16th and Bryant Potrero Hill, San Francisco This mural at 16th and Bryant is by Rigo and was done in 1997. Rigo has been in this website many times. was born and raised on the Portuguese island of Madeira. He later established himself as an artist in San Francisco, earning a BFA from San Francisco Art Institute in 1991 and an MFA from Stanford University in 1997. From 1984-2002, Rigo used the last two digits of the current year as part of his name, finally settling upon “23″ in 2003
Mission District 20th and Bryant San Francisco Sirron Norris Across from the Deli-up Cafe with its work by Sirron is this at Norm’s market. Here are all the photos for your enjoyment.
SOMA Filipino Education Center 824 Harrison Street Tuloy po Kayo, is Filipino for “welcome.” The mural was designed by internationally-acclaimed muralist Cece Carpio, and painted with Miguel Bounce Perez and other volunteer artists, the mural represents the Filipino community’s shared experiences, history, and culture. To prepare for this mural, Carpio led an arts workshop with Bessie Carmichael students, ( the elementary school in the neighborhood) where the children created drawings on themes of self-identity, family, and community. Using the children’s input as her guide, Carpio led a community meeting at the Bayanihan Center (neighboring Filipino Center) to gather more feedback Continue Reading
SOMA 1420 Harrison Street This magnificent and show stopping mural is by Victor Reyes. 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 Continue Reading
SOMA 501 Minna Street at 6th This set of small mosaic murals are part of the ArtSpan’s South of Market Youth and Public Art Project. Lead artist, Johanna Poethig who has been in this site numerous times is director for the Inner City Public Art Projects for Youth, a program of San Francisco’s South of Market Cultural Center and Artspan. They have completed a body of ceramic public art works installed throughout downtown San Francisco These are a result of the Stop, Look, Listen to Me program which operates on $32,000 from the city’s Neighborhood Beautification Fund, and has Continue Reading
SOMA Langton Street This Mural has been painted over (6/2012) Mac Dre was a rapper, born in Oakland, lived in Vallejo, convicted of conspiracy to commit robbery and killed by a bullet from a passing car in Kansas City. His bio on Wikipedia is really rather interesting. If you are interested in his music style this is fascinating reading as well. The artists on this mural are ICP Crew (Inner City Phame). “The first graffiti I saw when I was a kid growing up in the Mission was the Chicano writing on our walls,” says Twick, ICP veteran and original Continue Reading
SOMA 10th and Bryant This mural is by Rigo. This piece was done in 1996. Rigo has been in this website many times before. He was born and raised on the Portuguese island of Madeira. He later established himself as an artist in San Francisco, earning a BFA from San Francisco Art Institute in 1991 and an MFA from Stanford University in 1997. From 1984-2002, Rigo used the last two digits of the current year as part of his name, finally settling upon “23” in 2003.
354 5th Street This work is by Sirron Norris. Born in Cleveland, Ohio he graduated from the Art Institute of Pittsburgh, eventually settling down in San Francisco in 1997. Sirron worked as a production artist in the video game industry while he perfected his skill set as a fine artist. In 1999, Sirron quickly gained notoriety from his first showing at The Luggage Store. Sirron was the recipient of the prestigious Wattis Artist in Residence from the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in 2002. It was during that residency that he coined the term “Cartoon Literalism” as a description Continue Reading
SOMA 6th Street and Jessie This series of murals is by Lango. Lango has been in this website many times, and I am a big fan of his work. You can more of his work here. This is a rough part of town, so I am not sure how or why this wall was chosen, but they are really just gorgeous.
Taraval Police Station 2345 24th Avenue Parkside Neighborhood, San Francisco This gorgeous building is the Taraval Police Station. It was built in 1924 and designed by Martin Rist. 1996 brought a complete restoration and renovation. This piece is over the door to the community room at the police station. It is by Scott Donahue. Scott has a BFA from Philadelphia college of art and an MFA from UC Davis. He has taught at UC Berkely, UC Davis and California College for the Arts. The piece is titled Kate, Allen, Javier, Ting-Ting, Sloanie and done in 1996 of concrete, fiberglass and Continue Reading
Ocean View Public Library 345 Randolph, San Francisco The front of the Ocean View library is adorned with two marvelous sculptures on either side of the door. It was done out of cast Glass Fiber Reinforced Concrete with integral color. The left panel shows a young tree, with landmarks of the old Oceanview District, some still standing and some now gone, in the background. The artists are husband and wife team Mark Roller and Colette Crutcher. According to Colette’s website it was made under the auspices of the San Francisco Arts Commission for the new branch library in the Oceanview Continue Reading
Ingleside San Francisco City College Ocean Avenue This is titled Up-Tight #1 by Jaques Overhoff. Mr. Overhoff has been in this blog before with a piece on SF City College campus. Up-Tight #1 is painted concrete. The name was to symbolize the stabilizing effects of the tension cables. That made absolutely no sense to me until I found an earlier photo of the piece. Obviously some restoration is in order for this piece that was installed in 1977.
Ingleside San Francisco City College Ocean Avenue Campus * * Sentinels by Aristides Demetrios This one piece is titled Sentinels. It is by Aristides Demetrios who has been in this site before with his aeolian harp. This piece of welded bronze plates is titled sentinels and was done in 1973. The piece is on permanent loan from the SF Arts Commission. In May 2010 the SFAC acknowledge that there was need for a complete conservation assessment as the piece was showing significant corrosion at the seams due to trapped moisture. It was assumed at that time that the work Continue Reading
631 Folsom Street SOMA These giant pieces of carrara marble are by Richard Deutsch are titled Frammenti. Deutsch has been in this site before and I recommend you visit his website. He is a very accomplished artist with work all over the world. This piece is titled Fragmented. The day I was there the fountain was not running, but Deutsch’s website has some really gorgeous photos of the fountain while it is working.
Tenderloin 420 Taylor Street Mural by C.J. Fitzgerald Diane Winters is a tile restoration artist. She recently emailed me about this mural that she was instrumental in restoring. I had never seen it before, and was thrilled to get a chance to photograph it and learn a little bit of San Francisco history, I was completely unaware of. The mural sits on the side of a parking garage, little did I know the building also housed Radio City. The NBC Radio City building in San Francisco was not owned by NBC. It was built for NBC and owned by a San Continue Reading
SOMA 560 Mission Street Annular Eclipse George Rickey George Rickey (1907 -2002) built his career combining fundamental elements of nature and physics in the creation of his sculpture. His works include a broad vocabulary of geometric shapes and multiple devices for moving the elements in his sculpture, such as gimbals, pendulums and rotors. Ricky constantly experimented with mechanical systems, but as he wrote in 1991, the drama in his sculpture “is in the movement, not the structure. The means must disappear.” * While I am beginning to find kinetic sculptures over done in the modern landscape, I love the parklet Continue Reading
SOMA 100 First Street 2nd Floor Scattered across downtown San Francisco are almost seventy semi-secret spaces, privately owned but open to the public. Subject to the fine print of a little-known pact between the city and business, these POPOS (Privately Owned Public Open Spaces) allow alluring vistas of San Francisco and access to its intimate interiors. This little gem is up a flight of exterior stairs off Mission Street. * This black granite and glass piece is titled Waterwall by John Luebtow. Over the past 30 years, John Luebtow has become one of the most respected names in contemporary glass Continue Reading
Potrero Hill 17th and Alabama Sometimes murals catch you, not for their quality but for their whimsy. Take a look at the close up pictures. This mural is by Javier Manrique, a multidisciplinary artist who has shown all over the world. This mural is on the wall of Project Artaud where Manrique lives.
The Mission District Kid Power Park Hoff between 16th and 17th Ethel Siegel Newlin,program liaison at St. John’s Educational Thresholds Center (now Mission Graduates) on 16th Street, is responsible for this wonderful little oasis in the city. Ten years ago, elementary and middle school children in one of Newlin’s programs surveyed the neighborhood and found liquor stores, dry cleaners and thrift shops, but no parks. The nearest one was at 19th and Valencia. So they went to the Recreation and Park Department’s Open Space Committee to plead their case, and won $200,000. The next year they did the same thing, Continue Reading
The Mission District Kid Power Park Hoff Between 16th and 17th Our Children This huge mosaic mural is by Joseph Norris. Writing about this mural is difficult. While I love the smiles on these children, and I think the quality of the mosaic is superior, to say nothing of producing a mosaic of this size, the artist is a problem. Joseph Norris was arrested this June for possessing child pornography. So while I find no point in celebrating the artist, I still feel the mosaics are worth viewing.
Chinatown Portsmouth Square San Francisco remembers Robert Louis Stevenson with the first monument to Stevenson in the United States. It sits in Portsmouth Square in Chinatown. In 1876 Stevenson was at an art colony in France and fell in love Fanny Vandegrift Osbourne, who was not only married with several children, but was 11 years his senior. In 1878, Fanny was called home by her husband in San Francisco. After a while Fanny telegraphed asking Stevenson to join her and he headed to San Francisco. At the time Stevenson was not the world renown author of Treasure Island, Kidnapped and The Continue Reading
Salinas, California The choice of building materials for the early Spanish settlers and Mission builders of California and much of the southwest of the U.S. was adobe. Adobe is a natural building material made from sand, clay, water, and some kind of fibrous or organic material (sticks, straw, and/or manure), which the builders shape into bricks using frames and dry in the sun. Adobe buildings are similar to cob and mudbrick buildings. Adobe structures are extremely durable, and account for some of the oldest existing buildings in the world. In hot climates, compared with wooden buildings, adobe buildings offer significant Continue Reading
California Missions The El Camino Real Tomes have been written about the history of the Spanish and the Missions of California. It was a difficult period in the history of California, fraught with inhumanity, as well as, expansion and progress. Much of California’s history began with the Spanish Missions. The chain of 21 missions along California’s El Camino Real (“The Royal Highway”) represent the first arrival of non-Native Americans to California. Life for the California Native Americans was forever changed. In addition to Christianity and disease, the missions brought livestock, fruits, flowers, grains and industry. If you are interested I suggest Continue Reading
Coalinga Central Valley California If you have ever driven Highway 5 down the center of California you have undoubtedly stopped at Harris Ranch, a half-way point between the metropolitan areas of northern and southern California. Just on the other side of the highway is the town of Coalinga. In the early years of railroading, before the extensive development of oil production in California, the steam locomotives were powered by the burning of coal obtained from the northern foothills of Mount Diablo. The Southern Pacific Transportation Company established the site as a coaling station in 1888, and it was called simply Coaling Continue Reading
Central Valley California I spent my Thanksgiving holiday driving the back roads of the San Joaquin portion of the Central Valley of California. For those unfamiliar with the area it is a large, flat valley that dominates the central portion of California. It is home to California’s most productive agricultural efforts. The valley stretches approximately 450 miles from northwest to southeast inland and parallel to the Pacific Ocean coast. Its northern half is referred to as the Sacramento Valley, and its southern half as the San Joaquin Valley. The Central Valley covers an area of approximately 22,500 square miles, making it slightly Continue Reading
Potrero Hill 17th and Florida Muybridge Live Benjy Young The photos of these umbrellas have been on my computer for quite a while. I did not want to post them until I knew who the artist was, and that task proved elusive. However, today was one of those days that make it all worth while. I went back to the umbrellas, as you will be able to tell by the varying sky and took a few more shots. I also took the time to start knocking on doors and asking who was the creator of this whimsical, wonderful installation. Well, Continue Reading
Chinatown 740 Washington Street 100 Children by Leland Wong This mural is part of the Art in Storefronts project sponsored by the San Francisco Arts Commission. Leland Wongs Bai Zi Tu, or 100 children is a traditional Chinese painting, that brings blessing of a complete and healthy family that goes on for generations. Leland, a native of Chinatown, began with what he called “Chinatown” orange, and then photographed 100 children from two schools in the Chinatown neighborhood. * The arts commission gives each artist $500, Leland knew this was going to cost considerably more, so he left his comfort zone Continue Reading
Chinatown Portsmouth Square Tot Park Untitled by Mary Fuller McChesney and Robert McChesney In researching the artists I found this 2002 article in the San Francisco Chronicle by M. V. Wood. I loved it so much I thought I would just reproduce it here for all to enjoy. They were hip. They were young and beautiful. And they were both artists living in San Francisco in the 1940s, when the city was already romantic, and the cars and tourists were still scarce. Their crowd ruled the scene long before the Beats bought their bongos. They were the countercultural kings when Jerry Garcia Continue Reading
Japantown These are two of my most favorite fountains in San Francisco. They are by Ruth Asawa and they reside in the Nihomachi Pedestrian Mall in Japantown. Nihomachi is a term used to designate an historical Japanese community. Ruth Asawa has been in the site before, and her website shows the wonderful work she does with wire and other media. In 1974, Asawa created the Origami Fountains, two lotus, fabricated in corten steel. By 1996, the steel had seriously deteriorated and the fountains had to be removed. Due to the communities love for Ruth, it was easy to mount support Continue Reading
The Embarcadero Rincon Annex 98 Howard Street Panel #17 Panel #17. “Vigilante Justice Vigilance committees formed during the 1850’s in San Francisco to counteract excessive criminality and a weak city government. These committees handed down verdicts on their own terms. Vigilante justice was also popular in mining towns. This panel depicts vigilante actions in 1856 that resulted from the murder of newspaper editor James King of William by county supervisor James P. Casey. Casey was convicted and hanged at the same moment King of William was being buried” Panel #20 Panel #20. “San Francisco as a cultural center The famous Continue Reading