Category: All of SAN FRANCISCO
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Aero #8 by Moto Ohtake Spinning in the Richmond
851 27th Avenue Richmond District * Aero #8 by Moto Ohtake – 2012 – Stainless Steel Inspired by the natural elements on both macro and microscopic levels, aero #8 is a self-contained wind driven system that creates an infinite number of movements in response to changes in weather patterns. Moto Ohtake was born in 1952…
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StreetSmARTS covers the History of Bayview
Palou and 3rd Street Bayview Titled the History of Bayview this is a 2011 Street SmArts mural by Bryana Fleming. Panel 1 and 3: Originally dominated by grassland and tidal marshland, Bayview-Hunters Point has a unique history for its transformation into an urban industrial neighborhood while segregated from the metropolitan area. Slaughterhouses and their associated industries…
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Mosaic Planter at Beautiful McLaren Park
McNab Lake Wayland and University Street John McLaren Park Monica Treanor was educated in Trinity college, Dublin, Ireland where she graduated with a PhD in Environmental Sciences. She has worked as an ecologist on all seven continents. Her experiences stretch from the tropical waters of the Indo-Pacific, living on a uninhabited island to the frozen…
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Fire at Fire Station #24
100 Hoffman Castro/Cole Valley * Fire by Jaap (Jacob) Bongers – 1993 Jaap Bongers was born in Stein, Holland and studied at the Jan Van Eyck Academie of Fine Arts and the Stadsacademie of Fine Arts, both in Maastricht, Holland. In addition to his travels to Africa, Bongers also visited the United States for the…
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Street SmArts Mural in Bayview
Palou and 3rd Streets Bayview * * This mural (done in 2010) by Briana Fleming is part of the Street SmArts program of San Francisco. A collaboration between the San Francisco Arts Commission and SF Department of Public Works started in 2010, the program connects established urban artists with private property owners who own buildings with walls…
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Tuzuri Watu
3rd and Palou Bayview This mural was painted by Brooke Fancher in 1987. It is titled Tuzuri Watu (Swahili for “we are beautiful people”). It is a tribute to Afro American culture inspired by black women writers. The design shows scenes of black peoples’ lives, rural and urban, with a strong emphasis on community and…
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Lenora LeVon Riley Struts her Stuff
Palou and 3rd Streets Bayview * Lenora LeVon Riley was a fashion designer from San Francisco whose work was prominently displayed in Ebony and Jet Magazine. Bryana Fleming is a native to the Bay Area who resides in Mill Valley, California. Both of her parents were working artists, and she instantly became interested in art from…
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Freeway Art – Its Time has Come
Highway 101 -280 Interchange Street Level Freeway stantion paintings are starting to pop up around the country, this is the first one in San Francisco. The artist is Cory Ferris and the work was done in 2011. According to a June 2012 article on SF Gate by Sam Whiting: Cory Ferris is a 19-year-old…
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Fish are swimming near Ocean Beach
39th and Ortega Ortega Library Ocean Beach Wowhaus consists of artists Scott Constable and Ene Oseraas-Constable. These two artists were also responsible for the Sunnyside Menagerie at the Sunnyside Conservatory here in San Francisco. Located near the entrance of the library, the artwork features a duo of large-scale, glass mosaic fish sculptures. The sculptures…
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La Madre Tonantsin
3495 16th Between Sanchez and Dehon Castro District Colette Crutcher is a multi discipline artist. Her career began with painting and printmaking, but now covers a broad spectrum, from very large to very small, from public to intensely personal, from abstract to figurative, and across a range of media: painting and drawing, collage, assemblage, paper mache,…
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A New World Tree
Mission Playground and Pool 19th and Linda The New World Tree by Juana Alicia, Susan Cervantes and Raul Martinez – 1987 Juana Alicia describes the history and the mural itself on her website: The Mission Pool and Playground at 19th and Linda Streets has been a gathering place for the neighborhood since the 1930′s,…
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A Heroine is Honored
1199 Mason at Washington Chinatown This is the entry to the Betty Ong Recreation Center in Chinatown. Betty Ann Ong was a flight attendant on American Airlines, Flight 11, the first airplane to become hijacked on September 11, 2001. Shortly after the hijacking began, Betty chose to be involved and make a difference by taking action…
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Art at the Richmond District Library
351 9th Avenue SF Public Library Inner Richmond * According to Scott Donahue’s website “these sculptures were designed to integrate into the very symmetrical renovate library landscape and building. Each dome is a relief sculpture map. On is the entire Bay Area and portrays a time in history from 15000 years ago to 100 years…
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Philosophers Walk on the Top of the World
John McLaren Park Mansell Drive and John F. Shelley Drive Excelsior and Visitacion Valley This is the view towards downtown San Francisco from John McLaren Park. Named for John McLaren, the superintendent of Golden Gate Park from 1887 to 1943, it is the second largest park in the city, after Golden Gate Park. Within McLaren Park’s…
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Artwork at Candlestick Park
Candlestick Park Gate A Jamestown Avenue St Francis by Ruth Wakefield Cravath – 1971-1973 The sculpture is a standing abstract figure representing St. Francis, the patron saint of San Francisco. The figure is made of concrete, but the face, torso, halo, cross, and lower section of his robe are made of colored pieces of Plexiglas.…
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Willie Woo Woo
Willie Woo Woo Playground Chinatown Sacramento Street and Waverly Place Willie Wong (b:1926,d:2005) was a Chinese-American basketball player who was born and raised in Chinatown, San Francisco. Though Wong was only 5’5″ tall, he excelled, and was known as one of the finest Chinese-American basketball players in the 1940s. He was nicknamed Willie “Woo Woo” Wong by a local sportswriter because…
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Ghost Figures of the Financial District
580 California at Kearney Financial District This building sits on the corner of Kearny and California Streets. It has twelve untitled figures along the four top edges resembling ghost forms wrapped in long cloth garments. They were created by the sculptress Muriel Castanis from 1982-85 for a commission by the building architects Philip Johnson and…
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Driving Me Up A Wall
255 Third Street SOMA * * These three paintings are on the 3rd, 4th and 5th floors near the elevators of the Moscone Center Garage. Painted by Dan Rice in 1982 they convey the artist’s impression of motorized existence and depict the frenzy and banality of the daily commute. * * * Autoscape #3, Twin Spin,…
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Leaping Lizards
Myrtle and Larkin The Tenderloin This piece is by Satyr. Satyr has some other murals in the Haight. Satyr is known for his quality murals in San Francisco. He was brought up by The Master Piece Creators, one of the original aerosol art crews to bring concept walls to the city. Years into his graffiti…
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With Love and Respect for Moebius
Clarion Alley Mission District * This beauty is by BODE, CUBA and Stan153. With Love and Respect for Moebius. Jean Henri Gaston Giraud (8 May 1938 – 10 March 2012) was a French comics artist who earned worldwide fame, predominantly under the pseudonym Mœbius, and to a lesser extent Gir (used for the Blueberry series). He has been described as the most influential bandes…
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Native American Tongue
This piece is on the Laguna Side of Love in the Lower Haight. The artist is Krusch Rhoades. It is titled Native Tongue and was done in 2012. Krusch Rhoades, 33, spent the formative years of his youth in the “armpit of New York, the shoulders of New England and on the polluted teat…
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Sex and Culture all in one Mural
1349 Mission Street at Grace SOMA This eclectic mural is being funded by the Center for Sex and Culture. According to their website: The Grace Alley Mural Project will be a highlight of San Francisco’s sexual history and culture– paying homage to our past sexual renegades, founders, activists and healers featuring some of our very own notorious…
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Alebrijes in the Haight
1301 Haight Street * * Jet Martinez, whose work is all over San Francisco is responsible for these colorful frogs. It is titled Bosque de Alebrijes. This is what Jet said on his Facebook page: Alebrijes are small animal figurines decorated with beautiful colors and patterns. They are really incredible on their own, but what…
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Honoring San Francisco Vets
Tenderloin Shannon Alley between Geary and O’Farrell These murals were done in 2011 around Veterans Day. They are part of the SF Vets Mural Project. According to their website: The alley will contain murals painted by veterans which will tell their story. The significance of this alley is that the art regarding veterans is very…
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Happy Herbs
1391 Haight Street This creature by Bode is on the side of the new Happy High Herb Shop in the Haight. Happy High Herbs is not your everyday head shop. Their website and sign promise to “promote herbs that bring happiness, bring wellness, increase horniness and bring contentment,” and they say their products “are marketed only in…
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The Great White Way
My interest in the revitalization of Market Street came about when I wrote this piece for Untapped Cities about the Hibernia Bank Building. A friend who has a wonderful website about the architecture of Mid Market and other areas of San Francisco, titled Up From The Deep, introduced me to this project, and I feel so…
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Horfe paints San Francisco
Mission/SOMA Folsom and Erie * * This mural at the corner of Folsom and Division is by French artist Horfe. According to Alternative Paris: Horfe is considered to be one of, if not the leading graffiti writer in the world. Horfe has been writing his name on walls for the past 12 years, mainly in Paris, where his…