Mural – Public Art and Architecture from Around the World

Treasure Island Museum Mural

Posted by Cindy on March 30, 2019

Mar 302019

Treasure Island Museum
Former Administration Building
Treasure Island

This mural resides in what was originally called the Navy Museum inside the GGIE’s Administration Building. The museum opened October 3, 1975 with exhibits representing the Navy and Marine Corps from the early 1800’s to the present.

Eventually the collection grew to include the Coast Gaurd and then the Golden Gate International Exhibition, the Bay Bridge, which runs through the island, and the island itself. Once the museum began covering far more than the Naval history the name was changed to the Treasure Island Museum.

The museum resides in a 1938 moderne style building designed by William Peyton Day and George William Kelham. It has also been known as Building 1, as Command Naval Base San Francisco Headquarters, as Naval Station Treasure Island and was once used as a terminal and ticket office for Pan American Airlines. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2008.

The museum closed in 1997 when the Navy began to close down their base on the island and viewing the mural is limited. Dates and times can be found on the TI website schedule.

This mural, by Lowell Nesbitt, is 251 feet long and 26 feet high and was commissioned for the opening of the museum. You will find scenes showing the history of the Navy and Marine Corps in the Pacific since 1813.

Lowell Blair Nesbitt (October 4, 1933 – July 8, 1993) was a painter, draughtsman, printmaker and sculptor.

Nesbitt was a graduate of the Tyler School of Art at Temple University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and also attended the Royal Academy of Arts in London, England, where he created a number of works in the mediums of stained glass and etching.

Wall Art #1012 on Mission

Posted by Cindy on March 12, 2019

Mar 122019

1400 Mission Street

Wall Drawing #1012 by Sol LeWitt

This artwork is part of San Francisco’s 1% for Art Program.

The piece covers the façade at the corner of 10th Street and Jessie Street and is the height of the ground story, and spans approximately 66 linear feet of the facade along 10th Street and 27 linear feet along Jessie Street. The original wall drawing was created in 2002 and was originally installed in a private residence in Los Angeles. The drawing was applied directly to a plaster substrate, transported, and installed on site.

The installation is a rather complicated process done by a team of artists led by Takeshi Arita. LeWitt rarely did his own installations. When you purchased a pice from LeWitt you would receive a very detailed set of plans on how to paint or install the piece. LeWitt designed his wall drawings with the intention that trained artists would follow his detailed plans to install the work.

Wall Drawing #1012

Sol LeWitt (September 9, 1928 – April 8, 2007) was an American artist linked to various movements, including Conceptual art and Minimalism.

LeWitt came to fame in the late 1960s with his wall drawings and “structures” (a term he preferred instead of “sculptures”) but was prolific in a wide range of media including drawing, printmaking, photography, painting, installation, and artist’s books.

LeWitt was born in Hartford, Connecticut to a family of Jewish immigrants from Russia. His mother took him to art classes at the Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford. After receiving a BFA from Syracuse University in 1949, LeWitt served in the Korean War, first in California, then Japan, and finally Korea. LeWitt moved to New York City in 1953 and set up a studio on the Lower East Side.

In 1968, LeWitt began to conceive sets of guidelines or simple diagrams for his two-dimensional works drawn directly on the wall, executed first in graphite, then in crayon, later in colored pencil and finally in chromatically rich washes of India ink, bright acrylic paint, and other materials.

Wall Drawing #1012 Sol LeWitt

The work sits on a 190-unit below market rate housing complex for homebuyers earning 100% or less of the area median income.

For an explanation of the installation take a look at this YouTube video.

The Art of the French Hospital

Posted by Cindy on September 20, 2018

Sep 202018

Kaiser Permanente
French Campus
4131 Geary Boulevard
Inner Richmond

This stunning mosaic sits in the front entry way to 4131 Geary, which is a building tucked behind the main hospital wing. It is presently half covered by an extremely large concrete pot.

It was donated by the woman’s auxilary in memory of Dorothy Hagar Rogers, who was a prominent woman in the city of San Francisco known for her charitable works. She organized the Auxiliary for the French Hospital and earned the Woman of Distinction spot in the City and County Record in August of 1955.

This bronze bust of Louis Pasteur that sits in the front of the building was designed by Harriet G. Moore and cast in 1984 by Artworks Foundry of Berkeley.

Moore was born in New York City in 1920. As a child, she was strongly encouraged to pursue her interest in sculpting and attended private progressive schools with a heavy emphasis on the arts. From 1938 to 1942, she attended Bennington College in Vermont, majoring in sculpture.

She spent a nonresident junior year in Mexico City, studying stone carving with Luis Ortiz Monasterio. After graduating from Bennington, she studied modeling the figure and portrait with Jose de Creft at the Art Students League in New York City.

In 1976, she moved to San Francisco and retired due to health reasons in 2010.

The third piece of art at 4131 Geary is a lovely mural in the lobby.

The artists of both the mosaic and the mural have been lost to time.

Frederick Olmsted at CCSF

Posted by Cindy on August 9, 2018

Aug 092018

CCSF
Phelan Campus
Hall of Science

The Theory of Science is the title of two murals at the west entrance stairs of the Science Hall. The murals show students engaged in various branches of scientific research such as viewing bacteria through a microscope, conducting field research, and excavating dinosaur remains.

These were painted in 1941 as part of the New Deals’ Federal Art Project.

A restoration was completed in 2002 by CCSF faculty, staff, students, and an independent conservator, bringing these images close to their original state.

Frederick E. Olmsted Jr. was born in San Francisco in 1911. He died in Falmouth, Massachusetts in 1990.

Olmsted Jr. studied science at Stanford University and was a student of Ralph Stackpole’s at the California School of Fine Arts (CSFA) (now called the San Francisco Art Institute or SFAI).
Olmsted Jr. also worked in the WPA, assisting John Langley Howard and George Albert Harris in their Coit Tower murals in San Francisco, and creating his own mural on a three-foot panel called “Power” above the main entrance.

Olmsted is also responsible for two statues that sit outside of the Hall of Science that he carved during the 1940 Golden Gate International Exposition as part of the Arts in Action Exhibit.

Building the Iron Horse

Posted by Cindy on June 19, 2018

Jun 192018

Laguna Honda Hospital
Lobby of the Pavillion
375 Laguna Honda Boulevard
Forest Hill

Owen Smith’s WPA-style mosaic murals depicting the building of the Golden Gate Bridge pay homage to Glen Wessel’s Professions mural series in the historic Laguna Honda lobby and provide a visual continuity between the old and the new buildings. The artist chose to illustrate the building of the Golden Gate Bridge because of the subject matter’s connection to the Wessel murals, which include themes related to labor and the four classic elements. To Smith, the building of the Golden Gate Bridge represents human audacity, bravery, skill and artistic and engineering achievement.

Mosaics by Owen Smith

Owen Smith has been on this site before. According to his own website: Smith’s illustrations have appeared in Rolling Stone, Sports Illustrated, Time, Esquire, and the New York Times. He has created 19 covers for The New Yorker and recently illustrated a third book for children. His illustrations for the recording artist Aimee Mann helped win a Grammy for Best Recording Package. Smith has received recognition from The Society of Illustrators New York, Illustration West, American Illustration, Communication Arts, Print Magazine, Creative Quarterly, and Lürzer’sArchive.

Owen Smith’s painting and sculpture has been exhibited in New York, Milan, San Francisco and Los Angeles. He has participated in group shows at Schwartz Gallery Met at Lincoln Center NYC, and the Moderna e Contemporane Museum Rome. In 2012 Owen’s had a solo show in Caffé Museo at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.

Smith designed mosaic murals for a New York City Subway Station. In 2011 Smith’s mosaic murals and relief sculpture panels for Laguna Honda Hospital in San Francisco were named one of America’s Best Public Artworks at the 2011 Americans for the Arts Convention in San Diego.

Owen lives with his wife and two sons in the San Francisco Bay Area. He is currently the Chair of the Illustration Program at California College of the Arts.

Building the Iron Horse by Owen Smith

These three mosaics were commissioned by the SFAC at a cost of $287,515.

NYCHOS

Posted by Cindy on March 30, 2015

Mar 302015

500 Geary
Lower Nob Hill

Austrian street artist NYCHOS is in town for the opening his show “Street Anatomy” at Fifty24SF Gallery on April 18th. In conjunction with the show, he has been putting up a few pieces around town.

According to his facebook page the Austrian urban art and graffiti illustrator Nychos was born in 1982 in Styria, Austria where he grew up in a hunting family. Getting confronted by the anatomy of dead animals at an early age and being an 80’s kid with an interest for cartoons and heavy metal ended up being some of the ingredients which inspired him when he started graffiti and painting at the age of 18. Over the years he developed a distinctive style which stands out – his dissections and cross sections of human and animal bodies are easily recognized. The focus and reinterpretation of dissected motives in a combination of colorful outlines can be seen as his branding. He is well known for his huge and technically outstanding art pieces in the urban environment as well as several gallery exhibitions. Nychos is the founder of Rabbit Eye Movement:

Rabbit Eye Movement (REM) originally started as a street art concept, created by the urban/graffiti artist and illustrator Nychos in 2005. It fueled and defined the artwork Nychos spread on the streets for the next seven years, and in 2012 he acquired a home for REM to live. Located in the heart of Vienna, the Rabbit Eye Movement Art Space is now a full time gallery and agency dedicated to pushing the same movement that created it.

“I created the ‘Rabbit Eye Movement’ as an homage to all the “Rabbits” out there who are active in the Urban Art Movement. It doesn’t matter what kind of mission they are following.”
– NYCHOS

Island Fever

Posted by Cindy on March 24, 2014

Mar 242014

50 8th Street
SOMA/Civic Center

I am a huge fan of Lady Mags and Amanda Lynn, and they have been on this website many times. I have also been walking by this piece for quite a while, admiring it and yet not quite having a chance to take pictures when it wasn’t blocked by cars. Finally, I had the chance, so here it is for your pleasure.

According to Amanda Lynn’s website:

Lady Mags and I (aka Alynn-Mags) recently completed the largest mural production we have ever created, and it all happened in less than 5 days! We were asked to collaborate with JanSport and their ‘Live Outside’ campaign, to create a mural any size and any content that we could imagine. Mags and I decided to go bigger than ever and create a piece that was enhanced by elements of our fine art collaborations, traditional graffiti, and of course some lovely ladies! We are so honored and humbled by all the amazing support we have received with this project, and look forward to doing many more. Stay tuned for the official campaign launch and accompanying video of the whole process.

If you follow this website often, you will notice that I have been doing fewer and fewer murals. The reason is they have become repetitive. I am in awe with anyone that can take brush or spray can to a wall and create something of beauty. However, the art of so many of the artists I have focused on in this website can be recognized without the help of a guide. The same might be said of Alynn-Mags, but it isn’t quite true. Their work, while often of beautiful women, are of the same genre, but the paintings themselves are each unique and beautiful.

I look forward to catching other great street artists breaking out of their molds.

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

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.

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.

Give me your tired, your poor…

Posted by Cindy on September 16, 2013

Sep 162013

Welsh and 5th Street
SOMA

Thanks to a recent upgrade to this mural I can write about it. It was originally done in 1992 and has been so faded it was difficult to see.

The mural is by Johanna Poethig who has been in the website so very many times.

Staff members from the San Francisco Human Services Agency contacted her about restoring her mural, “To Cause to Remember,” better known as the Statue of Liberty mural. It’s located on the side of a homeless shelter in the city’s South of Market district.

On the 40-foot by 80-foot wall, Lady Liberty lies on her side with chains on her feet and her hand outstretched.

According to Johanna’s blog:

“Everyone who comments on the mural mentions the chains first of all. . . . This symbol, the fallen Liberty, speaks to the issues of poverty, immigration, mental illness, incarceration, drugs, war veterans, families and the elderly.

“The image has been published in books about street art. In my 30-year career as a muralist and public artist, this work of art has weathered the test of time. The Liberty in recline has proven herself to really mean something to the people who live with her chains and to those who remember what she means.”

The assistants were all students at Cal State Monterey Bay Visual and Public Art School.

If you would like read more of Johanna’s ruminations on the mural click here.

Mission Dolores Mosaic

Posted by Cindy on August 17, 2013

Aug 172013

Mission Dolores
16th and Dolores
The Mission District

This mural is in the hallway between the Mission and the Basilica.

The brass plaque that accompanies it reads:

Guillermo Granizo

1923-1996

This ceramic mural is the work of Guillermo Granizo a native San Francisco Artist. Shortly after Guillermo’s birth in 1923 the Granizo Family moved to Nicaragua for a period of eleven years. The family then returned to San Francisco. Extensive travel and research in Mexico and Central America in 1958 has provided flavor of many of his works.

This mural depicts the arrival of the San Carlos in San Francisco Bay while presenting at the same time the arrival of the military representative of Spain, Juan Bautista de Anza, and Father Junipero Serra to symbolize the bringing of the Good News of the Christian Chapel to the natives of California. Father Serra holds in his hand a plan for the facade of Mission Dolores.

The sails of the ship tell the story of the coming of civilization to the area. REY signifies Spanish sponsorship of the colonization: DIOS the spiritual element brought by the Franciscan Fathers: PUEBLO the city of San Francisco that was to grow out of this expedition and MUERTE to in indicated the gradual disappearance of the Naive People of this area. The artist then asks himself, QUIEN SABE? What would have happened if the civilization had not come. If the people who inherited this land had been left to themselves. He leaves the answer tot the imagination of the viewer.

The green area surrounded by brown in the lower left hand corner of the mural represents the island of Alcatraz, and the pelicans symbolize the same island in the San Francisco Bay.

We are grateful to the artist for placing this mural on extended loan to Mission Dolores since 1984.

******

Granizo was born in San Francisco and became a noted ceramic-tile muralist, who worked in bright colors, geometric shapes, heavy lines and varying textures, which gave his work a festive feeling. In the eleven years he lived in Nicaragua he absorbed influences of pre-Columbian primitive art and also styles of the Mexican muralists.

He graduated from the San Francisco College of Art, and then served as Art Director of KRON TV in San Francisco where he produced educational films. He became the resident artist for Stonelight Tiles in San Jose in 1970, and devoted the rest of his career as a ceramic tile muralist. He died in 1997.

Diversity at UCSF

Posted by Cindy on August 12, 2013

Aug 122013

400 Parnassus
UCSF Medical Center
Inner Sunset

Sunarte by Juana Alicia

Juana Alicia’s SANARTE: Diversity’s Pathway represents healing traditions worldwide, community cooperation, the internal work we do to heal ourselves as well as the social and natural movements that have brought about diversity, with a focus on the special history of UCSF.

Born and raised in Detroit, Michigan, Juana moved to the Bay Area in 1973 and works in a variety of media as a muralist, illustrator, print maker, and painter. She is best known for large-scale murals, particularly in San Francisco and Central America that are infused with social, political, and spiritual themes.

Juana was selected through the efforts of the Chancellor’s Advisory Committee on Diversity to celebrate the diversity at UCSF. The murals are the result of in-depth historical research and design development, in dialogue with students, staff, and community members.

Juana Alicia has been in this website before. You can see her murals in the Mission District here.

The Bridge between North Beach and Chinatown

Posted by Cindy on August 5, 2013

Aug 052013

Grant Avenue and Jack Kerouac Alley
Chinatown/North Beach

This community mural is on the corner of Jack Kerouac Alley and Grant Street. Titled The Bridge, the lead painter was Robert Minervini along with over a dozen local youth from Chinatown. It was sponsored by the Chinatown Community Development Center and the Adopt-An-Alleyway Youth Empowerment Project with funds from the City of San Francisco Community Challenge Grant.

Robert Minervini is a painter who creates invented spaces based on, but slightly askew from reality. He draws from notions of utopia and the sublime. His works utilize traditional motifs of still life and landscape painting.

He received his MFA from the San Francisco Art Institute and BFA from Tyler School of Art.

Richard L. Perri and the Giant Pill

Posted by Cindy on July 29, 2013

Jul 292013

7th and Market Street
SOMA/Mid Market

The Odd Fellows Temple (you can read my post about the IOOF building here) is getting a CVS on the ground floor. Artist Richard L. Perri has brightened up the construction zone with a really fun mural.

Richard L. Perri has a studio in the Odd Fellows Building. Born in Rockville Center, New York, Perri studied at the San Francisco Art Institute.

MidMa stands for Mid Market District. According to their website: The Mid Market district has historically been an art center. During its heyday (mid 1900’s) it was a vibrant and star-studded hub for theater and entertainment. Since the 1960’s the area experienced a decline in activity. Theaters closed their doors, storefronts were boarded up and people stopped coming. Then slowly, over time, the artists moved in.

One building in particular the Odd Fellows, became an art center for these artists….

Farm Girl by Aryz

Posted by Cindy on July 22, 2013

Jul 222013

Polk and Eddy
The Tenderloin

This five-story farm girl — and her bushel of apples looks over the corner of Eddy and Polk. Aryz deliberately used muted colors, especially flesh tones, to paint the lady onto this beige building.

***

“I feel it’s really aggressive when you paint in a public space, so I don’t really want to play with bright colors. It would be too much,” Aryz says. “I’d prefer that people who are observing [the scene] find the work by themselves. The last few walls I’ve done like this.”

Of the world’s top street artists, Aryz sits alongside names such as Banksy, JR, ROA and Blek le Rat. Aryz, a Spaniard who lives in a town near Barcelona, is 24 years old and has been doing street art — starting with graffiti — for a decade. His Tenderloin girl, at 665 Eddy St., is his first street work in California after a busy few years transforming buildings across Europe and other parts of the Americas.

Much of Aryz’s art is slyly humorous — his farm girl has a small top hat flying off her head — and when you combine that sly absurdity with his obvious painting talent (Aryz studied art in college) and his eagerness to exhibit in the open air, it’s no surprise that Aryz would have a growing fan base stretching far beyond the usual street art crowd, and far beyond Spain.

Aryz’s Tenderloin project was accomplished through behind-the-scenes negotiations and timely generosity. Chris Shaher, a San Francisco art curator and art activist who runs the organization WallSpaceSF, has an agreement with the owners of 665 Eddy St. to put select street art on the building’s western facade. To let Aryz work from the roof of the KFC next door, Shaher’s team also had to secure permission.Deborah Munk, director of Recology’s Artist in Residence Program, donated the paint for Aryz’s Tenderloin project. This community approach to street art meant that Aryz could — unlike, say, the stealth-oriented Banksy — work in the middle of the day, without disguise, without interruption. Even in his hydraulic lift high above Eddy Street, Aryz greets anyone who shouted to him from below. Aryz says he doesn’t want to be a “celebrity” street artist, and doesn’t want the trappings of museum shows, where audio guides detail every facet of the art on display. His farm girl has no formal name.

“I don’t really care about saying what it is — I just want people to see it,” says Aryz, who was born in Palo Alto, where he lived until age 3, when his family moved back to Spain. “The problem in the art business is that you have to create your own ‘character,’ and the art business sells your art as a whole thing. Of course the artist is a whole thing. Everything affects your art and the way you do things. But in the end, what remains is the art, not the artist. So that’s what I think is important. It’s not important how I look like. Or how I am. In the end, what’s important is what I do.”

This was excerpted from an article in the SF Weekly by Jonathan Curiel. To read the entire article go here.

This higher up and closer view is courtesy of Graffuturism.com

Sand One comes to San Francisco

Posted by Cindy on April 29, 2013

Apr 292013

Leavenworth and Turk
The Tenderloin

This mural is titled Any Man’s Land and is by Sand One. The name seems especially appropriate to me as there was a crack deal going on as I was taking this photo. The street corner really is Any man’s land.

According to Sand One’s Facebook page, she is a Street artist based out of Los Angeles California,influenced by the L.A chicano culture Sand characters come with lots of attitude flavor and funk!

This is straight from a great interview she did with the LAist:

At 19 years old, Sand One has put her art up all over the city, from walls in East L.A. to galleries in Hollywood. She’s at the forefront of a small but growing group of young female street artists who are breaking down expectations about what has long been considered a male-dominated field.

A self-described “little five-foot girl in heels,” Sand is blazing this particular trail with style and humor, in addition to a healthy dose of chutzpah. She chatted with us about her work, her goals and why we shouldn’t call what she does graffiti.

LAist: What’s your signature style?
Sand One: I do cartoon-y females with attitude and swag, painted huge on walls, trucks, corn carts and mobiles. They have big, eccentric eyelashes and fruity colors, and lots of L.A.-influenced tattoos, like three dots that signify “my crazy life,” an L.A. logo, the number 13, penitentiary-influenced tattoos and anything that reminds me of my “Lost Angeles” culture.

My style embodies the female of today, the thug girl in me, and the teenager in all of us, discovering her city horizons, body and joys.

LAist: How did you get started doing graffiti?
SO: I do art on the streets. Maybe it looks like graffiti, but it’s not. My art form can be classified as chick urban street art.

I’ve been seriously invading walls, trucks, and galleries for three years now. It’s a lonely sport, but I love doing it. I love the powerful feeling and the satisfaction that I get after painting a mural that’s three times larger than five-foot me, with my own little hands, some paint, an idea and an extendable ladder.

LAist: So, I clearly made a mistake in calling your art graffiti – can you explain how it’s different?
SO: Don’t get me beat up! It’s almost the same thing, but the fact that I don’t go out at night and jump bridges or run into freeways is what makes what I do different. Graffiti has lots of letter styles, and it involves this sexy danger. My art has this clean and nice image — graffiti isn’t supposed to be nice, it’s rugged and hardcore.

Street art is the artsy side of it, the nice side of it, the gallery, the limelight. It’s not as hardcore. Raise your glasses to both forms, they’re the best forms of art at the moment here in Los Angeles.

LAist: Is it harder for female artists to make a name for themselves in street art and graffiti?
SO: You have to have thick skin to be in this world where it’s male-dominated, and they feel threatened by your presence. A lot of guys see me in my heels, painting girls and cartoons, and they get angry. They try to get crazy with me, even try to take my paint away, but it’s cool — I’m hood so I let them have it!

Once, I was at an art exhibit on Fairfax and Melrose and I was drawing on people’s blackbooks (sketch books). This guy who’s an L.A. graffiti vandal walks up and sees it’s me, and suddenly he’s so angry! He says, “So it’s you, you’ve been doing cartoons all over the city. I have no respect for legal graffiti.”

I’m like, oh my gosh, he’s gonna punch me…but so what? I’ll take a punch for my Sand Chikz (just punch me in the stomach please, not the face). He’s like, “I have three daughters and sisters so I respect what you do, but I’ve never made a cent off what I do, I believe that graffiti should stay illegal. I’ll never fucking paint a wall with you.”

That was the joke of my night, but still I admire it — that he had the nerve to walk up into a crowd and attempt to shatter my passion for art.

LAist: Do you ever get scared?
SO: I wasn’t scared. It’s the lifestyle that I want to live, and I want to experience everything that comes with this world. It’s not boring; it’s exciting. I’ve done trains and other underground stuff, but I’d rather put art on a corn cart or a meat market and give back to the neighborhoods. It’s just a different way of doing things.

And my girls, they’re cute! They’re supposed to bring happiness, and make other girls understand that there’s street art for us to enjoy.

LAist: What inspires you about L.A.?
SO: I love L.A. I listen to Too Short, Tupac and Snoop Dogg a lot, so it keeps my gangsta swagger and hustle on point. It’s so much of everything in L.A. — too many taco stands, too many girls, way too many bums, not a lot of men and tons of greatly skilled artists. So that significantly motivates me to hit the ground harder and seek opportunities instead of waiting for them to arrive in the mail.

L.A. changes you; it’s competitive. I originate from the heart, East L.A, where the freaks come out at night and ambition runs low. I consider myself a hustler, a little Mexican gangster, and the fact that I was born and raised here in L.A. made me who I am.

LAist: You’ve had your work shown in galleries, you’re well known in the street art community, and you’ve collaborated with clothing companies — and you’re only 19. Where do you want to go with your art and your career?
SO: Well, I would like to one day get off EBT so I don’t have to pimp the government, and get rid of having a baby sitter that follows me everywhere — I’m grown! Just kidding. I’m not sure. I just enjoy painting. It makes me so happy every time I paint a new mural, join a new art exhibit or travel to a different city or country and leave my mark. I’m proud to come from nothing, and to have slowly begun build something that’s made heads turn.

I’m very focused on my aspirations; I want to be a great artist. I aim for perfection. I don’t go to school to perfect my craft, I take it to the streets. I’m not afraid of criticism or of not being accepted. I enjoy painting huge cartoons with cheesy smiles all over the streets. It keeps me sane. The streets are my canvas, sketchbook, diary.

LAist: What do you like about the street art scene right now?
SO: There’s a lot of positive stuff. I’m happy to be a part of the new up-and-coming street artist culture. I know our art is very different and some of the elders have a hard time accepting it, but so far I’ve been very welcomed.

In regards to females, they’re very distinct and limited, so big ups to the women out there that are truly getting their asses up and running around the streets making their presence felt. This is a man’s world. But it wouldn’t be nothing without a badass L.A. woman.

LAist: What are you working on now?
SO: I’m doing a mural in the Culver City arts district. I was trying to get this very famous underground graffiti artist, MQ, to agree for over a year, and finally I got him to paint with me. He was very open-minded to working with me and painting a huge wall. It’s been two weeks that we’ve been doing this. The wall is very cool, it’s me coming together stylistically with someone old school that I look up to for having been around the graffiti world for so long, and making a name for himself by systematically painting what he loved and believed in. MQ you are awesome!

LAist: Do you still live in L.A.?
SO: I’m still in East Los Angeles. I’ve been exploring different countries and cities as well, but I always end up coming right back to the place I know: home, with my mama and my little brother and sister, and all the awesomely delicious daily leftover food that my mother brings me (she has a Mexican/American lunch truck).

I’m here to live the one life I was given and run around town painting pretty girls with cheesy smiles, long eyelashes and a meaning behind them, empowering today’s L.A woman. My motto is “stay hungry, never full.”

On a personal note. Anyone that writes on a daily basis about street art has friends and family that find things for them. My husband found this and drove me there so I would be safe and since he had no idea where it was he couldn’t give me directions. He took me there in January, just a few days before he suddenly passed away. This mural will always bring tears to my eyes, and yet it was a great outing so I have great memories. Thank you Michael and thank you to all those friends and families that support us writers out there.

Swimming through Jessie Square

Posted by Cindy on April 22, 2013

Apr 222013

Site of the future Mexican Museum
706 Mission District
Museum Row
SOMA

This is titled Exploring New Territory and is by Henry Lipkis. This wall is the edge of the construction site for the forthcoming Mexican Museum, so the piece will be temporary.

This is from Henry’s blog: “Back in October I painted my first big public mural in San Francisco. It started back in July when I applied to do an interactive mural as a performance piece for Yerba Buena Night, a cultural art happening in Jessie Square. At first I was going to get a big roll of canvas and unroll it on some wall and do my piece there. Thankfully these Yerba Buena folk think big and my contact told me he was going to find a wall for me. He called me about a month later and we met up in front of this 70 foot wall and he said “Here it is”. Then he asked how many panels of it I wanted to paint so they could get the appropriate amount of lights for the event. Pfff how many panels… if they were giving me access to this entire huge wall I wanted to paint the entire thing! So they did indeed rig up this entire wall with clamp lamps so that i could continue to paint into the night of the event.

All told, I was painting for 12 hours straight from 10 am to 10 pm and it was great to work with such an awesome institution.”

About painting “To take a previously mundane surface and splash paint and twist colors around one another, pushing ideas here and there in a mad frenzy until finally a scene pokes its toes into the realm of readability, it gets me higher than anything else ever could. I can’t get enough of it, dancing with my mind and body through dimensions of abstraction and bringing back a handful of solid images to show people where I went.

I hope to lure people in with a tasty, digestible, morsel of an image and from there to snatch them into the realm of abstraction, help them dance around with their own subconscious, and deliver them back to their daily life with a slightly dizzy feeling.”

There is an interesting article on YM&C if you would like to explore further.

Journey through Books and Music

Posted by Cindy on March 18, 2013

Mar 182013

1946 Market Street
Castro/Mission
The Mural is on the side of 43 Buchannan

Titled Joyous Discoveries: A Journey Through Books and Music, this mural, by Keith Hollander won the Public Mural Award of 2001 for the Finest Mural in the SF Bay Area.

The mural is now being lost due to construction on this corner.

The books in the picture are: Chaim Potok, “The Chosen”, Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s “100 Years of Solitude”, Maya Angelou’s “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings”, “The Art Book”, Cervantes’ “Don Quixote”, J.D. Salinger’s “Catcher in the Rye”, and Douglas Adams’ “Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy”

This is what the mural looked like originally.

Keith Hollander was born and raised in New York and began creating artwork at a very young age. His unique, surrealist style of painting has been exhibited at galleries and exhibits throughout the San Francisco bay area since he made his home here thirteen years ago. Keith received his first formal art studies at the School of Visual Arts in New York City.

Keith has always been fascinated by people-their relationship to themselves and others- and by the physical human form as it relates to other physical objects. Through his nonlinear exploration and love of painting, Keith transports the observer into realms of imagination that one may not have considered before, encouraging the question, “What does he mean?” The juxtaposition of the conceptual portal against the air of surrealism creates a powerful fusing of possibility and probability. Keith considers his creativity to be a tool to educate, provoke, and stimulate the human spirit and the senses.

Major Funding: The Office of Mayor Willie Brown through the SF Neighborhood Beautification Office

Chinese in San Francisco

Posted by Cindy on February 18, 2013

Feb 182013

950 Washington Street
Chinatown

This mural sits on the wall of the Commodore Stockton School. The School has a very rich history. Formed in 1859 it was originally called the Chinese School. It was created for chinese only students as they were not allowed in the public schools. In 1885 the school was renamed the Oriental School to allow Koreans and Japanese to attend. In 1924 the school was renamed Commodore Stockton. Alice Fong Yu was its first Chinese teacher and children were banned from speaking Chinese.

The mural depicts the Chinese of San Francisco. It was painted in 1987 by K.S. Chan

The mural was funded, in part, by the Mayors Office of Community Development.

Candlestick Park Community Garden Mural

Posted by Cindy on January 30, 2013

Jan 302013

1150 Carroll Avenue
Candlestick Park State Recreation Area

This mural is on the side of the Candlestick Park Rangers Office. The area in front is the Candlestick Point Community Garden.

The theme of the mural, expressed through symbolism, shape and color shows the various stages of the gardening experience. The mural 30′ x 100′, took four months to complete. It was designed in 1982, by five artists and graduate students from San Francisco State University. Barbara Plant, Gary Mathews, Eric Graham, James Adams and Maria Gonzalez.

Rather than using the wall surface as a canvas to be covered, the artists incorporated the exposed pebble wall into the design and purposely left areas unpainted.

This photo is from the original dedication

Candlestick Point State Recreation Area was the first California State Park unit developed to bring state park values into the urban setting. From historic wetlands to landfill to landscaped park, Candlestick Point demonstrates major land use changes of the San Francisco Bay. Its name is derived from 19th century locals who thought the burning of nearby abandoned sailing ships and their flaming masts in the bay resembled lighted candlesticks.

Mission Pool and Playground Mural

Posted by Cindy on January 28, 2013

Jan 282013

Mission District
Linda Street off of 19th

This mural was done by Emmanuel C. Montoya, Sue Cervantes and Juana Alicia. It sits on the side of the Mission Pool and Playground which houses the New World Tree Mural. These three artists were joined by Raul Martinez and others to create the mural in the playground in 1985. It is titled Balance of Power.

On the day of the inauguration of the World Tree Mural, a neighborhood organizer got Diane Feinstein, then San Francisco mayor, on tape, promising to fund murals for the neighborhood if it respected the walls and desisted from covering them with graffiti. .The artists, community organizers and two rival neighborhood gangs, Happy Homes and 19th Street, came together to create the mural.

Emmanuel is a descendent of Lipan Apache and Mexican heritage and was born in the small, south coastal town of Corpus Christi, Texas. Emmanuel is an enrolled member of the Lipan Apache Band of Texas. For some forty-eight years Emmanuel has been a resident of the San Francisco Bay Area where he attended high school and went on to college and earned a Bachelor of Arts and Master of Fine Arts degree in printmaking at San Francisco State University.

Sue Cervantes has many murals around San Francisco that you can see here.

Nico Berry on York Street

Posted by Cindy on January 22, 2013

Jan 222013

1354 York Street
Mission/Potrero

This mural is part of the San Francisco StreetSmARTS program and was done by Nico Berry.

Nico Berry’s cultural perspective is shaped by his encounters with hip-hop, skateboarding, and urban youth culture while growing up on the South Side of Chicago. Over the years he has also become interested in exploring the role of culture, community, class, and religion, especially in the context of urban life. Aesthetically, Nico’s prolific experience in graphic design is extremely evident. Lettering, patterns, and the appropriation of pop and religious symbolism dominate his work. The media he works with include spray-paint, collage, sculptural elements, and acrylic paints as well as digital designing.

Nico worked as art director for Thrasher skateboard magazine from 1996-2001, then traveled the world creating murals on five different continents. From 2002-2007 Nico created fine art and worked as a freelance graphic designer in Brooklyn, New York. He contributed to a wide range of companies, from Timberland boots and apparel to The Source hip-hop magazine to Fermilab’s high-energy physics facility. In 2007 he relocated to San Francisco where he continues to do murals, design work, and fine art. Most recently he has focused his attention on writing and illustrating children’s books.

Shapes and Letters

Posted by Cindy on January 21, 2013

Jan 212013

751 and 780 Valencia at 19th
The Mission

This mural, consisting of shapes, numbers and letters, is by 24 year old SF resident, Jonathan Matas. In 2012 Jonathan did an interview with a group in Atlanta while participating in a show called Living Walls.

Here is a few interesting excerpts from the article:

I have been painting all my life. Like all kids, I made art, but I kept on going, nonstop. It has always been my passion. The only time in my life that I stopped was last year for about six months, that was an excellent break and I came back with renewed energy and focus.

I got into graffiti around 1999. I don’t remember the term “street art” being used much. It was just straight up graffiti… tags, throw-ups, pieces, streets, freights… I started to notice the graffiti around my neighborhood in Seattle. I switched high schools in 10th grade to the NOVA Project (an alternative high school in Seattle’s Central District), where I started meeting writers from all parts of the city.

I’m definitley not able to see the completed image in my head before beginning. I have a naturally-occurring tendency toward detail. I enjoy art that can sink in over time, with many layers of meaning and depth to explore. For example, from a distance or up close, or the whole piece as a macrocosm containing microcosmic worlds.

As any artist will tell you, knowing when to stop is difficult. All projects are different. Usually, when I arrive at a point when I’m looking for stuff to add rather than doing what jumps out as needing doing, it is time to stop. If you go further, it is acting out of impulsivity or even greed. Intuitively knowing it’s time to stop but continuing is madness. There are no clear dogmatic rules to this though.

750 Mission

780 Mission

Utility Boxes get Dressed Up

Posted by Cindy on January 18, 2013

Jan 182013

Duboce and Church
Castro

Mona Caron, who created the adjacent Bicycle Coalition mural on the back of the Safeway has added new touches to the Muni utility boxes on the sidewalk. On one side of the boxes, bicyclists entering the Wiggle are greeted by an illustrated flowing banner that lists the names of the streets that make up the route. On the other side, pedestrians are treated with a window to a re-imagined intersection featuring an uncovered Sans Souci Creek (which once roughly followed the path of the Wiggle).

The title of this box is Manifestation Station.

This photo, from Mona Caron’s website, shows exactly how the box was meant to be viewed.

Update: There was fire in this particular utility box, and the utility company has replaced it with a plain unpainted box, Mona’s beautiful creation is not to return. But you can enjoy her video about it here:

Cross the street, and you get lovely depictions of “weeds” sprouting from the ground. “They may be tiny yet they push through concrete. They are everywhere and yet unseen. But the more they get stepped on, the stronger they grow back.”…Mona Caron

Mona Caron has several murals throughout San Francisco.

These boxes are part of the Church and Duboce Track Improvement Project by the SFMTA

For a great day spent learning about the area and the mural check out ThinkWalks, if you don’t have time to actually take a walk, they have a wonderful full color description of the mural with facts, trivia, and lots of bits of San Francisco History in their store.

The Beaded Quilt

Posted by Cindy on January 11, 2013

Jan 112013

214 Van Ness Avenue
Civic Center

This “Beaded Quilt” sits on the outside of the Lighthouse for the Blind and Visually Impaired building on Van Ness Avenue. According to the Please Touch Garden Site this mural is part of a LightHouse community arts initiative created by dozens of blind San Franciscans.

The mural is created out of 150,000 colored beads. As part of the Please Touch Community Garden, artist Gk Callahan envisioned the “Beaded Quilt” mural as a social arts project and enlisted clients from his art classes plus blind staff and volunteers at the LightHouse to assemble the 576 beaded squares that make up the six-foot-tall mural.

It all began in 2010 when Callahan partnered with the LightHouse to obtain a grant from the San Francisco Arts Commission to create a major community arts project – the “Please Touch Community Garden” – on the once unkempt vacant lot at 165 Grove Street, in the shadow of the dome of the city hall.

The Please Touch Community Garden is currently under development by Callahan and his students in the Blind Leaders Program at the LightHouse. “A big part of our project has been cleaning up Lech Walesa alley which is where the entrance to the garden is located”, says Callahan. “With the installment of the Beaded Quilt mural we’ll highlight the garden’s entrance and the alley itself. Making the alley more visible to the surrounding community will help with the squatting and drug use that has been rampant for years in this part of the neighborhood.”

Callahan explains that another facet of the mural is working with blind seniors in a program that historically produced craft art. As a local artist, he wanted to illustrate how art made by people with disabilities does not necessarily have to be craft or outsider art. The Beaded Quilt is made by blind and visually impaired people as a public art piece and as a statement about what one with disabilities can accomplish.

The mural has been touched by many people. For example, over many months, Starrly Winchester, one of the LightHouse’s long time volunteers, spent hours at home separating the more than 100,000 beads into sixty color groups. Every week she brought in more color-separated beads for the artists to work with.

Linda Fonseca, a long-time client of the LightHouse, is one of about ten clients who worked on the beaded quilt for over a year. She says that it was motivating and gave her a sense of accomplishment. Her designs were influenced by the ever-present music the artists listened to as they affixed the 150,000 beads. “Classical music brought out the clear, white and pastel colors and more subdued designs. When we were rocking out, I made more geometric designs with purples and reds.” And what about jazz and the blues? “Oh,” she says without missing a beat, “many shades of blue came into play.”

“Each square is a small reflection of the person who made it, highlighting the colorfulness and diversity of our community,” says Callahan. “The mural is not only about accomplishing my own vision as an artist, but about bringing new challenges, learning, activity and artistic growth to our programs at the LightHouse. It’s about helping Linda find an outlet for her artistic expression. It’s about helping James, who found that the project improved his skillfulness and eased his arthritis.”

Gk Callahan is a multi media and socially engaged artist in San Francisco, CA. Trained in painting at San Francisco Art Institute, earning his BFA in 2006. During his BA studies he facilitated public work under Catasta Gallery©, an alternative arts group he co-founded in 2003. 2008-2012 he set as the artist in residence at both the LightHouse for the Blind and Harvey Milk Civil Rights Academy severing on both the LightHouse’s Insight Art Show board and Harvey Milk’s Comity Art board. Gk most recently joined the MFA program at the California College of the Arts in Social practice.

Zoe Ani and the SF StreetSmARTS program

Posted by Cindy on January 2, 2013

Jan 022013

2840 San Bruno
Excelsior District

M.K. Zoe Ani’s work ranges from representational to abstract landscapes. Her perspective is enriched by her Hawaiian and American Indian heritage. Her experience is one of a dichotomy of two cultures separated not only by a vast ocean, but also a mindset that is reflective of the dissemination of each indigenous group. She developed her skills in drawing during her travels and forged a unique art education by pursuing opportunities to learn and work in alternative settings.

Zoe began drawing as a teenager in southern Oregon. She began painting at The Art Students League in New York City from 1998 – 2002. She worked primarily in oil. She continued to pursue her craft in her tiny studio in Brooklyn, NY. In 2005 she transitioned from working in oil to encaustic painting after attending a workshop at Penland School of Crafts in North Carolina.

The transition from oil to beeswax required more space to breathe. The natural inclination for expansion and a shift in perspective brought her full circle back to the west coast after twelve years in New York City. She has immersed herself in her new surroundings working out of a bigger studio located in the Dogpatch neighborhood in San Francisco, CA.

This is part of the SF StreetSmARTS program.

Soul Journey

Posted by Cindy on December 17, 2012

Dec 172012

1625 Carroll at Third Street
Bayview

Titled Soul Journey this mural was done by Precita Eyes in 2000. It was designed by their director, Susan Kelk Cervantes and executed by Ronnie Goodman, Tomashi Red Jackson, “Diallo” John H. Jones, Dan Macchiarini and Mel Simmons.

Under the fawn it reads: Home sickness on a quiet night…on the ground before my bed is spread the bright moonlight, but I take it for frost, when I wake up at the first light. Then I look up at the bright full moon in the sky suddenly homesickness strikes me as I bow my head with a deep sigh.

In the waves of this panel you can read this:

The soul journey of tears has slowed from people’s eyes for many years

The soul journey of tears has dropped to the ground forced through cultivated soil that has transformed their lives and wiped away their sorrow and pain from their lives.

This soul journey of tears have given us new meaning to life. By R. Goodman

This project, executed in 2000, was funded by the Mayors Neighborhood Beautification Fund, the National Endowment for the Arts and the Carroll Avenue Associates.

A New World Tree

Posted by Cindy on November 26, 2012

Nov 262012

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.

Leaping Lizards

Posted by Cindy on November 16, 2012

Nov 162012

Myrtle and Larkin
The Tenderloin

This piece is by Satyr. Satyr has some other murals in the Haight.

Satyr is known for his quality murals in San Francisco. He was brought up by The Master Piece Creators, one of the original aerosol art crews to bring concept walls to the city. Years into his graffiti career, Satyr became formally trained in illustration.

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