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, when it was called the Nickel Pool, dubbed for its entrance price. Heavily graffitied in the 1980′s, it received a recreation center addition under the auspices of then-mayor Diane Feinstein. In 1988, I also collaborated with Susan K. Cervantes and Raul Martinez to paint the mural on the 19th Street façade of the Mission Swimming Pool. When we approached the City’s Park and Rec Department to sponsor and fund the 19th Street mural, they stipulated that they wanted a pastoral image, devoid of the multitudes of human figures depicted in the previous mural. We designed the “New World Tree” piece in the form of a traditional Mexican ceramic tree of life, full of birds and animals, Adam and Eve and their children. In the center of the composition, the jade eye of Tlaloc, the Aztec rain god, radiates light across the entire surface of the work. In the background, and surrounding the tree, the San Francisco Bay is pictured, with native wildlife and human inhabitants at peace in their environment. Our intent was to create a peaceful outdoor temple for the park, the street. The Aztec symbol for the heart is painted on the door to the swimming pool. New World Tree is an ode to connection of all human bloodlines, to water as the source of all life and to the natural beauty of the Bay Area.
Juana Alicia is a muralist, printmaker, educator, activist and painter who loves to draw. She has been teaching for thirty years, working in many areas of education, from community organizing to migrant and bilingual education to arts education, from kindergarten to graduate school levels. Currently she is a full-time faculty at Berkeley City College, where she directs a public art program called True Colors.
Susan Kelk Cervantes is a muralist and dedicated artist, a pioneer of the SF community mural art movement, and the founder and director of the Precita Eyes Muralists in the Mission District of San Francisco. Established in 1977, Precita Eyes is one of only a handful of community mural arts centers in the United States. Influenced by the Mujeres Muralistas, the first collaborative group of women muralists, Cervantes has applied the same process of accessible, community art to any size mural or age group through community mural workshops. Cervantes is responsible for more than 400 murals. She holds both an BFA and MFA from the San Francisco Art Institute.