Public Art – Page 5 – Public Art and Architecture from Around the World

Don Potts Amazing Wood Models

Posted by Cindy on February 5, 2014

Feb 052014

City Hall
South Light Court
Civic Center

Pylon of the Golden Gate Bridge

There are four amazing, exquisite and highly detailed wood models in the South Light Court of City Hall. They are all by Don Potts.

These architectural models were designed and built in 1982 by Don Potts in commemoration of the Centennial of the San Francisco Chapter of the American Institute of Architects. The models were first displayed in an exhibition at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art which “highlighted the important contribution that architecture has made to the City and County of San Francisco, and which served to reawaken a public awareness of the built environment. Each building or public space represents a unique phase in the evolution and development of San Francisco’s rich architectural heritage and distinguished urban design. Each model also serves as a type of icon, symbolizing various aspects of urban life.”

The models were purchased by the joint committee of the SFAC and the San Francisco Airports Commission for $13,700.

Donald Edwin Potts was born in San Francisco on October 5, 1936. Potts studied at San Francisco City College and received his M.A. at San Jose State College. He taught at the University of California at Berkeley for several years. In 2006 he moved to Fairfield, Iowa.

He has had 24 solo shows at the Whitney Museum (New York), Walker Art Center (Minneapolis), Museum of Contemporary Art (Chicago), and others.

His works are held at Pasadena Museum; San Francisco Museum; Oakland Museum; La Jolla Museum; Joselyn Art Museum (Nebraska)

This Italianate Victorian Home was modeled on a home at 1808 California Street. The model was altered to give it a more Italianate feeling. Maplewood was laser-cut to give the model its gingerbread ornamentation. Multi-shaped woods were laminated together to give the desired pattern and three-dimensional image.

George Moscone

Posted by Cindy on February 4, 2014

Feb 042014

City Hall
Mayor’s Balcony
Civic Center

This bronze bust is of the late Mayor George Moscone. Moscone was assassinated by Dan White along with Harvey Milk in November 1978, a tragedy for the City of San Francisco. Moscone was our 37th mayor.

The bust was done by my dear friend Spero Anargyros. Spero has a few works throughout San Francisco, and you can read about them here.

Many people are aware of the highly controversial, but in my opinion, excellent, sculpture of Moscone by Robert Arneson. The bust that Arneson created was not liked by the powers that be. The new mayor, Dianne Feinstein, had a letter hand delivered to each Arts Commissioner just before their vote on whether to accept the bust, asking them to reject it, and they did, by a seven-to-three vote. The bust, being shown at Moscone Center, was removed and Robert Arneson returned the thirty-seven thousand dollars he had been paid to do the work.

In December 1994, Spero Anargyros’s sculpture of George Moscone was unveiled.

The pedestal reads: San Francisco is an extraordinary city, because its people have learned to live together with one another, to respect each other, and to work with each other for the future of their community. That’s the strength and beauty of this city – it’s the reason why citizens who live here are the luckiest people in the world.”…a quote from George Moscone.

Log

Posted by Cindy on February 3, 2014

Feb 032014

Corner of Webster and Golden Gate Avenue
Park behind the Rosa Parks Senior Center
Western Addition

I have driven past this park one thousand times and have always wondered about this tree stump. Then one day my dear friend Netra Roston told me about an artist named Sargent Johnson. Sargent Johnson was not a stranger to this blog, his WPA work is at the Maritime Museum.

Born in Boston on October 7, 1887, Sargent Claude Johnson was the third of six children of Anderson and Lizzie Jackson Johnson. Anderson Johnson was of Swedish ancestry, and his wife was Cherokee and African American. All of the children were fair enough in complexion to be considered white, and several of Johnson’s sisters preferred to live in white society. Sargent, however, was insistent upon identifying with his African-American heritage throughout his life.

The Johnson children were orphaned by the deaths of their father in 1897 and their mother in 1902. The children spent their early years in Washington, D.C., with an uncle, Sherman William Jackson, a high school principal whose wife was May Howard Jackson, a noted sculptress who specialized in portrait busts of African Americans. It was probably while young Sargent was living with his aunt that he developed his earliest interest in sculpture.

Johnson arrived in the San Francisco area in 1915, during the time of the Panama Pacific International Exposition, which impressed him greatly.

The same year Johnson arrived in San Francisco, he met and married Pearl Lawson, an African American from Georgia who had moved to the Bay Area. The couple had one child, Pearl Adele, who was born in 1923. The couple separated in 1936 and shortly afterwards Mrs. Johnson was hospitalized at Stockton State Hospital, where she died in 1964.

Johnson worked at various jobs during his first years in San Francisco but also attended two art schools, the A. W. Best School of Art and the California School of Fine Arts. Johnson was enrolled at the latter school from 1919 to 1923 and from 1940 to 1942. He studied first under the well-known sculptor Ralph Stackpole for two years, and for a year with Beniamino Bufano. Johnson’s student work at the California School of Fine Arts was awarded first prizes in 1921 and 1922.

The 1930s were the most productive decade in Johnson’s career. The W.P.A. Federal Art Project provided a number of opportunities for Johnson during the late 1930s in the Bay Area. Johnson’s first large W.P.A. project was an organ screen carved of redwood in low relief for the California School of the Blind in Berkeley. The eighteen-by-twenty-four-foot panel was completed in 1937 and installed in the school’s chapel. In 1939 he undertook another W.P.A. project, decorating the interior of the San Francisco Maritime Museum in Aquatic Park.

For the Golden Gate International Exposition Johnson completed his largest figures. He designed two eight-foot-high cast stone figures, which were displayed around the fountain in the Court of Pacifica. Johnson’s figures depicted two Incas seated on llamas and were distinctly East Indian in inspiration. They are known as the “happy Incas playing the Piper of Pan,”. He also designed three figures symbolizing industry, home life, and agriculture for the Alameda-Contra Costa Building at the Exposition.

Johnson moved a number of times in the final fifteen years of his life. Following an illness in 1965, Johnson finally settled in a small hotel room in downtown San Francisco. In October 1967 Johnson died there of a heart attack.

This was Johnson’s last large work. It is not titled, and I could find out literally nothing about it and how it came to be sitting at this corner. The brochure that Netra gave to me was regarding a fundraiser titled Reclaiming Our Treasures. The intent was to raise funds to restore and resurrect the “log” along with the intent to place an historical marker near it. The fundraiser took place in 1997, I have not been able to find out anything more.

The Smithsonian has a transcript of a delightful conversation between Johnson and fellow artist Mary McChesney about Johnson’s work that can be found around San Francisco. You can read it here.

update 2016: The log has been removed and is now with the University of California for both authentication and potential restoration. It most likely will not return to this location.

Cyril Magnin

Posted by Cindy on January 31, 2014

Jan 312014

City Hall
South Light Court

Cyril Magnin served as San Francisco’s Chief of Protocol from 1964 until his death in 1988. He was responsible for keeping many key international consulates from moving out of San Francisco and to Los Angeles. He is seen here walking his dog Tippecanoe.

In Magnin’s 1981 autobiography, “Call Me Cyril,” opera superstar Beverly Sills is quoted as saying: “He twinkles, he’s a song-and-dance man, a sentimentalist, a tough businessman, a sucker for a hard-luck story–and one of the great philanthropists. He’s a prince of pleasure, a king of kindness, a formidable friend, and I am madly in love with him.”

Cyril Isaac Magnin (1899–1988) was one of the most prominent San Francisco businessmen of the post-World War II era, chief executive of the Joseph Magnin Co., which evolved into a multi-million dollar chain of upscale women’s clothing stores.

Personally gracious and urbane, Magnin was a veteran political fund-raiser and power broker in the Democratic Party, dating back to New Deal days. He was Treasurer of President Franklin Roosevelt’s northern California re-election campaign in 1944, a delegate to the Democratic National Convention in 1948 (that nominated President Harry Truman) and again in 1964, when he co-chaired the Finance Committee of President Lyndon Johnson’s campaign in California.

Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, Magnin was one of a quartet of fabulously wealthy San Francisco Jewish contributors to Democratic candidates, appreciatively called “The Green Machine” by career politicians, the others being Fairmont Hotel magnate Benjamin Swig, Lilli Ann clothing company founder Adolph Schuman, and real estate mogul Walter Shorenstein.

The painting was done by Elaine Badgley Aarnaux. While her website is sparse, this article from the San Francisco Chronicle is charming and revealing about the lady:

Elaine Badgley Arnoux, painter of mayors
By Sam Whiting
Thursday, November 1, 2012

Each mayor of San Francisco receives a letter from Elaine Badgley Arnoux with an invitation to sit for a portrait. The strategy has worked for every mayor going back toDianne Feinstein. Badgley Arnoux (her professional name), 86, would now like to advance to governors, starting with Jerry Brown.

Q: Describe your occupation?

A: I am a professional painter. In 1985, I did 100 people in San Francisco, which was shown at City Hall in 2001. I’ve painted 190 portraits of San Franciscans over a 30-year period.

Q: How do you pick your subjects?

A: Carefully. I spend a lot time debating within myself. It is based on how this person relates to the whole feeling. The shoeshine man, for instance, at Second and Townsend. Most everybody knows him who goes to the ballpark.

Q: You set up an easel where you find them on the street?

A: Oh, no. This is one thing I’m very particular about. I really want people to sit for me, so they come to my studio.

Q: How long do they have to sit there?

A: If I’m very direct that day, I can do someone in two hours.

Q: How do you know when the time is right?

A: I’m certain within myself that now I want to do this mayor. It might be after they retire and it might be before they are elected. I was able to find George Christopher after he was out of office.

Q: What was the most recent portrait you did?

A: Eight months ago, I did George Moscone. I found an excellent photograph and was able to draw him and show it to his family before it was shown in City Hall.

Q: How did Mayor Ed Lee react to the finished product?

A: He was absolutely delighted, and he was delightful to work with. He came to my studio twice.

Q: Who was the least delightful to work with?

A: Oddly enough, Willie Brown, who is generally very effusive. It was before he was mayor. He came to my studio because he was told to come, and he didn’t say a word, not one word during the whole sitting.

Q: Which mayor was most difficult?

A: The portrait of Gavin Newsom was the most difficult because he doesn’t really stand still. He moves and moves and moves.

Q: Have another mayor portrait in you?

A: Not a mayor but a governor. I would very much like to do the portrait of Gov. (Jerry) Brown. I think he has an interesting face.

Q: Latest project?

A: It’s not portraiture. It’s figurative paintings and sculptural entities. I’m going to be in a group show at a new gallery in Burlingame. It is called Gallerie Citi. I’m going to be showing a three-dimensional sculpture that includes a donkey, an elephant and Mother Goose all having tea in a voting booth.

Q: Where do you live?

A: My husband and I live in the Golden Gateway, on the sixth floor. We look out at the bridge.

Q: What is your husband’s name?

A: Harold Kozloff.

Q: So were you Elaine Badgley growing up?

A: Now we’re going to get into a sticky wicket. I was Elaine Harper. Then I was Elaine Stranahan. Then I was Elaine Badgley. Then I was Elaine Arnoux. Now I’m Elaine Kozloff. Take a deep breath.

Q: What would you buy if you could?

A: A condominium in San Francisco on a hill so that the earthquake would not topple us down.

Q: When did you arrive in San Francisco?

A: It was 1964.

Q: What do you miss about old San Francisco?

A: The buildings are now so high that they are diminishing the character of the architecture.

Q: What is the key to longevity?

A: You just work all the time, and you work with people and they give you so much of themselves. So you have a thread that goes from one person to another until it becomes a community and a city and a life.

The paining shown above was done in 1981.

Harvey Milk

Posted by Cindy on January 30, 2014

Jan 302014

City Hall
Supervisors Legislative Chamber
Civic Center

This is the only bust of a supervisor in San Francisco’s City Hall.

Harvey Milk was the first openly gay person to be elected to public office. Milk won a seat as a San Francisco supervisor in 1977. He served almost 11 months in office and was responsible for passing a stringent gay rights ordinance for the city. On November 27, 1978, Milk and Mayor George Moscone were assassinated by Dan White, another city supervisor. Milk’s election and assassination were key components of a shift in San Francisco politics.

Despite his short career in politics, Milk became an icon in San Francisco and a martyr in the gay community. In 2002, Milk was called “the most famous and most significantly open LGBT official ever elected in the United States”

This sculpture was designed by the team of Daub Firmin and Hendrickson of Berkeley at a cost of $84,000. Rob Firmin said artists tend to avoid busts that show toothy smiles, as Milk’s does. They went for it because, Firmin said, “Harvey Milk’s signature expression was a huge, amused and infectious grin.”

Part of the inspiration for the bust is from a photograph taken by Daniel Nicoletta, who worked in Milk’s Castro Street camera shop and is a co-chair of the memorial committee. His photograph caught Milk’s tie blowing in the San Francisco breeze and the bust includes that detail.

Engraved in the pedestal is a quotation from one of the audiotapes Milk recorded in the event of his assassination, which he openly predicted several times before his death. “I ask for the movement to continue because my election gave young people out there hope. You gotta give ’em hope.”

***

Eugene Daub is D & F’s principal sculptor. He attended the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia, and taught there. He has been an instructor at the Scottsdale Artists’ School. He has work in the permanent collections of the Smithsonian Institute, The British Museum, Ellis Island Museum, as well as many public-sculpture installations across the United States. He is accomplished in all sculpture modes and in a wide range of more general art.

Rob Firmin, in addition to hands-on art creation, works on concepts, composition, research, model building, and project management. Firmin holds a double major in history and art history from Denison University. His career and education have ranged across: realist-figurative sculpture, the formal study of history and art history, to the invention of project management techniques, financial risk reduction, dynamic process control, modeling techniques, and software concepts and design.

Jonah Hendrickson lives in Oakland where he splits his time between sculpture and his real estate business.

Goddess of Progress

Posted by Cindy on January 29, 2014

Jan 292014

City Hall
South Light Court

Goddess of Progress by F. Marion Wells

The plaque that accompanies her reads: On April 17, 1906, the dome atop San Francisco’s City Hall that was completed in 1896 supported a twenty foot statue by F. Marion Wells. The Goddess of Progress, with lightbulbs in her hair, held a torch aloft in her right hand, causing some contemporary counts to refer to it as the Goddess of Liberty. The statue was so securely mounted that on April 18, 1906, when City Hall and the city around it lay in ruins from the great earthquake-fire, it continued to stand at the peak of the now exposed steel tower. After workmen brought it down from the precarious perch when the building was finally torn down in 1909 the statue fell from a wagon and the 700-pound head broke off.

***

It is my understanding that the whereabouts of the body is unknown.

Photo courtesy of the San Francisco Public Library taken in 1906

Francis Marion Wells was born in Pennsylvania in 1848. Wells arrived in San Francisco about 1870 and was a cofounder of the Bohemian Club in 1872. He was Douglas Tilden’s first teacher in 1883 and the following year was commissioned to do a bust of Hawaii’s King David Kalakua who was visiting in Oakland. Wells was active in the local art scene as a teacher as well as a producer of portrait busts and bas reliefs.

Once a very wealthy man, he fell on hard times, as this article from the San Francisco Call of July 14, 1903 attests:

FRANCIS MARION WELLS FORCED TO ENTER THE COUNTY HOSPITAL

Well-Known Sculptor, Artist, Literateur and Former Club Man, Afflicted by Illness, Compelled to Ask Municipality for Help

FRANCIS MARION WELLS, sculptor, literateur, club member and well-known man about town, was forced by dire illness and strain of circumstances to apply for admission to the City and County Hospital yesterday. He is now lying there in a helpless and pitiable state. Not one single friend came to him in his distress, although when in affluent circumstances his beautiful home and grounds at Berkeley were filled with those who enjoyed the royal hospitality that they were always welcome to there.

Broken in spirit, sick nigh unto death, his arms paralyzed, his mind partially deranged from his sufferings, he was compelled to seek the only relief at hand and become a ward of the city. His faithful wife has struggled nobly during his four months illness. He has been during all that time entirely, helpless, the result of five apoplectic shocks.

Two months ago, to save the family from actual starvation, Mrs. Wells took a position as housekeeper at the Vienna Lodging-house, 533 Broadway, where, with their two young sons, she was just enabled to make enough to keep the wolf from the door. As she had to do the entire work of twenty rooms and also cooking for the family, she had no time to give her husband the constant nursing that his case required, but was by his side whenever she could steal a moment from her work.

Yesterday afternoon when the ambulance came to take Wells away he said: “I hope there won’t be a crowd to see me put into the ambulance, as I don’t want the people to see me in this poverty stricken condition.” This was too much for his wife to bear, and she borrowed $2 from some kind neighbors, a hack was procured and the sufferer was, carried down the rickety stairs and placed in it. His wife and sons accompanied him, to the hospital and made him as comfortable there as possible and then bade him farewell and returned to their humble lodgings.

Mrs. Wells, who is a highly educated and refined Parisian, is broken hearted over the thought of his position.” She said with tears streaming down her pale face: “I do not care for myself; I am young and can work for my two boys, but to think that my husband’s friends should allow him to become a burden to the city is almost more than I can bear. When we were in deep distress, surrounded, by poverty and sickness, I wrote to several of his former wealthy, old-time and intimate friends in the Bohemian Club to come to his relief with food and medical attendance, but not one of them replied. I did not ask for anything for myself, only for him, and that appeal they refused him. Today he fainted four times on the way to the hospital, and when I left him he was almost, unconscious. Oh! I do not want him to die there. Don’t you think some of his old friends will do something for him and put him into a private sanitarium where his last hours can be spent?

RUINED BY SPECULATION.

“We have been very unfortunate.. When I came from Paris, fourteen years ago, I brought $60,000 with me and used it in buying property here and then built a beautiful home in Berkeley. All went well until General Ezeta persuaded us to go into his San Salvador scheme, and he was so persuasive that we put in $40,000— and we lost every cent of it.

Bad luck followed, we mortgaged our home; and lost it. Then I commenced to sell my jewels. My $8000 diamond necklace, which my mother gave me, I pawned for $1200. I had hoped to redeem it, although Mr. Shreve had offered to buy it for $5000. Little by little everything went, and now we are worse than penniless. My husband was always goodness itself to me, and we all love him dearly. My oldest son is 13. He has just ha, the misfortune to cut off the end of his finger. My youngest boy, Emanuel, is 11, and helps me as much as he can. “My husband is a member of the Universal Order of Knight Commanders of the Sun, and here are the original parchments granted him. I think he was also one of the charter members of the Bohemian Club. It is a very sad ending to the life of a man with a brilliant brain, with accomplishments and with so generous and kind a heart for all his friends.

He was born in Louisiana, his father being General Francis Marion Wells, but he was educated in the eastern part of Pennsylvania.

SCULPTOR OF LIBERTY. Marion Wells, as he was called, has been well known here for many years and has been one of the most prominent sculptors in the city. His statue of Liberty on the dome of the City Hall is a fine piece of work and a monument to his abilities. The figure is modeled from his wife and the poise is extremely graceful. The bas relief of John Lick, which was executed at the request of the Lick trustees, and now hangs in the Pioneer Hall, is a splendid likeness of the great philanthropist. The John Marshall monument in Sonora County, erected to commemorate the first discovery of gold in California, also exhibits great talents.

Among other works are the bears over the entrance to the First National Bank, which have marked merit in conception and design. He also did some artistic modeling for the Hibernia Bank, which adds much to the beauty of that handsome structure. The great owl which stands at the top of the grand stairway of the Bohemian Club is also of his handiwork. Other work which has been highly commented upon adorns St. Ignatius Church, the quadrangle and the memorial chapel at Stanford University.
***
Wells Died, July 22, 1903

The head suffered a few indignities on its way to the San Francisco City Hall Museum area.

The head was apparently given to John C. Irvine by former mayor James D. Phelan after it was removed from the old City Hall. It was, later, owned by his son, William Irvine.

It then came into possession of the South of Market Boys who gave it back to the city April 18, 1950, the 44th anniversary of the Great Earthquake.

It was later displayed in Golden Gate Park, then placed in storage.

Seven years later, in 1957, the head was sold, along with several cable cars, at public auction to Knott’s Berry Farm, a Southern California amusement park. It was given back to the city by Knott’s Berry Farm in the mid-1970s.

The goddess was, for many years, displayed at the Fire Department Museum, but was moved in 1993 to the Museum of the City of San Francisco. The goddess was then moved to City Hall in 1998 to celebrate the reopening of the structure after it was repaired following the 1989 earthquake.

Whispering Dishes

Posted by Cindy on January 28, 2014

Jan 282014

Market Street and Yerba Buena Lane
Financial District

This exhibit is the first of a series titled Living Innovation Zones. Living Innovation Zones (LIZ) are new public spaces opening up along Market Street between Octavia and The Embarcadero. The LIZ’s are collaborationa between the community, innovators, and the City to enhance the public good, foster learning and sharing, and showcase innovation. The City plans to streamline permitting in order to boost participation in the program and bring more projects to sidewalks.

“Whispering Dishes” is the first exhibit, and is a partnership between the Exploratorium and Yerba Buena Community Benefit District. It features two 8-foot-tall dishes facing each other on the sidewalk 50 feet apart. They focus sound in such a way that two people whispering across the 50-foot distance are able to hear each other even with surrounding street noise.

The project was funded through Indiegogo. The goal was $75,000. The amount raised was $32,696. with an additional $5000 matching funds by the Yerba Buena Community Benefit District (YBCBA).

This is the “Singing Bench.” It is next to the Whispering Dishes. If two people sit down, each places one bare arm or hand on the metal-plated armrests, then they hold hands with the other, a tune plays as a subtle electric current courses through this newly created circuit.

These two projects are some of the favorites at the Exploratorium on the Embarcadero, which is how they were chosen.

This piece no longer resides on Market Street

Os Gemeos, Bode and The Warfield

Posted by Cindy on January 27, 2014

Jan 272014

Taylor and Turk
The Tenderloin

This fun mural was finished in September of 2013. It is a collaboration between Os Gemeos and Mark Bode, both whom have been in this site before.

This whimsical piece sits on the back of the Warfield Theater on Market street. The two cousins from Brazil and San Francisco artist Mark Bode painted this mural which includes one of Os Gemeos’ characters and the iconic comic character “Cheech Wizard” created by Mark’s father Vaughn Bodé in 1957.

Cheech Wizard

The wall was organized by the Luggage Store Gallery and Wallspace SF.

Caruso’s Dream Causes Pianos to Fly

Posted by Cindy on January 24, 2014

Jan 242014

55 Ninth Street
Mid Market/SOMA

I spoke with Brian Goggin about his installation of Caruso’s Dream well over a year ago. While it is taking a long time to get installed, and is was not quite finished when I wrote this post, I thought I would bring it to you anyway.

Brian has been in this site many times, you can read all about him here.

This is a public site-specific artwork commissioned by the developers of AVA 55 Ninth, a 17-story apartment complex on Ninth Street, sitting between Market and Mission.

After singing Carmen in San Francisco, the famous tenor Enrico Caruso woke the next morning in his room at the Palace Hotel to the shaking of the 1906 Earthquake. “But what an awakening!” he was quoted in the newspaper, “…feeling my bed rocking as though I am on a ship in the ocean, and for a moment I think I am dreaming.” This artwork, inspired by that quote, imagines Caruso’s dream on that fateful night.

Goggin, studying SOMA history, found that several piano companies were founded in San Francisco, most notably Sherman Clay. Sherman Clay is built on the spot where a piano was buried to fill a large pot hole thus inspiring Goggin and Caruso’s Dream. “Potentially that piano is still under Mission Street today,” says Goggin.

This installation is a joint project with Goggin and Dorka Keehn. They brought San Francisco the “Language of the Birds” that you can read all about here.

To build the 13 pianos, Goggin and Keehn collected 900 pieces of chicken-wire glass of different textures and colors.

The wooden struts that support the pianos were salvaged from pilings in the old Transbay Terminal. The ropes used to lash the piece are modeled after nautical hemp, tied in knots used by longshoremen.

The project was done at a cost of $750,000. This was part of the 1% for the arts program.

For those not familiar with the story:

The evening prior to the Great 1906 Earthquake and fire had been the opening night of the New York Metropolitan Opera Company’s San Francisco engagement. Caruso—already a worldwide sensation—had sung the part of Don José in Bizet’s Carmen at the Grand Opera House on Mission Street. “But what an awakening!” he wrote in the account published later that spring in London’s The Sketch. “I wake up about 5 o’clock, feeling my bed rocking as though I am in a ship on the ocean….I get up and go to the window, raise the shade and look out. And what I see makes me tremble with fear. I see the buildings toppling over, big pieces of masonry falling, and from the street below I hear the cries and screams of men and women and children.”

The Palace Hotel, where Caruso and many others in the company were staying, collapsed later that day, and sadly, not all would make it out alive. Caruso, however, made it out safely, his obviously very devoted valet even managed to remove the bulk of his luggage, which included 54 steamer trunks containing, among other things, some 50 self-portraits. “My valet, brave fellow that he is, goes back and bundles all my things into trunks and drags them down six flights of stairs and out into the open one by one.” That same valet would eventually find a horse and cart to carry the great Caruso and his many belongings to the waterfront Ferry Building—no mean accomplishment on a day when tens of thousands were attempting to escape the fires ravaging the city.

“We pass terrible scenes on the way: buildings in ruins, and everywhere there seems to be smoke and dust. The driver seems in no hurry, which makes me impatient at times, for I am longing to return to New York, where I know I shall find a ship to take me to my beautiful Italy and my wife and my little boys.” By nightfall, Caruso was across the bay in Oakland and boarding a train back to the East Coast.

After this experience Caruso vowed never to return to San Francisco, and he kept his word. Unlike Caruso, I promise to return to the site and bring you photos of the finished project soon.

Painted Grain Silos in San Francisco

Posted by Cindy on January 15, 2014

Jan 152014

696 Amador Street
off 3rd Street / Pier 90/92
Bayview/Hunters Point

A while back I wrote about these grain silos, I also mentioned at the time they eventually would become an art project. You can read all about the silos here.

This project is part of the Blue Greenway Project, a $2.2 million project funded through the Port of San Francisco.

The Project was awarded to the Seattle based firm of Haddad/Drugan. It is titled “Bayview Rise” and is expected to be in place for a minimum of 5 years.

According to their website:

Bayview Rise works 2-dimensionally as a graphic image, 3-dimensionally as it articulates the folded, rolling, and textured surfaces of the historic architecture with color and pattern, and 4-dimensionally at night as colored lights cycle through the colors red, green, and blue causing the mural imagery to change its appearance. Diffenrent light colors will cause parts of the mural of that same color to be highlighted while other colors recede into the dark background. As the light colors shift, images will appear to float in and out of the scene. This striking effect will result in the appearance of an animated graphic abstractly representing a neighborhood in transformation, Bayview Rising.

In early 2013 Haddad|Drugan researched the history, culture, and future plans for Bayview Hunters Point. They identified stories that could be included in the artwork, ranging from industry to infrastructure to community to ecology, and compiled them in a layered map. The artists met with community representatives and shared their research and a group of words inspired by the research. From this process they developed the artwork to emphasize the concept of “rise,” a word they had shared with the community and which tied together some of its most inspiring stories. The graphic imagery of the mural is rooted in the Bayview’s historic and future conditions, but with an emphasis on elements that float, fly, and rise.

The composition creates a spatial illusion in which elements appear to rise up and out from a horizon where water meets land and sky. Grounding the image is a bottom layer of water, representing both San Francisco Bay and the past marshlands of Islais Creek. Submerged in the water as a symbol of the neighborhood’s past is the head of a steer in homage to historic Butchertown and the cattle that once marched down Third Street. The primary icon rising from the horizon line is a soaring heron, which ties to nearby Heron’s Head Park, a successful environmental restoration by the Port. Other imagery represented in the artwork includes native cherry plants, shorebirds, and a reference to a quote by community activist Essie Webb who likened Hunters Point to a balloon waiting to be re-inflated. The images within the mural have been combined, overlapped, and juxtaposed in a triangular matrix so there appear to be metamorphoses between cherries and balloons, water and birds, land and leaves. This shift is emphasized with the changing colors of lights.

Bayview Rise was funded and commissioned by the Port of San Francisco with coordination from the SFAC. The painting was by R.B. Morris III and the lighting by Legend Theatrical.

The proposal by the Port of San Francisco can be read here.

These shots of the installation at night are from the Hadda/Drugan Website.

Mural on the grain silos in San Francisco

Windmills of Portola

Posted by Cindy on January 14, 2014

Jan 142014

Palega Park
500 Felton
Portola District

In November of 2013 eighty year old Palega Park underwent a $21.2 million Restoration.

The Park’s new clubhouse features a mosaic mural by Kelly Ording commissioned by the San Francisco Arts Commission through the city’s two-percent-for-art ordinance. Located behind the clubhouse’s portico windows and visible from the street, Windmills pays homage to the Portola’s past as the center of the city’s commercial flower industry. The mural cost $127,400.

According to Ording, “This mural contains four main elements that I found fascinating when researching this neighborhood; the wind, the windmills, the greenhouses and the fertile land. I used these elements to create an image of how this neighborhood may have once looked; calm and peaceful, yet, alive.”

The windmills and greenhouses featured in the mural were once abundant in the Portola District. The mural depicts three types of flowers, which were selected by the artist because of their specific meanings to the area. The California Poppy represents resilience and beauty, the Maltese Cross reflects the diversity of the people who call the neighborhood home, and the Rose recalls a time when the Portola’s many nurseries supplied cut flowers to the city.

Kelly Ording a San Francisco, Bay Area born artist received her B.F.A. from the San Francisco Art Institute in 2000

Tile Benches at Alta Plaza

Posted by Cindy on January 13, 2014

Jan 132014

Alta Plaza
Steiner/Clay/Scott/Jackson
Pacific Heights

There are two benches in the children’s area of Alta Plaza Playground covered in beautiful tile mosaics.

Commissioned by Friends of Alta Plaza Park, the artist, Aileen Barr, combined handmade tile and mosaic to create the two seating walls for the newly renovated playground. A series of donor tiles are integrated into the design, which display the names of community members who contributed to the fund for the renovation. The seating walls measure 30 ft and 50 ft in length.

Aileen Barr has been in this website many times, you can see her other work here.

The scope of this renovation was focused on the play area, which was renovated to comply with the Consumer Product Safety Commission’s guidelines for playground safety, Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), and Title 24 of the California Building Code. An accessible route to the play area was provided as a part of the project, along with ADA renovations to the existing restroom. The cost of the renovation was $817,850.

Restoring Historic Murals

Posted by Cindy on January 10, 2014

Jan 102014

Franklin Square Park
2500 17th Street
Potrero Hill

Brotherhood of Man by Anthony Stellon

This once abandoned mosaic was found by David Schweisguth in 2006. While walking his beagle Huxley in Franklin Square Park one afternoon, Huxley sniffed around a large concrete slab serving as a makeshift potting table, Schweisguth looked under the plastic sheet covering the table top and found this treasure.

With the help of local mural expert Lillian Sizemore, who wrote A Guide to Mosaic Sites: San Francisco, they discovered that the artist was Anthony Stellon, who died in 2005.

Schwiesguth’s discovery came at the right time. A neighborhood group called Friends of Franklin Square had just formed and were raising funds to restore the 30-year-old, decaying park. When Schwiesguth and Sizemore brought the mosaic to the group’s attention, they decided to unite behind the cause and ask the city to restore it.

It took more than five years for the San Francisco Arts Commission to find funds for the restoration.

The challenge with restoring the piece was that the mosaic needed to be removed from its concrete backing and mounted on a waterproof material. The project cost $115,000.

The mural was originally a gift to the city from Mayor Joseph Alioto.

In the late sixties, when movie companies used San Francisco as a backdrop, the city had not yet begun to charge the film companies for film permits. Mayor Joseph Alioto negotiated with Warner Brothers Pictures when Bullitt was made for a one time donation of approximately $25,000 to be used for the construction of the new pool at the Martin Luther King Jr. Recreation Center in the Hunter’s Point/Bayview neighborhood. With his personal funds, Mayor Alioto commissioned Anthony Stellon to create a mural for the building’s exterior.

Brotherhood of Man was the result. The mural depicts two figures, one black and one white, flying amidst the cosmos as they hold hands around the earth. Stellon, who was deeply moved by King’s assassination, infused the mural with symbolic meaning that visualizes world peace and harmony. An infinity symbol unifies the composition.

The mural was installed at the recreation center in 1968. In 1998, the mural was removed from the building and placed in storage to make way for a new swimming pool. How it ended up as support for a potting table at Franklin Square Park is still a mystery.

Tiled Stairways to Heaven

Posted by Cindy on January 9, 2014

Jan 092014

Golden Gate Heights
16th Avenue between Kirkham and Lawton

This is the second project by Aileen Barr and Colette Crutcher covering stairways in the Golden Gate Heights area. You can read about both of them and their first project here.

This project was made possible by a group called Hidden Garden Steps. According to their website: The Hidden Garden Steps Project is a community-based, public art initiative to create mosaic steps, a public garden and a wall mural on 16th Avenue extending uphill from Kirkham to Lawton in the Golden Gate Heights/Inner Sunset neighborhood. Formal partners include the San Francisco Parks Alliance, the San Francisco Department of Public Works Street Parks program, and artists Colette Crutcher and Aileen Barr who designed the Moraga Mosaic Steps. Other collaborations include the Inner Sunset Park Neighbors, the Golden Gate Heights Neighborhood Association, Woodside International School, volunteers from Nature in the City’s Green Hairstreak (Butterfly) Ecosystem Corridor project, and individual local merchants.

Shining Paths

Posted by Cindy on January 7, 2014

Jan 072014

SFO
International Terminal
Gate G level 3
Post TSA

Shining Paths: San Francisco’s Sister Cities 2006 by Lewis Desoto
16 Derkson projectors, lamps and gobo light gels
68 in. in diameter.

This work in its entirety consists of 16 light projections (divided between boarding areas A and G) that celebrate San Francisco’s Sister Cities around the world. The work is an extension of the artist’s On the Air project, located on the floor of the international terminal arrivals lobby. Here, each Sister City is represented by the aeronautical map for its airport, overlaid with the image of the city flower.

The cities depicted in terminal G consist of : San Francisco Taipei, Osaka, Shanghai, Ho Chi Minh, Tessalonika, Zurich and Assisi.

Desoto received his Master of Fine Arts, at Claremont Graduate School, Claremont, CA., 1981. and his Bachelor of Arts at University of California, Riverside, 1978.

The artists statement:

“Shining Paths” extends the work “On The Air,” 2000 at SFIA by combining pilot’s maps and medieval botanical illustrations to depict San Francisco Sister Cities. Each map is keyed to that city’s airport and each flower is related to a declared city flower or famous local specimen. The imagery combines the scientific certitude of the maps with the romantic illustration of the flower. A Derksen projector mounted on the ceiling passes a light through a glass etched “gobo” on an area of the terrazzo floor in each terminal.

Blue Deer

Posted by Cindy on January 6, 2014

Jan 062014

SFO
International Terminal
Gate G Level 3
Post TSA

Blue Deer 2006-2007
Oil and Pigmented Ink with Gesso Ground on Wood Panels
Clare Rojas

The plaque on this piece reads: Inspired by American folk art, quilting and storytelling, Clare Rojas creates dreamlike images executed in tightly drawn crystalline shapes. Rojas intends to bring a sense of warmth and comfort to the viewer and she often changes the exhibition space to better fit the feeling of her work. Here she transforms the gate room wall into space more reminiscent of home. “Blue Deer” is based on a children’s book Rojas wrote and illustrated. Blue Deer and Red Fox.

Baile

Posted by Cindy on January 3, 2014

Jan 032014

SFO
International Terminal
Gate G
Level 3
Post TSA

“Baile” – Copper and Powder Coated Steel – 1999 – Carmen Lomas Garza

The plaque on this piece reads:

This image of Mexican Flokloric dancers is inspired by the tradition of Mexican and Chinese tissue paper cutouts and French silhouettes. As an artist, Carmen Lomas Carza often recalls her memories of growing up in South Texas as inspiration for her imagery Shi is known for her portrayal of popular customs and events, from tamale-making to community fiestas.

Carmen Lomas Garza was born in Kingsville, Texas. At 13, she made a commitment to pursue a career in art and taught herself elements of drawing. Her works of art depict childhood memories of family and friends in a wide range of activities from making tamales to dancing to Tejano music. Garza has a bachelor’s degree in science from Texas A&I University (currently Texas A&M University, Kingsville) where she studied art education and studio art. She also has a master’s degree in education from Antioch Graduate School-Juárez/Lincoln Center and a master’s degree in arts from San Francisco State University, where she concentrated on lithography and painting in oil and gouache.

The artists statement for this piece:

When waiting passengers see the copper cutout Baile it is as if they are looking in through a window of an artist’s studio. The artist is painting an image of Jarabe Tapatio dancers from Mexico. The metal cutout was based on a paper cutout that was photographed, digitized, and cut with a high-pressure jet stream of water.

Sanctuary

Posted by Cindy on January 2, 2014

Jan 022014

SFO
International Terminal
Gate G Level 3
Post TSA

The plaque on this piece reads:

Arrival at SFO is the beginning of a new life for many immigrants. Just as the surrounding wetlands prove sanctuary for shore birds during their annual migration. the mural is painted in fresco buono an ancient technique that mixes pigment directly into wet plaster.

The artists on this piece were Juana Alicia and Emmanuel Catarino Montoyo. Both of these artists have been in this website before, you can read about both of them here.

This piece was commissioned by the San Francisco Art Commission for the Airport in 1999.

Bird Technology

Posted by Cindy on January 1, 2014

Jan 012014

SFO
Boarding Area G
Level 3
International Terminal
Post TSA

Bird Technology – Hand Painted Ceramic Tile – 1999 by Rupert Garcia

The plaque on this piece reads:

This work combines two images: a bird that symbolizes natural flight, and a geometric grid that symbolizes the technological advances that made human flight possible. Implicit in the work is the potential for conflict between the natural world and technology.

According to the Smithsonian:

Rupert García came from a family active in the creation and instruction of folk arts and traditions. After completing his service in the U.S. Air Force in Indochina, García attended the San Francisco School for the Arts on the G.I. Bill. As his education in art intensified so did his interest in politics. He joined Latino and minority movements in the Bay area protesting the disproportionate number of these groups being sent into battle in Southeast Asia.

García has proven himself to be not only one of the most important artists of the last twenty-five years, but an important political force as well. Much of his work has dealt with issues of racism and the mistreatment of Latinos in the United States. His style is direct and powerful; he seeks to be both forceful and readily accessible to a wide audience. Keeping these goals in mind, both García’s graphic art and paintings display a skillful unification of the Mexican tradition of Rivera, Siqueiros and Orozco, with elements learned from European artists and those of the American Pop art movement. García’s art has evolved stylistically throughout his career, but he has constantly maintained a strong balance of graphic and “fine art.”

García has also played an important role in Latino art scholarship. He holds two M.A. degrees—one in studio art and the other in art history. He is the author of an important thesis on California Chicano Muralists and has published essays on a number of different subjects including the work of Frida Kahlo. García’s continuing legacy constantly addresses the most important issues of contemporary society, both thematically and stylistically.

Bird Technology was commissioned by the San Francisco Arts Commission for the Airport in 1999 for $5,500.

Thinking of Balmy Alley

Posted by Cindy on December 31, 2013

Dec 312013

SFO
International Terminal
Boarding Area G
Level 3
Post TSA

Ceramic Tile Mosaic – 1999 by Rigo 99

The plaque on this piece reads:

This work, of a solitary boy totally absorbed in the act of paining, is inspired y a mural (since destroyed) painted in 1993 by the artist and local youth in Balmy Alley, located in San Francisco’s Mission District.

Rigo 99 has been in this website many times before. This piece was commissioned by the San Francisco Art Commission for the airport.

Fly, Flight Fugit

Posted by Cindy on December 30, 2013

Dec 302013

SFO
International Terminal
Boarding Area G – Level 3
Post TSA

Fly, Flight Fugit by Squeak Carnwath
Porcelain Enamel on Steel – 1999
210 in. x 210 in.; each panel is 30 in. square

The plaque that accompanies the piece states:

“When I’m I’m a Plane, I often think about things that fly naturally. This work is about those things – Bees, Flags, Snow Bugs, Mercury, Rain and Flights of Fancy”

Much of Cornwath’s work is about her own thoughts, reactions, and memories. She frequently combines hand-scrawled words, visual images and color into luminous paintings that prompt the personal thoughts and memories of her viewers.

Squeak Cornwath was born in Abington, Pennsylvania. After receiving a Masters of Fine Arts from California College of Arts and Crafts in 1977, she began exhibiting her work in the San Francisco Bay Area. She lives and works in Oakland, California. Carnwath taught at the University of California from 1982 to 2010; she is Professor Emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley.

Fugit is latin for flee, most often seen in the term Tempus Fugit, meaning Time Flees.

Glass that challenges your understanding

Posted by Cindy on December 27, 2013

Dec 272013

San Francisco International Terminal
Terminal Two

Air Over Under by Norie Sato – 2011

These two Huge panels are easier to see than to photograph. (The above photo is courtesy of FlySFO) They are hand painted and silkscreened glass enamels on float glass and measure 16 ft. x 150 ft. each.

Norie Sato’s imagery was inspired by our relationship to clouds and flight. Specifically, her work delves into some of flight’s inherent qualities: ephemeral, abstract, pictorial, natural, man-made, symmetrical and changeable. The artwork depicts the dual experience of being under or over clouds when flying in a plane. According to the artist, “Air Over Under is about perception, relativity and how our position and situations are never static.”

This was taken from inside the building notice the vibrant colors

The façade installation is comprised of a grid of 120 pieces of laminated glass panels approximately 4’ x 10’ each covering two 16’ x 150’ areas. Produced at Franz Mayer Studios in Munich, Germany, the laminated panels are comprised of one layer of glass with hand-painted glass enamels and another layer that includes a silkscreened pixilated image in white. The combined effect is of a photographic image that, depending on the viewer’s distance or point of view, either looks clear or more abstract and atmospheric. The colors are subtle, and change gradually from blue to green on one side and from blue to purple on the other side.

The view from AirBart is one of the best.

Norie Sato is an artist living in Seattle, whose artwork for public places over the past 25 years has incorporated individual, collaborative, design team and planning of public art projects. Much of her work involves collaboration with architects and integration with the site or context.

Flight Patterns

Posted by Cindy on December 23, 2013

Dec 232013

San Francisco International Airport
Terminal One
Boarding Area C

Flight Patterns by Larry Kirkland – 1987

Stainless steel cables, painted aluminum tubing, sheeting and screening
264 in. x 276 in. x 756 in.

Born in 1950 in Port Hueneme, California, Larry Kirkland moved with his military family throughout the U.S. and abroad during his childhood. He received his undergraduate degree in environmental design in 1972 from Oregon State University and his Masters of Fine Arts degree in 1974 from the University of Kansas.

Kirkland created these large, aerial sculptures that are characterized by its nearly transparent, ethereal quality. This work was conceived by Kirkland after he spent time observing airport activities from an air traffic control room. Each of the 1500 elements suspended by 3000 wires represents an air traffic control symbol: triangles (landmarks),dotted lines (land boundaries) and x’s (flying objects).

A Mosaic of Bay Area History

Posted by Cindy on December 20, 2013

Dec 202013

San Francisco International Airport
Terminal 1 Connector
Level 2

Bay Area Victorian, Bay Area, Deco, Bay Area Funk by Joyce Kozloff – 1982

This artwork is inspired by historical decorative styles found in the Bay Area. The left panel, Bay Area Victorian, draws its sources from the ornament on old homes in the Mission District, Pacific Heights, the Western Addition and Potrero Hill. The right panel, Bay Area Deco, references downtown Oakland in its heyday, when the Fox and Paramount theaters were built. Both the celadon grey-green of the I. Magnin store and the cobalt blue and silver facade of the Flower Depot were inspirations. Bay Area Funk, the center panel, is the collection of Berkeley memorabilia from the 1960’s. There is a humor and lightness to the appropriations of comic books and record album covers, alongside flyers and posters from clubs that were popular during that decade, such as the Fillmore and the Avalon Ballroom.

Joyce Kozloff was born December 14, 1942, in Somerville, New Jersey. She received her

B.F.A. from the Carnegie Institute of Technology in 1964 and her M.F.A. from Columbia University, New York, NY in 1967.

The mosaics were fabricated by Crovatto Mosaics, Yonkers, New York. The tiles were fabricated by the artist and art consultant Joyce Pomeroy Schwartz.

sai

Thousands and Thousands of Tiles

Posted by Cindy on December 19, 2013

Dec 192013

San Francisco International Airport
International Terminal
Main Hall

Gateway 2000- by Ik-Joong Kang

This artwork contains 5,400 unique 3 in. x 3 in. paintings, wood carvings, tiles and cast acrylic cubes. The artist began working in this 3 in. x 3 in. format when he was a student and commuted long distances to various part-time jobs. The 3 in. canvases were small enough for him to carry in his backpack and paint on the subway.

The piece is mixed media including canvas, wood, ceramic tile and found objects, it measures 120 X 720 inches.

Born in 1960, in Cheong Ju, Korea, Ik-Joong Kang has lived and worked in New York City since 1984. He received his BFA from Hong-Ik University in Seoul, Korea, and his MFA from Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York.

Stacking Stones

Posted by Cindy on December 18, 2013

Dec 182013

San Francisco International Airport
Terminal Two
Level Two

Stacking Stones by Seiji Kunishma – 1983

These stones were commissioned by SFAC for the airport in 1983. They remained in the airport during the new construction.

Born in Nagoya, Japan, Seiji Kunishima is an internationally renowned artist whose sculptures are characterized by a serene balance between the traditional and the modern. Stacking Stones weighs 14 tons and is created from stone quarried near Nagoya. Each section of rock was shaped to fit into the next and the outer surface was chiseled or polished to create contrasts of color, texture and depth. The stones weigh over 14 tons.

Tapestries to take your breath away

Posted by Cindy on December 1, 2013

Dec 012013

San Francisco International Airport
Terminal 2
Waiting Area

This is a series by Mark Adams. They include Garden Outside Gate, Garden in Golden Gate Park, and Garden in San Andreas Valley. They have been in storage for over 20 years at the SFAC. They were brought out and installed as part of the complete remodel of Terminal 2 at SFO. They are absolutely stunning, and thank goodness they have been brought out for all to enjoy.

Woven in the traditional Aubusson style, these flax woven wool tapestries represent various gardens that the artist remembers from his years living in San Francisco. Irises, hydrangeas, chrysanthemums and wild dahlias are featured in rich, deep shades.

His 2006 obituary Reads:

Mr. Adams was known for the grace and delicacy of his spare, single-object still life pictures, and for the big stained-glass windows and tapestries he was commissioned to create for churches, synagogues, libraries and office buildings around the Bay Area. He made stained-glass windows for Temple Emanu-El and Grace Cathedral in San Francisco and the Lafayette-Orinda United Presbyterian Church, among others, and did tapestries for such diverse places as the San Francisco International Airport, the Marina branch of the San Francisco Public Library and the Dallas Fairmont Hotel.

Mr. Adams’ more intimate work was shown in group and solo exhibitions at museums and galleries around the Bay Area and the country and found its way into many private collections.

“He was a lovely man, a real gentleman with a great soul,” said San Francisco art dealer John Berggruen, who showed Mr. Adams’ work for 25 years. “He did these beautifully poetic watercolors that had a real presence about them. His floral images, and his depiction of common everyday objects, were very compelling. We would exhibit his watercolors every two or three years, and they’d all sell. People would be lined up at the gallery at 9:30 in the morning to buy them. He had a wonderful run.”

Berggruen recalled the warm feeling of the old Mission District firehouse where Mr. Adams and his wife, artist Beth Van Hoesen, lived, worked and entertained friends for more than 50 years.

Mr. Adams was born in Fort Plain, N.Y., and studied at the University of Syracuse’s School of Fine Arts. He moved to New York City in 1945 and studied at painter Hans Hoffman’s School of Fine Arts and at Atelier 17. The next year, he hitchhiked to San Francisco and worked on the restoration of Carmel’s Mission San Carlos Borromeo under the leadership of Harry Downie, digging ditches and painting the Stations of the Cross in a Spanish Colonial style in the mission chapel.

After further study at Columbia University, Mr. Adams returned to San Francisco and got a job making window displays at Gump’s. Inspired by the tapestries he had seen at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, he began creating his own tapestries in 1952. His first piece was included in a show of religious art that year at the de Young Museum. Three years later, he apprenticed with French tapestry designer Jean Lurçat and traveled with his wife through Europe and North Africa.

Returning to San Francisco, Mr. Adams began doing commissioned tapestries for public and private buildings, and in 1960 got the first of many stained-glass commissions, for San Francisco’s Clarendon School. He was painter in residence at the American Academy in Rome in 1963 and over the years taught at various colleges in the Bay Area and beyond

Topo in Cloth and aluminum

Posted by Cindy on November 27, 2013

Nov 272013

San Francisco International Airport
Departure Lobby
Terminal 2

Kendall Buster -Powder coated steel tubing; greenhouse shade cloth- 288 in. x 288 in. x 192 in

Topograph I & II

Kendall Buster earned a BFA degree from the Corcoran College of Art and Design in Washington DC and an MFA in Sculpture from Yale University as well as participating in the Whitney Museum’s Independent Study Studio Program in New York City.

His website explains the piece:

Topograph was designed and constructed for the San Francisco International Airport Terminal 2 departures area. A raised entryway forms a kind of narrow bridge above a massive open space in the main floor of the terminal and this presented very specific opportunities both functionally and formally. Travelers are typically moving quickly across the bridge and through the lower level. The form was intended to participate in what I saw as rapidly and sequentially changing positions of viewer to object. The work is constructed out of a series of vertically hung planes that behave like slats. As one moves in relation to the work, whether looking from above into the sculpture or from below, the planes seem to pivot. At one point when one is perpendicular to the thin slats that form the sculpture the form almost disappears. Alternatively, from some vantage points there is a suggestion that the planes have been compressed into a single form. But viewed from other points these vertical planes decompress and expand. Perhaps suggesting clouds dispersing or shifting landscapes.

The design grew out of my interest in these dynamic viewing points from above and below as well as an interest in how I might create a single sculpture in two sections – one on either side of the bridge in such a way that a viewer would walk between fragments of a kind of ephemeral landscape. To this end Topograph consists of two groups of vertically hung panels sighted on either side of the bridge/mezzanine to create a fragmented topography map.

Rigging by Methods and Materials
Project management by Mark G. Anderson Consultants

Welcome

Posted by Cindy on November 26, 2013

Nov 262013

San Francisco International Airport
Terminal 2
Baggage Claim Level 1

Dan Snyder – Polyurethane Paint on Aluminum -1983

Titled Welcome North, Welcome South, Welcome East, Welcome West, is designed to greet visitors from around the world.

According to Mr Snyder’s website:

Dan was born in St. Thomas in the Virgin Islands in 1941. His father was a naval officer stationed there at the time. Growing up he lived largely in seaport towns in the United States. After graduating from Wesleyan University in Connecticut with a major in theater, he attended the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston and then went on to the University of New Mexico where he received an MFA in studio art and art history.

For many years Mr. Snyder taught both art and theater in private schools in Massachusetts and Connecticut. After teaching he worked as an illustrator for advertising, editorial illustration for The Hartford Courant, and children’s book illustration, as well as designing and painting sets for local theater productions. Then for three years he was head designer of exhibits at the Science Center of Connecticut. In 1995 Dan moved to Maine with fellow artist Betsy Gardiner. He continues to paint and exhibit his work, as well as do design and illustration for businesses and organizations.

Takaroa

Posted by Cindy on November 19, 2013

Nov 192013

1086 Green Street
Russian Hill

Takaroa Fountain by David Ruth 2004
Pyrex Glass

This fountain sits outside a condominium complex on Green Street, and was a private commission.

According to David Ruth’s website:

The Look of ice comes from the fusing of borosilicate glasses like Pyrex. After I was introduced to the material I tried to erase the white veils but ultimately saw that they offered a new style of fused glass that resembles ice. Rather than the liquid flow I had been used to, the ice gave me a different way of conceptualizing my sculpture and fired my interest in ice as a metaphor for making glass.

David Ruth is an Oakland based artist. He received an M.F.A. from California College of Arts and Crafts, in 1987 a B.A. in American History from Porter College, UC Santa Cruz.

Night time photo from David Ruth website

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