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Presidio Habitats – Ai Weiwei

Posted by Cindy on May 3, 2011

May 032011

Ai Weiwei first came into my consciousness when I read a Financial Times article about his Sunflower Seed exhibition at the Tate Modern. Please, Please, Please watch this amazing video of the exhibition, it explains the making of the seeds and the meaning of them as well.

Ai Weiwei is a Chinese artist and activist, who is also active in architecture, curating, photography, film, and social and cultural criticism. You know his work, he collaborated with Swiss architects Herzog & de Meuron as the artistic consultant on the Beijing National Stadium for the 2008 Olympics. (otherwise known as the bird’s nest) In addition to showing his art he has investigated government corruption and cover-ups. He was particularly focused at exposing an alleged corruption scandal in the construction of Sichuan schools that collapsed during the 2008 Sichuan earthquake. On April 3rd, 2011 police detained him at Beijing airport. This made the front page of most international newspapers. He has since been “disappeared” by China’s state security forces. Every trace of Ai’s life and art have been erased from the Chinese internet.

That is why this particular habitat was so special to me. “Ai Weiwei transformed a classical Chinese vessel type into a living environment for the Western Screech-Owl. The form selected by the artist also refers to the tree cavities that the owl chooses as its home. The porcelain vessels were produced in China using the age-old techniques of China’s imperial kilns. Each vessel features a unique, hand-painted blue-and-white design adapted from a classical Chinese pattern. These elegant and purposefully ornamental habitats evoke a range of associations—the Presidio’s Pacific Rim orientation, San Francisco’s Chinese heritage, and the transmission and transformation of culture through trade.”

Update: New York Times Article on June 21, 2012 regarding Ai Weiwei’s status

Presidio Habitat – American Robin

Posted by Cindy on May 2, 2011

May 022011

There are three signs creating this habitat. “Adapt to Change” “Resolve Conflict With Song” and the one way in the back that is hard to read says “Nest From the Inside Out”.

This habitat was built for the American Robin, by Philippe Becker Design. Each letter is framed with a steel armature and mesh netting that is filled with sterile straw. This particular habitat while providing ideal nesting material for the robin gives us humans a missive to ponder.

According to the Presidio Trust “The American Robin is the largest, most abundant, and most wide- spread North American thrush. The robin thrives in both natural and suburban habitats. In the latter, its loud, musical voice and backyard presence render it instantly recognizable. The robin forages in moist grass and nests in shade trees. Its diet is quite variable, consisting predominantly of soft invertebrates, especially earthworms, in spring and summer, and fruit in autumn and winter. Thriving in suburban parks and gardens, the robin often benefits from urbanization and agricultural development. American Robins are consistently among the most commonly sighted birds in the Presidio during the annual Audubon Society Christmas Bird Count.”

I shot these on a very, very sunny day in San Francisco, around 3:00 in the afternoon. I don’t think that you could catch better light, and yet they are still hard to read through the photographic eye. They are impossible to catch due to the density of the trees. This makes this habitat so absolutely delightful to be a part of and yet very difficult to photograph.

The Presidio – Habitat

Posted by Cindy on May 1, 2011

May 012011

Presidio Habitats.

This installation, A Habitat of Flight, is by Surface Design. Their explanation is that this is representative of the Red-Tail Hawks exploration. going through many different habitats, i.e. open spaces interspersed with trees or built structures.

The Red-tailed Hawk is one of the most commonly observed birds of prey in the Presidio as well as in North America. Generally monogamous, this species initiates courtship and maintains the pair bond with spectacular aerial maneuvers. The acrobatics are often accompanied by shrill cries by one or both mates. The Red-tailed Hawk can be seen hunting from the air as well as taking a sit-and-wait approach on elevated perch sites, most commonly, I have found, atop phone and electric poles. I guess that is what the artists were trying to show.

I must say that I really liked this piece, the subtlety of its meaning was sort of lost on me, but the sculpture itself is stunning. It is flat piece of steel, and juxtaposed to the very green landscape it is very striking. This is set in a very odd location, chain link fence and some very ugly buildings behind it, making capturing it in the best light somewhat difficult. It is also off on a very secluded pathway, so walking there be aware of your surroundings.

The Presidio – Ten Solitary Chairs

Posted by Cindy on April 30, 2011

Apr 302011

The Presidio of San Francisco covers just under 3 square miles. Much of this is open space. The trust and an organization called FOR SITE began a project called Presidio Habitats as an opportunity for the public to see new, site-based art about place and to experience, the diverse landscapes and stunning vistas of the Presidio. The point of each exhibit was to have artists propose custom habitats for animal residents of the park.

This is called TEN SOLITARY CHAIRS, its animal of choice was the Heron. The chairs are located in and around the Fort Scott Parade Ground. Each chair has a specific focus and relationship to the site through the height of its seat, orientation, placement, and proximity to the other chairs. “An observer who sits in a chair experiences the phenomenon that informed its placement: an acute awareness of the topography and world under the grasses; the relationship of the sky to the light reflecting off the parade ground; and an unexpected view of the landscape. In this way, the chair and its occupant become part of the secret theater of the site, quietly borrowing the heron’s techniques of still hunting and still viewing.”
Jensen Architects was the creator of this project

Craftsmanship

Posted by Cindy on April 29, 2011

Apr 292011

I was in Los Angeles last week to talk to the people at Turquoise Mountain. They are a charity that is helping to preserve and revive the crafts of Afghanistan. It is a passion of mine. Sadly, in the United States these crafts are dying. The cost of labor to produce the high quality goods of a craftsman and artisan is overwhelmed on a daily basis by the “walmartization” of this country. People pay good money to view quality arts and crafts in museums as well as take tours of beautiful homes, and yet they don’t think about surrounding themselves in their own homes with these crafts. Ornamental plaster, ornamental woodwork, quality photo framing, exquisite tile work, handmade linens and bedding, all these trades are available here in the San Francisco Bay Area, and everyone I know that is doing them doesn’t feel they will be around in another 5 years. With these difficult financial age, maybe it is time for people to look around and buy from their local merchant and artisan, rather than China.

If you are interested in finding more about craftsman in San Francisco follow these links.
Ornamental Plaster and Cast Stone
Home Made Bedding, wall art and custom made planters
Contemporary Ceramics
Modern Enamel Housewares
A guild of various craftsmen
Custom cast Metals
Ceramics

SOMA – Faces

Posted by Cindy on April 28, 2011

Apr 282011

555 Mission Street
SOMA

Moonrise East December

The sculptor and mixed media artist is a Swiss, based in New York named Ugo Rondinone. The sculptures are of mottled aluminum.

Moonrise is the title of a series of 12 giant, ghost-like sculptures each named for a month of the year, and standing nine feet high. Their amorphous shapes and color make them look like primitive sculptures. Each one wears a different expression. I can’t presume what the artist was going for, so why that particular face for that particular month? It would really be fun to sit around and talk about it, speculate and just giggle about their expressions.

Notice that all of these are named Moonrise East, I found a Moonrise West series for sale at the Phillips de Pury Gallery. Those are the same faces but much, much smaller, cast black urethane and more mask than sculpture.

I can’t wait to see if he does a North and South series.

The Presidio-Andy Goldsworthy

Posted by Cindy on April 27, 2011

Apr 272011

The Presidio
Near the Arguello Gate Entry

I have always been a fan of Andy Goldsworthy. I love the ethereal and temporary aspect of his work. This is titled Spire and is at the beginning of the Bay Area Ridge Trail near the Arguello Gate, west of Inspiration Point Overlook and north of the Presidio Golf Course Clubhouse.

This area is part of the historic forest of the Presidio, and is part of its designation as a National Historic Landmark District. The forest was planted over 100 years ago and, as usual, the Eucalyptus are doing just fine but the pines and cypress are declining. This particular grove is predominantly cypress, so the Trust removed 150 dying trees and is planting approximately 1200 over the next 10 years. I have to assume that Goldsworthy used these dead trees to build the Spire. The interesting thing I find is that since it was a military base 100 years ago the trees were planted in orderly military alignment. The Trust is keeping true to this.

The New York Times did an article on Andy Goldsworthy while he was creating this piece, it is excellent in its covering of the artist’s concept and plans for the site and the sculpture.

Love in the Lower Haight – Silly Pink Bunnies

Posted by Cindy on April 26, 2011

Apr 262011

Silly Pink Bunnies and Love in the Lower Haight.

In October of 2010 the long wall on the corner of Haight and Laguna that surrounds a series of buildings that once housed the UC extension campus became a mural collective. Called “Love in the Lower Haight,” the mural stretches 100 feet up Haight Street from Laguna Street and 75 feet on Laguna. The mural is granted for at least one year with the possibility of a longer extension.

An estimated 12 local artists worked on it, while an additional component let residents add their personal touch to the project.

Information about the piece above took me a while to round up, I first went to the artist’s – Jeremy Fish- blog and this is what I read:

“my gang, THE SILLY PINK BUNNIES, is celebrating 20 years of being a mean gang this year. coincidentally 2011 is the year of the rabbit. this statue and mural is a tribute to the the gang and our history in the lower haight. viva la bunnies! see you this easter.”

But then I found an explanation –

“[the gang] is basically it’s an inside joke that just got carried and carried and carried. For me, it’s just the fascination of taking nothing and making it into something, and also watching peoples desire to be involved in something. It’s fascinating for me to watch grown adults gravitate towards something that’s kind of stupid… I’m also fascinated by watching something I created grow into something that I’m not even farming anymore. To see stickers in places that you have never even been when you go there, or to talk to a friend that just got back from South Africa and said he saw a Silly Pink Bunnies sticker in the subway. You know, I’m like, ‘how the [expletive] did something go from being so dumb to something so big?'”

I love the concept he describes, while the silly pink bunny in the photo above, probably leaves many different emotions with different people, the concept that he talks about is truly what art is about.

This is the mural piece he mentioned.

Mission – Woman’s Building

Posted by Cindy on April 25, 2011

Apr 252011

18th and Lapidge
Mission

This is The Goddess of Light and Creativity on the Woman’s Building in the mission district of San Francisco. Particularly at 18th and Lapidge. The building has two walls of a dramatic mural that pay homage to women. The murals were created by a team of seven San Francisco women and is called “Maestrapeace”. The Goddess of Light and Creativity sits atop the waters of life flowing beneath her and transforming into fabric designs from around the world. The Mission District mural features such notable women as Georgia O’Keefe (an innovative American artist) and Rigoberta Menchu (a Guatemalan of Mayan decent and Nobel prize-winning activist).

The Women’s building houses a group of visionary who’s purpose it is to incubate emerging Bay Area women’s projects.

You can find out all about them at their website.

I particularly love this photo because it shows the density of the neighborhood, and has such a wonderful grittiness to it. It is almost impossible to shoot the mural because of the close proximity of nearby buildings.

Malibu, California – Adamson House

Posted by Cindy on April 23, 2011

Apr 232011

This is the Adamson House, also known as Vaquero Hill, a historic house with lovely grounds in Malibu, California. It has been called the “Taj Mahal of Tile” due to its extensive use of decorative ceramic tiles created by the Malibu Potteries company. The house was built in 1930 for Rhoda Rindge Adamson and Merritt Huntley Adamson, based on a Mediterranean Revival design by Stiles O. Clements of the architectural firm of Morgan, Walls & Clements.

The tiles are what drew me to the house. Malibu Potteries produced an amazing variety of shapes, sizes, colors, and designs. Sadly only in existence for six years, they distributed tile world-wide. A mural was shipped to a bank in Shanghai, but most of the tile with its Saracen, Moorish, and Spanish designs went to Los Angeles homes and buildings constructed in the late 1920s. This included Los Angeles City Hall, a mural depicting William Henry Dana’s ship, The Pilgrim, in San Pedro Bay in 1834 which were installed at the Dana Junior High School in San Pedro in 1928. Simon Rodia, an employee at Malibu Potteries, reportedly often rode home in his carpool with pockets bulging with tile fragments. Later he was to become famous as the builder of the Rodia Towers (commonly called Watts Towers).

The most comprehensive collection remaining today is at the Adamson home. Examples include the 5 layer terra cotta tile roofs, exterior and interior walls, floors, and ceilings. Fountains, faience jardinieres, and tables in the garden. One of the more interesting of the tiles were done to represent a Turkish carpet, notice the fringe on the edges.

A fire destroyed a large area of the Potteries in 1931. Mrs. Rindge planned to rebuild, the great depression, however, with an accompanying building slump greatly reduced the demand for ornamental tile. In 1932 the pottery closed never to operate again.

The residence is within the Malibu Lagoon State Beach Park. The Adamson House was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1977 and designated as a California Historical Landmark in 1985. The second photo is from their website, as no photography is allowed inside the home. You are required to take a guided tour, but if you are in the area, I recommend it highly. When there be sure to notice the thresholds, they were all broken shards of tile. The reason isn’t really known, some feel that it helped to give a notification that things were changing, as each room held a very specific tile pattern and theme, some think it went back to ancient times of evil spirits not being able to move across crooked lines, and some think it was ways to get rid of waste in the factory.

http://www.adamsonhouse.org/
If you are interested in Malibu Potteries this book is available, and while not perfect, not enough pictures for my liking, it is one of the only ones I have found.

Malibu, California – April 22, 2001 – Getty Villa

Posted by Cindy on April 22, 2011

Apr 222011

In 1954, oil baron J. Paul Getty opened a gallery adjacent to his home in Pacific Palisades. Can you imagine, you were able to walk around his home and view his collections. Visitors were limited but it must have been very intimate. When he ran out of room, he built a second museum on the property down the hill from his original home. In 1974 he opened the Getty Villa as his second museum in a building inspired by the Villa of the Papyri at Herculaneum and incorporated additional details from several other ancient sites. Getty died in 1976 and sadly never visited the Villa. His architect, from the architectural firm of Langdon and Wilson, flew back and forth regularly from the museum to London to keep him apprised of the work. Following his death, the museum inherited $661 million and began planning a much larger campus, the Getty Center, in nearby Brentwood. To meet the museum’s total space needs, the museum decided to split between the two locations with the Getty Villa housing the Greek, Roman, and Etruscan antiquities. In 1993, the Getty Trust selected Rodolpho Muchado and Jorge Silvetti to design the renovation of the Getty Villa and its campus.

As you look across this court yard the peristyles walls are covered with murals by Garth Benton. While truly beautiful, I was struck by their oddity, it finally dawned on me that the originals in Herculaneum were frescoes and these are murals, there is quite a difference.

If you are interested in some other great pictures, there is a blog with some great ones, and some fun comments as well.

Like many museums the Getty was packed with people, so taking any photos at all was difficult at best. to get pictures without people, was impossible.

Pasadena – Huntington Gardens

Posted by Cindy on April 21, 2011

Apr 212011

The Chinese Garden at the Huntington Library, Art Collections and Gardens, in San Marino, California. I saw the most amazing special exhibit by John Frame called “Three Fragments of a Lost Tale”.

According to the gallery notes, “the project had its beginnings in a dream: Frame was jolted awake by what seemed like an unfolding story complete with cast and scenes. It would become his next body of work and, he says, may carry him through the remainder of his lifetime.”

This was the first piece I saw upon entering the gallery and I was in love. The gallery was dark, just spot lights showed on the pieces and that meant you saw them in a very theatrical way.

There was a 12 minute movie that the artist did, which was stop action of his figures moving through a dream like sequence. This particular bed took center stage and took my breath away. He had grass growing through the bed with time lapse photography, then another character came with a scythe, my feeling was that it was indicative of death, and cut the grass.

This character and again the bed, played their parts in another video that can be seen on the Huntington Web site.

John Frame was a local southern California guy with an MFA from Claremont, but I really could not find out much more about him. If you get the chance – go see the exhibit.

Regarding the first picture, I went straight to the Chinese garden upon the opening of the grounds, so I was able to get many shots in that garden before the hordes of people arrived. The Japanese garden is closed for a year for retrofitting. There are 10 specialty gardens on the 150 acres of the estate.

Living Walls

Posted by Cindy on April 20, 2011

Apr 202011

Using plants for architectural and artistic statements is as old as time, but I am fascinated about how it is becoming part of the main stream. I was driving down 10th and spotted this newly installed gem at the corner with Bryant. These things are so amazingly versatile. Indoors, outdoors, sun, shade, they apparently create their own atmosphere when inside so they aren’t bothered being inside shopping malls or the like.

Patrick Blanc a French artist has been covering entire walls of buildings for 40 years. This one below is his at Marché des Halles in Avignon. You can read all about him, his structures, his methods and his life outlooks.

Blanc is presently working on a “mur vegetal” right here in San Francisco. It’s under scaffolding but almost finished. The newly-planted living wall is on the facade of the Drew School’s new assembly building at California & Broderick. It is Blanc’s first adventure in San Francisco and his biggest to date on the West Coast.

Drew Schools – living wall – Update – 2012

I became intrigued with these when I saw a photo of Jeff Koons Puppy, at the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain. It was created for an exhibit in Germany in 1992 and then moved to the front of the Bilbao in 1997. I think it is incredible that you have a living breathing piece of art such as this.

I love the concept of creating whole living and breathing walls, what an amazing and creative way to bring fresh air to a city, and add art to a building at the same time.

Fairmont Hotel

Posted by Cindy on April 15, 2011

Apr 152011

This is the back of the famous Fairmont Hotel in San Francisco, I am walking up California towards Mason. The front of this hotel is famous the world over, but has anyone ever noticed the absolutely beautiful wrought iron on the back? These walkways look down on a quaint little courtyard. The Fairmont is as much a part of San Francisco history as sourdough and dungeness crab. It was built by Tessie Fair Oelrichs, whose father made his money in the Comstock Silver Boom. Designed by James and Merritt Reid it was scheduled to open in 1906. The Earthquake and fire put a stop to that. Despite the damage however, Julia Morgan was hired, repairs were made and the building finally opened in 1907.

There is enough history here to fill a book, some of my favorite is the people who stayed there and their experiences. The Fairmont website does an incredible job tracking the history. This is my favorite page.

Alleys of San Francisco

Posted by Cindy on April 14, 2011

Apr 142011

A friend of mine lives on this little alley, and after I took this picture I started to think about how many alleys there are in San Francisco. I too live on a one block long alley, that is off of another one block long alley. I am not quite sure why San Francisco is chock-a-block full of them, but they are fun to explore.

It is a practice of San Francisco to rename alley’s for famous people. These include: Isadora Duncan (she was born a block away), Dashell Hammett (He lived at #20 in the 1920’s) , Jack Kerouac (his bar and reading haunts – Vesuvio’s and City Lights occupy this alley), Lech Walesa (the only foreign Nobel Peace Prize winner with a street in San Francisco), William Saroyan, Kenneth Rextroth (both lived off and on in North Beach near their namesake alleys) and Alexander Leidesdorff (an extremely important and successful black man in San Francisco in the 1850’s). I am sure there are others, and forgive me if I left off one of your favorites. Most of these are short, unexciting alleys that are mainly used to put garbage out on pickup day, or for sleeping by the less fortunate.

Some are art havens – these include: Balmy Alley and Clarion.

Some have developed into food havens such as Belden Place with its myriad of wonderful restaurants and Ross Alley with the Golden Gate Fortune Cookie Factory, that makes cookies as you watch through the open door.

The New York Times even did a fun article on the alleys of San Francisco, still fairly accurate though a little dated.

If you are interested in how the streets got their names, I love a book in my library by Louis K Loewenstein. Streets of San Francisco: The Origins of Street and Place Names

Daffodil Hill, Amador County April 10, 2011

Posted by Cindy on April 11, 2011

Apr 112011

McLaughlin’s Daffodil Hill Ranch in Volcano, California.

Daffodil Hill is a 4 acre ranch that has been in the same family since 1887. Wagon pioneers Arthur and Lizzie McLaughlin were the original owners. The ranch was a stopping place for drivers bringing timber down from the Sierras to the Kennedy and Argonaut mines, during the gold rush. Now it is open to the public and lives on donations. There are over 300 varieties of daffodil’s and they plant an average of 6000 new bulbs every year. It is typically open from Mid March to Mid April, but mother nature is the real determining factor. The ranch opens when 25% of the bulbs are in bloom, and closes when only 25% of the bulbs remain.

The town of Volcano, formerly known as Soldiers Gulch started as a mining town, and grew to be quite large at the height of the gold rush. It now has a population of 85. The entire town is a California Historical Landmark. As you enter the town, you run straight into the St. George Hotel. Built in 1862 it is a 3 story brick building with 14″ thick walls. It houses a wonderful restaurant and a bar that is a must for it’s funky character.

The Argonaut mine opened in 1850 and closed in 1942. The Kennedy mine ran from 1860 until 1942, and was one of the richest mines in the world. Walking tours are now available throughout the property to learn the history of mining in the area. This area used hydraulic mining, and while not as devastating to the landscape as the hydraulic mining in the North San Juan area, its destruction is visible.

Regarding the photography. Daffodil hill is a photographers paradise. The grounds are ripe with old out buildings, farm equipment, and any type of container that was laying around and became a planter for bulbs. There are peacocks and other birds running around and photo ops everywhere you turn.Some interesting links if you are heading there.
http://www.daffodilfestivals.com/insidetemp.php?festid=1359
http://www.stgeorgehotel.com/
http://www.kennedygoldmine.com/

San Francisco – Public v Private Art

Posted by Cindy on April 7, 2011

Apr 072011

555 Mission Street
SOMA

Public versus private art. This piece entitled Human Structures by Jonathan Borofsky is a permanent installation at 555 Mission Street. The two heads are part of a series of three by Ugo Rondinone entitled Moonrise Sculptures. The city of San Francisco has two ordinances to promote art. The first is a zoning code requiring downtown buildings to include privately owned public open space. The second is a twenty-five year old law requiring that developers with large projects in the Financial District and along upper Market Street must spend at least 1 percent of their total construction budget on public art. This is the reason that downtown is dotted with lovely spots like this that all can enjoy.

However, there is now a push by San Francisco Arts Commission that they have the right to approve this art. Enough is enough. Developers already have to show their plans to city planners and the department says it already works with developers to ensure that such art projects are publicly accessible and not artistically inappropriate. It is bad enough that the little amount of public art we have in San Francisco is “art by committee” please don’t water down the rest.

Stanlee Gatti proposed a foot sculpture for the “foot” of Market Street. I loved the idea. Hey they have a thumb in Paris. What is wrong with a foot in San Francisco? But alas, that is what happens when you have art by committee. It becomes bland, and washed out, as though the public is to insipid to want to be challenged by their surroundings.

If you are going to pay for art, you should be able to put up what pleases you. I appreciate the fact that it is reviewed for its appropriateness, whatever that means, but adding another layer of bureaucracy and hoity-toity opinions is just too much.

On another note the sculpture above is composed of 62 painted steel figures, interconnected to form 5 towers. Each of the 62 life-size figures is water-jet cut from steel plate. The heads are of mottled aluminum.

Mission Bay – Where did good architecture go?

Posted by Cindy on April 6, 2011

Apr 062011

Mission Bay

What happened to architecture? This is not architecture, this is value engineering. These buildings were cliches before they were finished. No one is going to fly hundreds of miles to the great city of San Francisco and snap pictures of these monstrosities, unless of course they are urban planners. I would like to leave the more technical aspects of why this is off the mark to an architect blogger, you can read his succinct points on architecture and then you can contemplate why these building miss in so many ways.

The above photo was taken in the newest area of San Francisco called Mission Bay. This area sat virtually empty until 1998. It is over 300 acres and was owned by a development company in Canada. When they went broke the quagmire began. There were developers that came in and demanded, politicians that were bought and sold, and social entities that muddled up the issues. Out of that we have the most ugly 300 acres ever created. It is a city within a city of no use save for developers to make large quantities of money, and politicians to fill their election coffers. The buildings far exceed the height limit originally told the general public, they are so close together that it is not a nice place to be unless you are on your lunch out of your office. There is housing, with promised “urban living” amenities, that I doubt will ever live up to the hype. There will never be anything but large corporate stores and restaurants, because the leases all stipulate that you must use union labor for all your build outs, and small individual, and unique companies can’t afford those labor rates. This began before the great recession, so the desire for tax dollars from payroll to income, while a factor, was not the overriding reason to sell out. What happened San Francisco?

Tenderloin – Fear Head Mural

Posted by Cindy on April 5, 2011

Apr 052011

Golden Gate and Market
The Tenderloin

This mural is entitled “Fear Head” it was installed as part of the Wonderland exhibit in 2009. The creators are Roman Cesario and Mitsu Overstreet. Wonderland was the brain child of a teacher at SF Art Institute, Lance Fung. Wonderland created a lot of interesting chatter in the blogsphere at the time. Adrienne Roberts of SFMOMA wrote of her concerns, that I felt were a tad highfalutin regarding bringing art to the tenderloin. You can read her article, Wonderland a World Turned Upside Down, here.

For those that don’t live in San Francisco, it is “considered” the last bastion of serious poverty and homelessness in the city, read “scary” neighborhood. I prefer the take of locals (expressed by a blog (sadly closed) called livintheloin) for a more honest take, they greeted and appreciated this whirlwind of art that arrived in their backyard.

This is the description of the piece by the artist:
In San Francisco there is a giant monster watching the people of its neighborhood walk by its enormous head. It sees its residents and visitors with six enormous eyes walk by with the looks on their faces and the experiences that happen day by day. This monster has a face of fear. Why is it in a state of fear? Well you see this enormous head is fed everyday and its food is saturated in this horrible emotion. The homeless feed it everyday every time a police officer is on the same block. The Police feed it everyday when ever they get a call about violence. The onlookers feed it as they watch the police and the ambulances wail through the streets. The immigrants feed it everyday as they try to assimilate themselves into San Francisco and the United States. The Prostitutes feed it every time they meet a new John. The drug addicts feed it when they don’t get in contact with their dealers. The drug dealers feed it when they go meet their clients. The Tourists feed it when they walk a bit too far from the plaza. This head eats and eats and has become to be in a permanent state of fear. Every time it eats it gets bigger snorting lines of the poverty stricken and getting drunk on the urine of the schizophrenics as bedbugs infest its skin. It can taste the worlds fear pouring down its streets. It fiends for the unhealthy. It looks at the unemployed like its staring down at a buffet.

This enormous face and head is a mural and it lives in the Tenderloin.

I don’t want to get into the appropriateness of art in one neighborhood or another, I have always felt art was for the masses, and should be as public as possible. Walking in neighborhoods where you feel uncomfortable works both ways on the socio/economic ladder.

Atascadero City Hall

Posted by Cindy on April 2, 2011

Apr 022011

The City Hall is a gem of a building sitting aside a wonderful city park. The town itself is being revitalized with a lot of modern chain stores, but the downtown still holds its historic charm. Sadly, like so many valley towns in California it is suffering from these terrible economic times.

The building was originally the City’s historic administration building and was completed in 1918 to serve as the Colony of Atascadero’s headquarters. The Colony was founded by Edward Gardner (E.G.) Lewis of Missouri, as California’s first master planned community. The community was to be sustainable and progressive. The 65,000 square foot Italian renaissance-style structure was designed by prominent San Francisco architect W. D. Bliss, as commissioned by E. G. Lewis, and was inspired by the buildings located at the 1904 World Exposition in St. Louis, MO. The edifice is one of a very few double-domed (rotunda) buildings in the state. The building is a registered state and national historic monument.

On December 22, 2003, the 6.5 magnitude San Simeon earthquake closed the building.

Berwick Place – Murals

Posted by Cindy on March 31, 2011

Mar 312011

Berwick Place and Heron Street

Unknown Artist – I love the tree as an opponent. The light at this end of Heron was not particularly good, it is a very narrow alley with a building blocking the light from this part of the wall, but the images are wonderful. The subtle use of pink to infer cherry blossoms, just shows such a level of artistic ability.

Sonoma, California – Watmaugh Road Bridge

Posted by Cindy on March 30, 2011

Mar 302011

This truss bridge is the center of an acrimonious debate going on in Sonoma, California. It is the Watmaugh Road Bridge built in 1929. It was dedicated as an historic landmark in 1981. Today the county engineers want to replace it, and the preservationists want to rehab it. We will have to watch, probably for years, to see what happens. Bridges are so interesting. They can be so beautiful, and yet, over the years they have really, simply become functional. Granted, when big important bridges are built, lots of thought for the local town or cities “image” go into it, but what about the little ones that people cross everyday. When properly designed, crossing a small local bridge can bring as much pleasure as this one did to me if only for just a moment or two.

Clarion Alley

Posted by Cindy on March 13, 2011

Mar 132011

This mural is in Clarion Alley, it was painted by Emily Buttefly and Tania Esmeralda.

Hunters Point Naval Shipyard

Posted by Cindy on March 10, 2011

Mar 102011

Hunters Point Naval Shipyard. The original docks were built on solid rock in 1916, they were thought to be the largest in the world at over 1000 feet long. During the 20th century much of San Francisco Bay shoreline was extended by landfill, this included Hunters Point. Between World War I and WWII Hunters Point was used by the Navy and was the largest deep water port between San Diego and Washington. The key fissile components of the atomic bomb were loaded onto the USS Indianapolis, July of 1945 from here. Some of the piers are still used today, but in a very limited capacity for dry dock repair on occasional naval vessels and cruise ships. The base was closed in 1994. You can watch all the action when a boat is in dry dock from the restaurant The Ramp, located at 885 Terry Francois Street. There is outside seating and it is a great place to while away a sunny afternoon.
http://ramprestaurant.com/pages/home.htm

Random Mural of San Francisco

Posted by Cindy on March 3, 2011

Mar 032011

Berwick Place and Heron

Unknown Artist

Edgar Walter and Electric Power

Posted by Cindy on March 29, 2001

Mar 292001

Pacific Gas and Electric Building
245 Market Street
Embarcadero/Financial District

Above the arched entryway to the Pacific Gas and Electric building is this bas-relief depicting the primary activities of the company, hydroelectric power. At the top is a waterworks with water pouring through three openings symbolizing the “falling waters” that come from the mountains. This sign is flanked with two kneeling men facing the center. Under the base is a head of a grizzly bear, set amidst foliage, claws showing over the rim of the archway.

The sculptor for this entry way was Edgar Walter.

Edgar Walter was born in San Francisco, CA in 1877. He studied locally with Arthur Mathews and Douglas Tilden at the Mark Hopkins Institute of Art, and then continued in Paris with the painter Fernand Cormon and and the sculptor Jucques Perrin.

A longtime resident of San Francisco he was one of a group of West coast sculptors that included his teacher Douglas Tilden, Arthur Putnam and Beniamino Bufano.

Work in San Francisco included St. John at Grace Cathedral and the Spandrels at the San Francisco Opera House. He exhibited his Nymph and Bears at the Panama-Pacific International Exposition and was awarded an honorable mention. There is cast of the work, also known as The Bear Charmer at the Hearst San Simeon State Park.

He taught at the CSFA (1927-36) and maintained a residence in San Francisco at 1803 Franklin Street until his death on March 2, 1938.*

245 Market Standing As A Remembrance of Skyscrapers of Old

Posted by Cindy on March 29, 2001

Mar 292001

245 Market Street
Financial District / Embarcadero

The seventeen story Pacific Gas and Electric Company General Office Building, designed by Bakewell & Brown and built between 1923 and 1925, is one of a series of skyscrapers built during the 1910s and 1920s which imparted to San Francisco its downtown character. This character of large ornamented classic buildings is fast being lost with newer modern style buildings. 245 Market was also one of the first steel skyscrapers built in San Francisco.

The building was enlarged in 1945-1947 to the design of Arthur Brown, Jr. The addition, which has its own address at 25 Beale Street, is fully interconnected with the main structure and functions with it as one building.

Reflecting Beaux Arts and City Beautiful precepts of harmony, the building was designed to be compatible with the adjacent Matson Building (on the left)

Similar to other Chicago School skyscrapers built during the 1910s and early 1920s, the primary elevations are divided vertically into three major divisions – separated by horizontal divisions relating to those of the Matson Building.

The lower divisions are ornamented with a classical arcade, rising through two stories. The fourteenth and fifteenth floors, capping the structure, are articulated by a giant order of applied Doric columns with full entablature which is very similar to the base of the dome on San Francisco’s City Hall. The shaft, or central portion of the elevations, is expressed with paired windows lighting each structural bay.

Rams heads ornament the lower stories of the building.

Bakewell and Brown’s first commissions included the interior of the City of Paris department store (Now Neiman Marcus) and the city hall for Berkeley, before entering the competition for the 1915 San Francisco City Hall for which they are best known. Brown also designed the city’s War Memorial Opera House and Veterans Building, the former in collaboration with G. Albert Lansburgh. Browns work shows his training in the Beaux-Arts tradition.

In addition, Bakewell and Brown designed several homes in the Arts and Crafts style championed by Bernard Maybeck.

Bakewell and Brown also designed the Byzantine-inspired Temple Emmanuel (1926) at Lake St. and Arguello Blvd.

The building was damaged in the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake and underwent a comprehensive seismic retrofit and historic rehabilitation completed in 1995.

Mechanics Monument

Posted by Cindy on March 28, 2001

Mar 282001

Market at Bush and Battery

Mechanics Monument

Douglas Tilden

This sculpture by Douglas Tilden was one of three major art works for the Market Street Beautification Project at the turn of the 20th century. It was funded with a bequest of $25,000 from James Mervyn Donahue, the son of the late Peter Donahue, who in 1850 started the state’s first ironworks and machine shop, established the first gas company for street lighting in the city in 1852, and later initiated the first streetcar line.

Commissioned to create a monument for the Donahues, Tilden had difficulty finding an idea. Taking a walk on Mission Street, he passed an open-air machine shop and spotted a sweat-drenched, muscular man operating a “punch press” machine. Thinking of how Donahue began his empire, he envisioned an oversized version of a punch press in bronze, with five men struggling to operate it. The Donahues were skeptical when seeing his sketches, but Mayor Phelan, who had been a great patron of Tilden, insisted that the sculptor have freedom of expression to create an enduring monument that would be a tribute to all those who had toiled to make the Peter Donahue fortune – it would be a greater tribute.”

The Mechanics, was unveiled in 1901. The immodesty of his design set tongues wagging; fortunately, the lobby to make pants for the sculpture failed.

This photograph was taken after the 1906 earthquake.

Fountain at One Bush Plaza

Posted by Cindy on March 27, 2001

Mar 272001

Financial District

One Bush Plaza

Crown Zellerbach Building

This beautiful and timeless fountain was made in 1959.

It was a creation of artist David Tolerton. Tolerton was born in 1907 and died of natural causes at 93. His father came to the Bay area in 1915 and owned an art gallery on Sutter Street in San Francisco.

Tolerton studied philosophy at Stanford University from 1926 until 1928, then attended the San Francisco Art Institute, where he also taught. He also studied ironworking in France, Spain, Italy and Germany.

His work was almost exclusively in metal, but apparently he spent some time working in abstract sculpture while living in Big Sur.

In addition to two Bay Area fountains, Tolerton’s works are displayed in the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., the Denver Museum of Art and the Oakland Museum.

Woman in Bronze

Posted by Cindy on March 27, 2001

Mar 272001

Financial District

One Bush Plaza

Woman in Bronze

Marcello Mascherini

1959

Marcello Mascherini was an Italian sculptor, born in Padua, who lived from 1906 to 1983. While an extremely famous sculptor in his time, little is written about him today. Marcello Mascherini was a prolific sculptor who made an impact on Italian art. Mascherini’s sculptures are on display in Rome at Palazzo Montecitorio where they have rested since after his death in 1969.

This particular sculpture was mentioned in Life Magazine’s “Life Guide – Art in Buildings” in 1963.

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