South San Francisco

 Posted by on July 4, 2011
Jul 042011
 
South San Francisco

Today’s post is, well honestly, a soap box.  Most people know the City of South San Francisco because they see the above when they drive into San Francisco from the airport.  That is it, that is probably all you need to know as well.  It is a delightful little town with an old downtown where you can still get your shoes fixed, and the hardware store guy knows your name, and what you need.  It is a split town, the freeway runs directly through it, the west side of the freeway is why it is called the Industrial City.  It Continue Reading

Mission District- Balmy Avenue

 Posted by on July 3, 2011
Jul 032011
 
Mission District- Balmy Avenue

Balmy Alley, Mission District, San Francisco.  Part II. Part of the wooden cut out mural at the 24th end of Balmy Alley “The birth of a silence is written in the agony of a sigh” I continue with just a few more Balmy Alley murals today.  There are many, many more and I again encourage you to make your way there when you can, and take a tour by Precita Eyes if you have the time. Virgin of Guadalupe by Patricia Rose Patricia Rose is the senior tour coordinator for Balmy Alley and one of the major artists in the Mission Mural Continue Reading

Mission District – Balmy Alley

 Posted by on July 2, 2011
Jul 022011
 
Mission District - Balmy Alley

Balmy Alley Inspired by Huichol Indian Yarn Paintings by Mia Gonzales, Susan Cervantes and Others 1991 This is the beginning of Balmy Avenue.  It is runs between 25th and 24th streets in the Mission District, between Harrison and Treat.  This block long alley is one of several great alleys in San Francisco with a highly concentrated collection of murals. The murals began in the mid-80’s as an outlet for artists’ outrage over human rights and political abuses in Central America. Today the alley contains murals on a myriad of styles and subjects from human rights to local gentrification and Hurricane Katrina. Continue Reading

Mission District – 24th Street Mini Park, San Francisco

 Posted by on July 1, 2011
Jul 012011
 
Mission District - 24th Street Mini Park, San Francisco

24th and York This is another mosaic by  Colette Crutcher, this time, in collaboration with her husband, Mark Roller and friend Aileen Barr.   The park is at 24th and York in San Francisco.  It is a wonderful little mini park in a terrific part of the Mission District. This giant mosaic statue of the Mesoamerican snake-god Quetzalcoatl and it’s playful fountain is the focal point of the park.  Quetzalcoatl started as a concrete structure and then was covered with broken commercial tile, and hundreds of handmade tiles. The park used to be a neighborhood eyesore, filled with pretty scary folks Continue Reading

Golden Gate Heights – Mosaics in San Francisco

 Posted by on June 30, 2011
Jun 302011
 
Golden Gate Heights - Mosaics in San Francisco

This amazing set of stairs is at 16th Avenue and Moraga in San Francisco.  The artists are Colette Crutcher and Aileen Barr.   This 163 step stairway was a collaboration of the Golden Gate Heights Neighborhood Association and the San Francisco Parks Trust.  Colette and Aileen led a group of over 300 volunteers in making 163 mosaic panels, with over 200 neighbors sponsoring handmade tiles that are embedded in the mosaic.  Colette and Aileen wrote an amazing book about the project, and you can buy it through a link on Colette’s website. I suggest you visit the stairs yourself, enjoy the mosaics and Continue Reading

Oddities in San Francisco – Aeolian Harp

 Posted by on June 29, 2011
Jun 292011
 
Oddities in San Francisco - Aeolian Harp

This is one of the more obscure pieces of art in the San Francisco area.  It is actually in South San Francisco off Grandview Drive in the Oyster Point area.  It is difficult to find, and surrounded by ugly industrial buildings that over shadow it.  Which is sad, because it is really rather magnificent. 92-feet-tall sculpted by Aristides Demetrios it is one of the world’s largest aeolian harps. Named for Aeolus, the Greek god of the wind, and invented by the 17th-century polymath Athanasius Kircher, an aeolian harp is a passive instrument played by the movement of the wind. I Continue Reading

Winner of Best Public Art 2011

 Posted by on June 28, 2011
Jun 282011
 
Winner of Best Public Art 2011

This is a special piece to me.  The artist is Owen Smith, he is an award-winning illustrator whose work has appeared in numerous magazines and newspapers. Smith’s WPA-style mosaic murals and bas relief sculptures at the new Laguna Honda pay homage to Glen Wessels’ W.P.A. mural series “Professions” located in the hospital’s 1926 building. Painted in oil on canvas, Wessels’ five murals portray the classical elements (fire, air, earth and water) through an associated profession. For the hospital’s lobby, Smith created three mosaic murals depicting the building of the Golden Gate Bridge, which to him represents human audacity, bravery, skill and Continue Reading

Gay Pride – June 27, 2011 – San Francisco

 Posted by on June 27, 2011
Jun 272011
 
Gay Pride - June 27, 2011 - San Francisco

Gay Pride Parade – San Francisco – 2011.  It was a beautiful day on Sunday for a parade, and the town was out in full force. The first event resembling the modern San Francisco Pride celebration was held in 1970–a small “gay-in” in Golden Gate Park. Since 1972, the event has been held each year. The name of the festival has changed over the years.  The Rainbow Flag identified with the Gay community was originally created by Gilbert Baker for the 1978 San Francisco Pride Parade. It originally had eight stripes, but was later simplified to the current six stripes. Continue Reading

Pennsylvania – Bucks County

 Posted by on June 26, 2011
Jun 262011
 
Pennsylvania - Bucks County

Outside Philadelphia – This is the Mercer Museum in Doylestown, (Bucks County) Pennsylvania.  Henry Mercer inherited his money from a maiden aunt and with this money he started collecting objects of everyday life, convinced that the history of Bucks County was the history of the world. At first he did all the collecting himself, but over the years he developed quite a network of people that would bring him items from far and wide. His first collection burned down, thus creating the desire to house the entire new collection in a fireproof, concrete building.  So in 1916, Mercer erected a Continue Reading

Philadelphia – Claes Oldenburg

 Posted by on June 24, 2011
Jun 242011
 
Philadelphia - Claes Oldenburg

In Front of the City Center building downtown Philadelphia. I am a huge fan of Claes Oldenburg.  Born in Stockholm, Sweden, the son of a Swedish diplomat stationed in New York. In 1936 his father was transferred to Chicago where Oldenburg grew up, attending the Latin School of Chicago. He studied at Yale University from 1946 to 1950, then returned to Chicago where he took classes at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago.  Many of Oldenburg’s large-scale sculptures of mundane objects elicited public ridicule before being embraced as whimsical, insightful, and fun additions to public outdoor art.   Continue Reading

Philadelphia – Following your spirit

 Posted by on June 23, 2011
Jun 232011
 
Philadelphia - Following your spirit

My favorite artists are ones that find their passion and pursue it, with no thought to commercialism, or the sale.  The thing that is shunned by the neighbors, until they realize you aren’t a crazy old coot, you have a vision and it is just different. Well I found one of those in Philadelphia.  His name is Isaiah Zargar.  His work looks like that of an educated artist, and he is, having graduated from Pratt Institute in NYC.  While a young 19 year old he discovered the folk art of Clarence Schmidt which definitely inspired his work. In 1994, Zagar Continue Reading

Philadelphia – Playing Games

 Posted by on June 22, 2011
Jun 222011
 
Philadelphia - Playing Games

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania – 1417 JFK Boulevard This installation is entitled “Your Move” by Daniel Martinez, Renee Petropoulis and Roger White, it was installed in 1979.  While difficult to discern on the ground, the tiles appear to be some sort of game board, not checkers, or chess, but orderly like a game board.  The tops of the blue rounds have Bingo Number/Letter combinations on them, and there are also Checker’s pieces with crowns on top.  This is best seen from the observation deck of the Municipal Services Building where they are located.  Since I did not go up, I appreciated them Continue Reading

Philadelphia – Eastern State Penitentiary

 Posted by on June 21, 2011
Jun 212011
 
Philadelphia - Eastern State Penitentiary

I am in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.  My habit in any town is to seek the odd ball.  After an entire morning spent at the Philadelphia Art Museum, I headed out to an odd ball spot.  Before explaining that however, I must say, that if you have the opportunity to visit the Philadelphia Art Museum, please do.  Plan on exhausting yourself.  It has one of the most vast collections in the United States, and all of it is absolutely first rate.  I have never seen so many great old masters on display in one location, to say nothing of their Asian Art Continue Reading

Philadelphia – Public Art As Playgrounds

 Posted by on June 20, 2011
Jun 202011
 
Philadelphia - Public Art As Playgrounds

This is entitled “White Water” by Robinson Frendenthal.  It was installed in 1978, and the plaque reads  “Installed as a Fine Arts Commitment as required by the Redevelopment Authority of Philadelphia.”   So sad, sounds like the really didn’t want it.  Robinson Frendenthal graduated from Penn with a degree in architecture and turned to sculpture almost immediately.  His work can be seen all over Philadelphia.  He died at 69 in 2009. I don’t find anything outstanding enough about this sculpture to include it as a post in most normal circumstances, but what captured my attention immediately was the group of Continue Reading

Philadelphia – Government of the People

 Posted by on June 19, 2011
Jun 192011
 
Philadelphia - Government of the People

“Government of the People” is located in front of the Municipal Services Building in Philadelphia.  A piece by Jacques Lipchitz it was dedicated in 1976.  It seeks to portray the artist’s ideas regarding the struggle for freedom and the push to ensure democracy Lipchitz (1891-1973) was a Lithuanian.  In 1909 he moved to Paris to study at the École des Beaux-Arts and the Académie Julian and fell into the art scene there with such notables as Pablo Picasso,  Amedeo Modigliani, and Juan Gris  He was recognized as the most significant ‘Cubist’ sculptor of his time. His work was widely viewed as more Continue Reading

Philadelphia – Maxfield Parish meets Tiffany

 Posted by on June 18, 2011
Jun 182011
 
Philadelphia - Maxfield Parish meets Tiffany

Dream Garden is an enormous glass mosaic designed by artist Maxfield Parrish (1870-1966), and executed by Louis Comfort Tiffany and Tiffany Studios, for the lobby of the Curtis Publishing Building in Philadelphia — home of The Ladies’ Home Journal and The Saturday Evening Post. The work was commissioned by Edward Bok, Senior Editor of the Curtis Publishing Company. Over a one-month period, prior to being installed in the Curtis Building, the work was exhibited at Tiffany Studios in New York City, attracting more than 7,000 viewers. The Dream Garden took six months to install in Philadelphia. Maxfield Parrish was known Continue Reading

Philadelphia – Feeling the Love

 Posted by on June 17, 2011
Jun 172011
 
Philadelphia - Feeling the Love

Okay, you knew this was coming.  I am in Philadelphia, City of Brotherly Love.  City of Brotherly Love isn’t actually a nickname. It is merely a translation of the Greek phrase “brotherly love” from philos “love” and adelphos “brother”. William Penn was an English Quaker, a Latin and Greek scholar who was educated at Oxford. He chose the name when he established a peaceful and friendly city in the colony in the New World so that his fellow religionists could escape the persecution they were suffering in their native land. In 1976 the Robert Indiana sculpture was installed in John F. Continue Reading

Philadelphia – June 16, 2011

 Posted by on June 16, 2011
Jun 162011
 
Philadelphia - June 16, 2011

I am in Philadelphia and I hate doing the classic tourist stuff, so sorry, you won’t see a picture of the Liberty Bell, but this is pretty touristy as things go.  This is Christ Church Burial Ground.  I love cemeteries, they are so full of history, even if you don’t know anything about the people buried there, they have history for the people that knew them and the towns they are buried in. This particular cemetery has history for all of us.  Benjamin Franklin is buried here, as well as four other signers of the Declaration of Independence.  Commodore William Bainbridge, Commodore Continue Reading

William Wareham at SF City College

 Posted by on June 14, 2011
Jun 142011
 
William Wareham at SF City College

San Francisco City College Ocean Avenue Campus  This piece at City College San Francisco, Ocean campus, is titled “Wyoming Coup” by William Wareham.  It was installed in 1972 on the West Lawn of the Science Building. William Wareham graduated with an  MA and MFA from UC Berkeley in 1971, he did his undergraduate at the Philadelphia College of Art. He has always had a strong metal theme in his work. Since his stint as the first Artist in Residence at the Norcal Solid Waste Systems facility in 1990, where he set up the studio and wrote the safety manual, Wareham Continue Reading

San Francisco City College Mosaics

 Posted by on June 13, 2011
Jun 132011
 
San Francisco City College Mosaics

Two polished marble mosaics stand at either end of the Science Hall on the City College of San Francisco Campus.  These mosaics are by the Swiss-born artist Herman Volz and represent fields such as physics, chemistry, biology, and mathematics in tiny tiles. Completed on site, the mosaics took two years to install with a staff of eight workmen. Each tile is of varying thickness, resulting in shadows that emphasize their shape. Each marble tile was carefully polished, cemented onto the façade of the building, and then polished again. Begun during “Art in Action” at the Golden Gate International Exhibition (1939-1940), Continue Reading

Olmec Heads in San Francisco

 Posted by on June 12, 2011
Jun 122011
 
Olmec Heads in San Francisco

San Francisco City College Ocean Avenue Campus Frida Kahlo Garden   The giant Olmec head, “El Rey,” San Lorenzo #1 was carved by Ignacio Perez Solano, also know as “il Maestro.” The head is an accurate reproduction of the original piece from San Lorenzo in Veracruz, Mexico. The 3,000 year old original basalt head is believed to be a portrait of a ruler from this ancient civilization. The stone originated some 50 miles from where the statue was discovered. The piece was given to City College of San Francisco in 2004 by then Vera Cruz Governor Miguel Alemán Velazco  in Continue Reading

Peace in San Francisco

 Posted by on June 11, 2011
Jun 112011
 
Peace in San Francisco

This statue of “Pacifica” is in the courtyard of the Diego Rivera Theater on the City College of San Francisco Ocean Avenue Campus.  Originally, an 80 foot tall sculpture of Pacifica graced the Golden Gate International Exhibition on Treasure Island, she was destroyed by the Navy in 1941 when they took possession of the island. Sal Daguarda undertook the project of reproducing a smaller version of Pacifica because of his ties to the long ago event. DeGuarda was a swimmer and performer for the Billy Rose Aquacade, entertaining the crowds during the 1939-1940 Exhibition. One day a photographer took his picture Continue Reading

The Art of Concrete at CCSF

 Posted by on June 10, 2011
Jun 102011
 
The Art of Concrete at CCSF

San Francisco City College Ocean Avenue Campus This is called “Sculptural deck and Bicentennial Wings” by Jacques Overhoff.  It was done in 1979.  It is typical of Overhoff work, cast concrete with ceramic tile.  Jacques Overhoff was born in 1933 in the Netherlands and studied at the Graphics School of Design and the University of Oregon.  He moved to San Francisco in the 1950’s. His civic sculptures range in style from symbolic figures to structural abstractions, as well as, in this case, entire sculptural plazas.  This particular piece has suffered from abuse by skate boarders and taggers and was restored Continue Reading

Guns and Roses

 Posted by on June 9, 2011
Jun 092011
 
Guns and Roses

San Francisco City College Ocean Avenue At the entrance to San Francisco City College is “St. Francis of the Guns” by Bufano.  Born in Italy, in 1898, Beniamino Benvenuto Bufano taught at the California School of Fine Arts, now the San Francisco Art Institute, (but was dismissed in 1923 because he was considered too modern), the University of California, Berkeley, and Oakland’s California College of Arts and Crafts so his work is (or should be) well known to natives. Following the assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr., and Senator Robert F. Kennedy in 1968, then Mayor, Joseph Alioto, initiated a voluntary Continue Reading

Geneva Terrace

 Posted by on June 7, 2011
Jun 072011
 
Geneva Terrace

Viscitation Valley – Geneva Terrace – San Francisco Corner of Schwerein and Velasco Streets In the early 1960s, Joseph Eichler enlisted the help of architect Claude Oakland to design affordable housing in the Visitacion Valley.  They came up with the Geneva Terrace Townhouse complex that you can see behind the park and the Geneva Towers high rise apartment building.  The Townhouse complex covers 8 neighboring streets and isn’t what I think of Eichler architecture at all.  They are all identical in design, they are all 2 story and 4 bedroom homes.  What I absolutely loved was the repetition of the Continue Reading

Viscitation Valley – Rebar Art Consortium

 Posted by on June 6, 2011
Jun 062011
 
Viscitation Valley - Rebar Art Consortium

Corner of Leland Avenue and Bayshore Boulevard – Viscitation Valley – San Francisco “Sprouting” from the sidewalk like stalks of organically grown street furniture, Street Life is a large-scale sculpture composed of surplus parking meter heads, painted dark orange, attached to tall, arcing steel poles. The sculpture marks the gateway to the entrance of what locals refer to as “downtown” Visitacion Valley. The installation is by a team of artists called Rebar. According to Rebar founder Matthew Passmore, “Street Life encourages viewers to imagine new possibilities for automobile infrastructure that is outmoded. The street furnishings of today may well be the Continue Reading

Mission District – Public Post

 Posted by on June 5, 2011
Jun 052011
 
Mission District - Public Post

Valencia Street Between 16th and 19th, Mission District, San Francisco Valencia Street Post by Michael Arcega * Crafted out of steel and aluminum and painted with a durable urethane alkyd enamel, the ornamental crowns are sort of Victorian architecture that is intended to recall the neighborhood’s past history. The Department of Public Works added a decorative paving design based on Victorian wallpaper to the sidewalk surrounding the poles. These are meant to be community bulletin boards, and believe me, they are covered with postings. It is nice to have the city admit that phone polls like this are coated everyday Continue Reading

Excelsior District – Blue Bird of Happiness

 Posted by on June 4, 2011
Jun 042011
 
Excelsior District - Blue Bird of Happiness

A little blue bird in Cayuga Park, San Francisco Cayuga Park sits at the end of Cayuga lane under the 280 freeway and the Bart tracks in an area called The Excelsior district in San Francisco.   I had been hearing for years about this little park and its grounds attendant Demetrio Braceros, but we all know how life goes on and we never quite get all the things on our list accomplished.  This was one of them, and well, it is still one of them.  I knew I was in trouble when I really had an incredibly difficult time 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.

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