher from the Women’s League who’s been converted to a Giants player.

At the far right, framing the mural on the opposite side of “the pitch” is Giant hitter Orlando Cepeda. Will Clark hits the home run blast to the left of Cepeda in an earthquake shaken Candlestick Park at the” Battle of the Bay” in 1989.

Other Hall of Famers included in the mural from left to right are: Willie Mays, “The Catch” (in New York), JT Snow (showing some fan appreciation), Barry Bonds (hitting the 756), Willie McCovey and the Alou brothers. The team mascot is Lucille the Seal representing the days when the Giants played in Seal Stadium. Lucille is dressed in a serape and sombrero, holding a maraca to celebrate the Hispanic flavor of the mural.

The Giants community is scattered throughout the mural from the fans to the different stadiums throughout history. Because the mural is being created in the Mission District and home to many Giants fans, the mural also features the Mission Reds, the minor league team from the Mission who played at the Seals Stadium in the 1920’s and 30’s. To the right, between Candlestick and Pac Bell Parks, the skyline of San Francisco embraces a few of the Mission District landmarks such as Mission Dolores, the New Mission Theater marquee and palm trees.

“Vamos Gigantes” (Go Giants) hovers above Seals Stadium and into the Mission, representing the saying, which Hispanic fans have come to use throughout the years.

The future of the Giants is celebrated by the fans, some of which are families and friends. A coach and Jr. Giants’ teammates congratulate their team player with cheers as she hits a winning ball.

The “blast” home run ball hit by Clark is representative of baseball as the fabric of America which weaves into our culture. The ball begins at the hit and moves across the entire mural in a pattern unifying players, fans, the 756 ball, stadiums, and future Giants, morphing into the world and ending with Mays’ famous catch.

Yoda

 Posted by on August 2, 2012
Aug 022012
 

 1 Letterman Drive

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Yoda by Lawrence Alan Noble

 

In 2005 the Letterman Hospital on the Presidio was torn down and in its place rose the Letterman Digital Arts Complex. This area is home to George Lucas’ Industrial Light and Magic (ILM), LucasArts and Lucas Films.

The entire campus is 23 acres. There are 17 acres of park and public open space, designed by Lawrence Halprin. Six acres house low-rise office buildings. More than 1500 employees have a dining commons, fitness center, and childcare center, as well as a theater and screening rooms. Of course, you will find Yoda watching over all the goings on. He is near the campus Starbucks, so wander over, enjoy the park and may the force be with you.

Lawrence Alan Noble is an artist/sculptor, born in Tampa, Florida in 1948. He was raised and educated in Houston, Texas and resides in Crestline, California. He is the owner of Noble Studio, a company founded in 1973, that specializes in design and sculpture.

 

 

 

Townsend CalTrain Station Mural

 Posted by on August 1, 2012
Aug 012012
 
SOMA
Caltrain Station at Townsend

This mural  is 60 feet long and 40 feet wide. The mural sits on the back of the Crescent Cove Apartments that back up to the Caltrain tracks.  (Caltrain is the commuter train line from San Jose to San Francisco).  To appreciate it completely please watch the video first.

Helllllooooo San Francisco from Brian Barneclo on Vimeo.

The mural is by Brian Barneclo.  Brian was born in Indianapolis, in 1972.  He studied painting and art history at Indiana University.  He moved to San Francisco in 1996 and found work as a sign painter, eventually his talents and experience morphed into mural painting.  As a child of the 70s he was influenced by Looney Tunes, Star Wars, skateboarding, punk, rock and rap music.
You can see the two JLG’s in the video and appreciate the magnitude of this project.
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Since the mural is on the railroad tracks, one has to stand on a ladder to clear a six foot fence in order to get photos.

According to the Systems Mural Project the mural explores connectivity, and the meaning of the mural is:

Systems are found in nature (the water cycle) and systems are created by man (the government). As we move into the 21st Century, what have we learned about sustainable systems- what works and what doesn’t. Should we revisit ancient technologies? Is the Industrial Age over? It’s through this conversation that we gain an understanding of, perhaps the most complicated systems of all, our systems of belief.

 

Breathing Flower by Choi Jeong Hwa graces SF Civic Center

 Posted by on July 31, 2012
Jul 312012
 
Civic Center
Larkin Street, San Francisco
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by Choi Jeon Hwa
Fabric with LEDs motor

This work of art is part of Phantoms of Asia: Contemporary Awakens the Past, an exhibition at the Asian Art Museum across the street.

The plaque accompanying the work reads:

The Breathing Flower, internationally acclaimed Korean artist Choi Jeong Hwa created an enormous lotus blossom from sheets of red fabric.  The large lotus appears full of life, its petals slowly inhaling and exhaling, simulating the movement of a live lotus flower.  In many Asian traditions, the lotus symbolizes the spiritual path a person takes through life towards enlightenment.  “I help you to feel and you find the art yourself”, says Choi, describing his work. One of his influences is the energy, power and natural harmony of urban street fairs, making Civic Center Plaza a fitting locale for Breathing Flower. Like much of his work, this installation in synthetic materials and Pop Art colors mimics (or reinterprets) beauty found in the natural world.


The Creators Project: Choi Jeong Hwa by TheCreatorsProject

Trapeze Artists in the Mission

 Posted by on July 30, 2012
Jul 302012
 
The Mission
Hoff and 16th Streets
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Bending Over Backwards by Susan R. Green 2010
This mural is part of the Break the Silence Mural and Arts Program. It is the beginning of a truly monumental mural project that will connect San Francisco’s Mission District with SOMA.  According to the website:

Bending Over Backwards (BOB) is a collaborative community, interactive and interdisciplinary project of re-membering and creating histories of the Mission and SOMA. BOB explores the high wire act that thriving in today’s world can be, providing visual and audio metaphors for the tenacious, exhilarating and daring flights made in the attempt to realize one’s dreams in San Francisco in the 21st century.

Trapeze artists (painted on wood cut-outs and attached to the wall) are pictured in two neighboring places in San Francisco: the Mission and SOMA. The figures are shown in an electrifying peak moment of their craft, embodying a mixture of whimsy, pathos and a sense of extraordinary possibility in their gravity-defying feat. The trapeze artists’ success is possible only with great discipline, communication, strength, teamwork, vision and humor; echoing some of the skills necessary for a viable life in the city of San Francisco. (The SOMA portion has not yet been completed).

Susan Green is a visiting professor at the San Francisco Art Institute. According to their website: Susan Greene is an artist, educator and clinical psychologist. Her practice straddles a range of arenas, new media, and public art; focusing on borders, migrations, decolonization, and memory. Through these projects Greene researches the intersections of trauma, creativity, resilience and resistance. Recently Greene has developed interdisciplinary site-specific projects that make use of social networking technologies and cell phone audio programs. Greene’s projects stretch from the streets and prisons of the USA to refugee camps of Palestine’s West Bank and Gaza. She is a founding member of Break the Silence Mural and Art Project and has a psychotherapy practice in San Francisco.

The bottom line of this reads: To Political Prisoners Everywhere. In Memory of Jon Kaplan and Tricia Sullivan. To Hear The Mural Speak – 415- 325-4474.

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