Alebrijes in the Haight

 Posted by on November 12, 2012
Nov 122012
 

1301 Haight Street

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Jet Martinez, whose work is all over San Francisco is responsible for these colorful frogs.  It is titled Bosque de Alebrijes.

This is what Jet said on his Facebook page: Alebrijes are small animal figurines decorated with beautiful colors and patterns. They are really incredible on their own, but what is truly inspiring to me about them, is the fact that entire communities in Oaxaca will dedicate themselves to making this artform and have created an economy around the art they create. The art in turn, defines the community and creates the visual identity of the place. It’s deep and it’s incredibly inspiring to me as a maker. I wanted to celebrate that tradition, and give life to these animals… in a sense, give life to this community.

Alebrijes: The first alebrijes, along with use of the term, originated with Pedro Linares. After dreaming the creatures while sick in the 1930s, he began to create what he saw in cardboard and paper mache. His work caught the attention of a gallery owner in Cuernavaca and later, the artists Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo. Linares was originally from México City, he was born June 29, 1906 in México City and never moved out of México City, he died January 25, 1992.

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A Swiss Gentleman paints in the Haight

 Posted by on November 1, 2012
Nov 012012
 

665 Haight Street

This piece is by Romanowski.   Born and raised in Basel, Switzerland he is a DJ and painter.

According to All Music Romanowski considers sneaking into his mother’s liquor cabinet and record collection his introduction to the DJ lifestyle. Booze and Beatles albums gave way to old school rap and early electronica, a combination he spun together at the age of 14 in his native Zurich, Switzerland. He moved to San Francisco in 1992 and soon hooked up with the Behind the Post Office collective, a group of DJs and rappers revolving around the Behind the Post Office record store. Sharing the stage with Meat Beat Manifesto and Thievery Corporation, along with DJ Shadow and Cut Chemist, at the legendary first Brainfreeze performance was a highlight of Romanowski’s early career. His debut, Steady Rocking on Future Primitive Sound, displayed the DJ’s love of Jamaica’s rocksteady music filtered through playful electronics. Besides his musical output, Romanowski is an artist associated with the Curators collective and has had his work shown in Hong Kong, Tokyo, Los Angeles, and Seattle’s edgier galleries.

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A Ross – Ziegler Collaboration

 Posted by on July 9, 2012
Jul 092012
 

435 Duboce
Duboce Triangle/ Lower Haight

Ian Ross and Zio Ziegler

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After these two worked together on a juxtaposed mural South of Market, it was an obvious step to combine forces.  The result is truly fabulous.  Obviously a temporary installation while construction is occurring behind this, but you have to love the person that decided this was a far better way to protect his construction site from trespassers than the standard metal gate.

The client is Doorman Property Management, they are the property managers for this mixed-use project of storefront and six residences. (scheduled to open in 2013)

Apparently there are also pieces of promotion in the mural as well.  Close inspection by Haighteration discovered these:

“GARAGE FEATURES CHARGING STATIONS FOR ELECTRIC + HYBRID VEHICLES”
“ALL INTERIOR WALLS ARE CONSTRUCTED WITH QUIETROCK ACOUSTICAL SOUNDBOARD”
“DETAILED WITH FLOOR TO CEILING WESTERN WINDOW & DOOR SYSTEMS COVETED BY MANY AS A MANUFACTURING MARVEL”
“UNPARALLELED ACCESS TO TRANSIT AND PARKS”
“INTEGRATED SMART HOME AUTOMATION & CONTROL SYSTEMS”
Thank you Doorman Property Managers for giving art to Duboce Street in such a fabulous and unique way.

 

Haight Ashbury – Murals

 Posted by on April 23, 2012
Apr 232012
 
Haight Ashbury

There are murals everywhere in the Haight, these are just a few of the better ones.

 Haight and Masonic by Lango

Jimi Hendrix by an unknown artist.  This mural is at 1524 Haight Street, the home of Jimi Hendrix when he lived in San Francisco.  It is now Ashbury Tobacco Center.

This doll is on the Bettie Page Clothing Store at 1529 Haight. (Bettie Page was one of America’s great pin-up girls).  This mural was painted by Amanda Lynn.   Amanda studied at the Academy of Art in San Francisco and received a Bachelor’s of Fine Art with an Illustration major. After school, she worked independently and freelances on many mural productions and theater set paintings.

If you are interested in learning more about Bettie Page – There is a wonderful article about her life and art here.

 

The Haight – Listen to this wall.

 Posted by on April 11, 2012
Apr 112012
 
Haight and Schrader
On the wall of 540 Schrader

According to the Listen to This Wall website – “Listen to This Wall is an initiative to bring a creative antidote to the ever increasing visual noise that crowds our urban landscape. Working with artists and designers to produce original works that offer new ways of seeing and being inspired in our city spaces.

The first of our walls is located in the historic district of Haight Ashbury in San Francisco and will feature a rotating selection of creative work.

Thank you to the building owner for donating this wall to the cause.”

 

The Haight – Buggin Out

 Posted by on April 10, 2012
Apr 102012
 
RAI Care Center
Haight and Shrader
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Buggin’ Out by Fresh Paint, was inspired by the relationship between the evolution of insect species and the evolution of aerosol lettering. Both may have once originated at a single source, yet through time altered their forms when migrating and adapting to different regions and their various conditions.
The mural was painted to represent a bug display case, replacing a few tiny critters with aerosol signatures from artists who’s styles are interconnected through influence.

Fresh Paint has a mural on the adjacent building as well as in Chinatown.

 

The Haight in Murals

 Posted by on April 9, 2012
Apr 092012
 
RAI Care Center
Haight and Schrader

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This mural in the Haight Asbury district was dedicated to the rich history of the Haight Ashbury. It focuses on the elements born from the Summer of Love, and the movement sparked in 1967 towards a more peaceful society. It is located on the corner of Haight and Shrader, just half a block from the epicenter of the Summer of Love and where shows were played in the park.

The wall was rendered as 4 large psychedelic posters, the 3 to the right pay homage to the 3 big elements of the time: Peace, Poster Art, and Music. Each poster design gave nods at original 70’s posters, adorned with the lettering styles reminiscent of Victor Moscoso, Wes Wilson, Rick Griffin, Alton Kelley & Stanley Mouse. Just like back then, aesthetics were mixed, like photorealism, cartooning, illustration and a heaping spoonful of aerosol techniques.

The poster on the left are the signatures of the painters, integrated in a psychedelic poster art background. It is a way to tie the mural in with more personal roots of the artists, and showcase the legacy of illegible lettering styles.

The work was done by Lost, Satyr and Wes Wong of Fresh Paint.  This crew is responsible a great dragon mural in Chinatown.

 

Lower Haight – Murals

 Posted by on April 8, 2012
Apr 082012
 
The Lower Haight
650 Haight Street

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Painted by Sam Flores, these were commissioned by the eight owners of the building.  They replaced murals done by small children in the same places, and while we all know it is important to encourage children in their art, I saw the originals and these are such a massive improvement to the area.

A New Mexico native, Sam Flores’ mythology is populated with costumed urchins and lithe beauties swathed in flowers; he is a painter of masked child-heroes with oversized hands. Flores’ subjects convey a melancholy power, resisting the gaze of the onlooker as if they alone understand how the world can be so painful and so beautiful at the same time.

 

This is what they look stitched together, you can see they really do tell a story.

 

 

 

SOMA & The Haight – EL Mac

 Posted by on August 13, 2011
Aug 132011
 
SOMA – San Francisco
The Haight – San Francisco
This is on the corner of Russ and Howard Streets, South of Market.

Miles “Mac” McGregor.  Goes by The Mac or El Mac.  According to his own website El Mac was “born in Los Angeles in 1980 to an engineer and an artist, Mac has been creating and studying art independently since childhood. His primary focus has been the lifelike rendering of human faces and figures. He has drawn inspiration from the surrounding Mexican & Chicano culture of Phoenix and the American Southwest, religious art, pin-up art, graffiti, and a wide range of classic artists such as Caravaggio, Mucha, and Vermeer. He began painting with acrylics and painting graffiti in the mid ’90s, and has since worked consistently towards mastering his signature portrait style. Around 1998 he began to paint technicolor aerosol versions of classic paintings by old European masters. This led to being commissioned in 2003 by the Groeninge Museum in Brugge, Belgium to paint his interpretations of classic Flemish Primitive paintings in the museum’s collection. He has since been commissioned to paint murals across the US, as well as in Mexico, Denmark, Sweden, Canada, South Korea, Belgium, Italy, The Netherlands, Puerto Rico, Spain, France, Singapore, Germany, Ireland, and Vietnam.”

While I am grateful for the murals that he has done in San Francisco, please go to his website and check out some of the amazing work he has done around the world.   If you go to the spraypaint section and get as far as page 9, you will find, what I hesitate to label as my favorite, but certainly worth seeking out – Young Scribe.

This is on Fillmore between Haight and Waller.
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