Mindblown: a blog about philosophy.
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Harvey Milk Civil Rights Academy
Castro District Harvey Milk Civil Rights Academy The “Books & Reading” Mural is located at the school’s facade. This mural is a part 1 of a triptych. Created by students with Artist in Residence Ellen Blakeley in 2000, each child drew a 4″ picture of their favorite book or a picture of themselves reading.…
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Castro – A Celebration of Love
Castro District Noe and 19th Street This is a Precita Eyes Mural. It was done in 2008 and is titled “A Celebration of Love”
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Eureka Valley Rec Center
Castro District/Eureka Valley Eureka Valley Rec Center 157 Collingwood Street Time After Time by Betsie Miller-Kusz 2005 Betsie was Born in Los Alamos, New Mexico and resides in Jemez, New Mexico. This is from her website “I paint and only paint. My installations are extensions of this act, which gives meaning to my existence.…
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Mona Caron Brings You a Garden
Noe Valley/Castro Corner of Church and 22nd Streets Botanical Mural by Mona Caron This mural is immense. It is impossible to capture it in one photo and have any idea of what is being portrayed, so I have chosen to shoot it and show it to you in sections. Mona Caron has shown up several times…
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Noe Valley — Market Street Railway Mural
Noe Valley Eureka Valley Market Street Railway by Mona Caron 300 Church Street near 15th 38′ X 12′ This is Mona Caron’s own description of this wonderful mural. The Market Street Railway mural shows a 180-degree bird’s-eye view of San Francisco’s Market Street through time. The connecting theme of the mural is the historic Market…
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Lango in the Mission and SOMA
SOMA – San Francisco Mary at Howard Streets This piece was done by Lango, a tattoo artist here in San Francisco. I have tried to contact him to ask him about this mural, but according to a friend of his I met the other day he is extremely shy. I respect that, and figure his…
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Portland, Oregon Mills End’s Park
Mill End’s Park Portland, Oregon Mill Ends Park is a small park located in the median strip of SW Naito Parkway near SW Taylor Street in downtown Portland, Oregon. It was created on St. Patrick’s Day, 1948, to be “the only leprechaun colony west of Ireland,” according to its creator, Dick Fagan. It is the…
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Portland, Oregon – Cathedral Park
Cathedral Park Portland, Oregon This is Cathedral Park in Portland, Oregon. It is believed to be one of the 14 Lewis and Clark landing sites in the Vancouver-Portland area. It’s cathedral-like appearance comes from the fact that it sits under this gorgeous bridge. The St. Johns Bridge is a steel suspension bridge that spans…
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Bernal Heights, San Francisco October 8, 2011
Bernal Height Mission District Noe Valley Transit Systems Due to a strong art commission in San Francisco we are fortunate to see art most everywhere. The fun thing is finding it when you least expect it. Our transit system has lots of art, but sometimes you just pass it by. This is at the corner…
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Bernal Heights – Odonatoa
Holy Park Playground Holy Park Circle Bernal Heights Odonatoa by Joyce Hsu Bernal Heights is a wonderful area that has some of the cities best weather. This sculpture sits on top of a delightful park that has views of all around the city. Bernal had its origin with the 1839 Rancho Rincon de las Salinas…
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Visitacion Valley Community Center
243 Leland Avenue Visitacion Valley Community Center Artist: Victor Mario Zaballa A prolific and fascinating artist Victor Zaballa is an Aztec originally trained in aeronautical engineering in Mexico City. He has lived and worked in San Francisco for a number of years where he is a popular and respected member of the artist community. He works…
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Fire Station #44
Fire Station #44 Formerly #47 1298 Girard Street This piece is titled “Diagonal Relief” by Elizabeth Saltos. According to Elizabeth she creates sculpture from a continually evolving series of geometric configurations using a visual alphabet of shape, color and surface in dialogue with its architectural environs. This piece is on Firehouse #44. It was originally Firehouse #47 and…
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Islais Creek Park
Islais Creek Park Quint, Third and Berry The Ohlone Indians were harvesting mussels, clams, and shrimp on the shores of Islais Creek long before Europeans arrived in 1769. The creek appeared on Mexican maps in 1834, named for Los Islais (is-lay-is), a hollyleaf cherry and favorite Indian food. On today’s map it is the gateway…
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Bayview/Hunters Point Muni Stop
Bayview/Hunters Point 3rd Street Light Rail Kirkwood/Oakdale Station The Marquis Pole Horace Washington was the artist for the third station. His work represents the tradition of shipbuilding and the history of WWII in the neighborhood. At the start of World War II the Navy recognized the need for greatly increased naval shipbuilding and repair facilities…
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Bayview – Hunters Point Muni Stop
Bayview/Hunters Point 3rd Street Light Rail Project LaSalle/Palou Station The Marquis signpost The Canopy This station designed by Frederick Hayes deals with Afro-Centric issues. Hayes uses a kente cloth roof design and African language and cowrie shell symbols on the platform. Kente cloth, known locally as nwentoma, is a type of silk and cotton fabric…
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Hunters Point – Muni Stop
Hunter’s Point 3rd Street Light Rail Project Revere/Shafter Station A Second team led by Horace Washington created stops in the Bayview/Hunters Point neighborhood. These artists attended many community meetings for input and direction about what kinds of concepts were desired for inclusion by neighborhood members. Many ideas were proposed including futuristic, ethnic, ecological and Victorian.…
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San Francisco’s Muni Stops
Cable cars have been synonymous with San Francisco since the 1800’s. We correct people all the time in the vernacular of cable car versus trolly, but, we have trolly lines too. Our muni system is just that. Muni covers much of the city, and many people that visit our town ride the vintage trolly cars…
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Nob Hill – Resting Hermes
Nob Hill Corner of Powell and California This bronze statue “Resting Hermes,” is a remnant of the 1915 Panama Pacific International Exposition that sits outside the University Club on California Street in San Francisco. If you ride the cable car and hop on or off at the top of Powell street, walk over and take…
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Stencil Art
San Francisco All Around Town Stencils Stencils are a fun, down and dirty way to place art on the street. Most of their creators you will never know, but the creator of these is out in the open. Jeremy Novy began stenciling koi fish on the sidewalks, often on top of graffiti tags, to “beautify…
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Richmond District – Rochambeau Playground
The Richmond District Rochambeau Playground 25th Avenue between California and Clement The artwork celebrates sports at Rochambeau Playground. Two concrete pillars clad in ceramic tile are topped by an 8-inch mosaic tennis ball and a 22-inch mosaic basketball. They mark the end of the handicapped ramp and the wall between the children’s playground and the…
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The Richmond – Speaking Stones
The Richmond District Richmond Recreation Center 251 18th Avenue Throughout the park is poetry cast into concrete benches and carved into stones. The artist, Seyed Alavi titled this piece Speaking Stones. It was to be a poetry garden with metaphors for health, contentment and community. Seyed Alavi received a Bachelor of Science degree from San…
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Playland Revisited
The Richmond District Corner of LaPlaya and Cabrillo Many people come to San Francisco and head to the Musee Mecanique. There the first person you encounter, either with your ears or with your eyes is “Laughing Sal.” Well she wasn’t always in a museum. Laughing Sal was originally at “Playland”. Playland (also known as Playland…
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Marina District – Passage
Marina District Bay and Laguna Kent Roberts Passage I fell in love with this the moment I laid eyes on it. There is something so simple and yet amusing about this piece. It is 25 feet long and made of stainless steel. The piece is part of the city’s Civic Art Collection. The description states…
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North Beach Swimming Pool
North Beach Swimming Pool and Clubhouse Lombard and Mason Streets Artist Vicki Saulls was selected for this site-specific commission through the Arts Commission’s Public Art Program which, by city ordinance, allocates 2% of the construction cost of civic buildings, new parks, and other capital projects for public art. This is the entry door to the…
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St. Regis Hotel
SOMA St. Regis Hotel 3rd and Mission Streets This is by Raymond Saunders, an American artist born1934 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He lives and works in Oakland, California and is currently a professor of Painting at California College of the Arts, in Oakland. I found this description from a press release put out by the St. Regis:…
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Polk Street History in Murals
Tenderloin 1221 Polk Street This series is by Dray. This set of murals is on the side of Lush Lounge at 1221 Polk Street in San Francisco. When I spoke to Dray about these murals he relayed an article in the San Francisco Examiner that discussed the controversy regarding a series of murals that was to be scheduled…
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Woh Hei Yuen Park in Chinatown
Chinatown Powell Street Between John and Jackson Streets This is the most wonderful little city park. It is only a half block, but it is such an amazing little retreat. There are benches, green grass and a very small area for children to play. It even has two pieces of public art done in 2000. It…
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SOMA – Man With Flame
SOMA Convention Plaza 3rd Street Between Howard and Folsom Man With Flame by Stephen de Staebler This little walk way offers a wonderful respite from the hectic goings on inside Moscone Center. There are lots of tables and chairs, wonderful public art, and a Starbuck’s if you are so inclined. I have copied the following…
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SOMA – Venus with Rope
SOMA Convention Plaza 3rd Street Between Howard and Folsom “Venus with Rope” Jim Dine 1986 Jim Dine has shown up in this site before. In 1962 Dine’s work was included, along with Roy Lichtenstein, Andy Warhol, Robert Dowd, Phillip Hefferton, Joe Goode, Edward Ruscha, and Wayne Thiebaud, in the historically important and ground-breaking New Painting of…
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