SOMA – Inner City Home and Truth

 Posted by on July 29, 2011
Jul 292011
 
SOMA - Inner City Home and Truth

SOMA and Market Street Areas of San Francisco This is by Ricardo Gouveia, a Portuguese artist residing in San Francisco.  From 1984-2002, Rigo used the last two digits of the current year as part of his name (in this case Rigo94) , finally settling upon “23″ in 2003.  As part of TODCO’s Inner City Arts Program, Rigo worked with Sixth Street hotel tenants to create this powerful statement of community identity, painted on the Knox SRO and visible for miles.   TODCO Group is a community-based housing/community development nonprofit corporation for San Francisco’s South of Market Neighborhood. Sixth street is one of Continue Reading

SOMA – Frisco’s Wild Side

 Posted by on July 28, 2011
Jul 282011
 
SOMA - Frisco's Wild Side

SOMA – San Francisco Langton between Folsom and Harrison This newly restored mural is on Langton Street between Folsom and Harrison in the South of Market area. Originally painted in 1995 by Precita Eyes it is called “Frisco’s Wild Side”.  It took more than 70 participants to plan and paint depictions of endangered species in North America. The animals are found in fantastical settings of ancient civilizations and modern industrialization interwoven with and sometimes battling the animals’ natural habitats. San Francisco residents and local school children helped to paint and create tile mosaics that were then embedded into the concrete relief Continue Reading

SOMA – Meagan Spendlove

 Posted by on July 17, 2011
Jul 172011
 
SOMA - Meagan Spendlove

SOMA – San Francisco This mural is on the corner of 10th Street and Sheridan in the South of Market Area of San Francisco.  The artist is Meagan Spendlove.  Her website reads “Meagan Spendlove currently works in San Francisco, California as a professional designer, illustrator and project coordinator. Her latest endeavors include yet are not limited to mural project coordination and digital illustration. Over the past twelve years her style has become recognized mainly for its feminine subject matter and organic ingredients. Assorted shaded ethereal women & bright colors surrounded by bold lines, similar to stained glass.” The bright colors Continue Reading

SOMA – Califor’ya

 Posted by on July 11, 2011
Jul 112011
 
SOMA - Califor'ya

SOMA – San Francisco This mural is on a building at the corner of 7th and Folsom Streets, (It is on the 7th Street side) in the South of Market area of San Francisco. It was done by 1:AM short for First Amendment, a gallery at 1000 Howard Street in San Francisco. According to 1:AM they are “a gallery that stands behind the freedom of speech.  We strive to showcase, teach, and inspire the public on street and urban art through our exhibitions, education, and street productions…  With the gallery, classes, and a veteran mural production team, 1:AM has become Continue Reading

Tutubi Plaza – Make it Healthy

 Posted by on June 3, 2011
Jun 032011
 
Tutubi Plaza - Make it Healthy

More Tutubi Plaza This is Super Hygiene Man.  He and his mates are on the Russ side of what used to be the SOMA health center.  These fellows sit on the wall of Tutubi Plaza that faces the butterflies.

Tutubi Plaza – Dragonflies

 Posted by on June 2, 2011
Jun 022011
 
Tutubi Plaza - Dragonflies

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

SOMA – Tutubi Plaza

 Posted by on June 1, 2011
Jun 012011
 
SOMA - Tutubi Plaza

Tutubi Plaza Russ street, between Natoma and Minna in SOMA, San Francisco. This is a San Francisco Redevelopment project, first proposed in 2008 it was finally finished in February of 2011.   This pavement installation is by Jovi Schnell.  Jovi was born and raised in Little Rock, Arkansas and lives in San Francisco, she studied at the San Francisco Art Institute as well as some serious time at several art schools in Holland.   This piece is called “Evolves Luminous Flora”.  In reading about this piece here there are so many meanings and symbolism according to the author, that I got lost Continue Reading

Embarcadero – Commuting

 Posted by on May 23, 2011
May 232011
 
Embarcadero - Commuting

This is our temporary Transbay Terminal.  The old one has finally been demolished.  The Transbay terminal was originally built in 1936 to handle the trains that came across the Bay Bridge into downtown San Francisco.  However, after WWII, the train lines were removed and the terminal became a bus depot.  Over the years it has become nothing more than a run down homeless refuge.  I am all for their tearing down the old one, and I am all for building a new one, but I am not sold on the new ultra modern design to come. The new Transbay terminal Continue Reading

SOMA – Defenestration

 Posted by on May 17, 2011
May 172011
 
SOMA - Defenestration

6th and Howard SOMA AS OF JUNE OF 2014 DEFENESTRATION HAS BEEN REMOVED Defenestration is at 6th and Howard Street in San Francisco.  Not only is it about two blocks from my house but  I also had the privilege of working with its artist Brian Goggin (before this installation) through a charitable organization LEAP, which brings art and architecture into schools.  So, I was very happy to see that it has had a face lift.  Defenestration literally means “Throw out of a window”.  This installation was done by Brian and well over 100 volunteers.  It is on the site of Continue Reading

SOMA – Faces

 Posted by on April 28, 2011
Apr 282011
 
SOMA - Faces

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 Continue Reading

Living Walls

 Posted by on April 20, 2011
Apr 202011
 
Living Walls

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 Continue Reading

San Francisco – Public v Private Art

 Posted by on April 7, 2011
Apr 072011
 
San Francisco - Public v Private Art

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 Continue Reading

Berwick Place – Murals

 Posted by on March 31, 2011
Mar 312011
 
Berwick Place - Murals

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.

Rammaytush

 Posted by on January 26, 2000
Jan 262000
 
Rammaytush

  These plaques run along the south side of King Street, between the Caltrain station and AT&T Park.  There are 104 of them embedded in the sidewalk. On them are engraved all of the known words of a language called Rammaytush. The Rammaytush language is one of the eight Ohlone languages, historically spoken by the Ramaytush people, indigenous people of California. Historically, the Rammaytush inhabited the San Francisco Peninsula between San Francisco Bay and the Pacific Ocean in the area which is now San Francisco and San Mateo Counties. Ramaytush is a dialect or language within the Costanoan branch of Continue Reading

Honoring the Workers

 Posted by on January 20, 2000
Jan 202000
 
Honoring the Workers

Corner of Mission and Steaurt An Injury to One is an Injury to All – The rallying cry of the Wobblies.  That is the name of this sculpture found on the corner of Spear and Mission Streets, San Francisco. The brass plaque that accompanies it reads “In memory of Howard Sperry and Nick Bordoise, who gave their lives on Bloody Thursday, July 5, 1934, so that all working people might enjoy a greater measure of dignity and security. Sperry and Bordoise were fatally shot by San Francisco police at the intersection of Mission and Steuart Streets, when longshoremen and seamen attempted Continue Reading

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