Point Cloud

 Posted by on March 26, 2019
Mar 262019
 

Moscone Center

Villareal lights Moscone

“Point Cloud” by Leo Villareal, the designer of “The Bay Lights” on the Bay Bridge has been incorporated into the new East Bridge, which connects Moscone North and South.

Commissioned by the San Francisco Arts Commission for  $1.5 million, it is part of the city’ 2% for Art Program.

This light sculpture is made up of over 50,000 full-color LEDs arranged in a three-dimensional array. Approximately 800 mirrored stainless steel rods, hanging from the ceiling, support the LED matrix.

Leo Villereli Port CloudThe lights on this site-specific artwork are sequenced with Villareal’s custom software. The patterns are constantly changing.  While these photos, taken during the day, do not show how bright the lights actually are, it is a nice focal point for both walkers and drivers naviagting the crowded situation always found around Moscone.

Leo Villareal (born 1967 in Albuquerque, New Mexico) lives and works in New York City. His work combines LED lights and encoded computer programming to create illuminated displays.

Villareal received a BA in sculpture from Yale University in 1990 and a graduate degree from NYU Tisch School of the Arts, Interactive Telecommunications Program.

Point Cloud

*Point Cloud

Geneses I at Moscone Center

 Posted by on March 14, 2019
Mar 142019
 
Genesis by Christine Corday

Geneses I

Christine Corday was born in 1970 in Maryland. Before receiving her B.A. in Communication Arts (1992), she wrote an original research paper which led to an Astrophysics internship at NASA Ames Research Center.

She went on to do graduate work in Cultural Anthropology and the works as a graphic and structural designer for advertising companies. Corday received the Edison Ingenuity Prize in Montreal, Canada and has also won a number of international design awards for her patented glass bottle for the Republic of Tea. In 2000, Corday was selected for a Short Story prize from Francis Ford Coppola’s fiction magazine Zoetrope.

“Geneses” means “many beginnings,” and Corday sees her sculpture as begun but never finished. The finish will be continuously applied by the weather and the hand prints of passersby.

“Geneses” means “many beginnings,” and Corday sees her sculpture as begun but never finished. The finish will be continuously applied by the weather and the hand prints of passersby.

According to the San Francisco Art Commission: GENESES I is the first and unique work from a monumental series inspired by the concept of beginning. Its name is the phonetic fusion of the word in different languages. Its arcing segments are melted and hewn stainless steel supported by a concrete form. The work exhibits a cool planar edge and surface juxtaposed by the sensory examination of the grand-scale heat within its soft and epic melting cut. A heat allowing a material moment cooled or suspended between solid and liquid state, as well as mimicking the temperatures at the surface of the sun, the core of our earth. The work encourages touch, which is intended to provide a moment of respite and an engaged perceptual encounter.

Geneses I

This project is part of San Francisco’s 2% for Art Program.  The piece was commissioned by the San Francisco Director of Cultural Affairs for a cost of $1,450,000.

Genesis I

Paul Selinger piece is gone

 Posted by on January 26, 2019
Jan 262019
 

This piece once stood in the Broderick and Bush Mini Park

Untitled by Paul Selinger

Untitled by Paul Selinger – Photo from the San Francisco Parks Department

In 2010 the SFAC  de-accessed this piece due to damage, one can assume it was destroyed. “Civic Art Collection Senior Registrar Allison Cummings informed the Committee of the need to remove Paul Selinger’s sculpture Untitled, 1971 (Accession #1971.44) from its current location at Broderick and Bush Mini Park due to the artwork’s advanced deterioration. Ms. Cummings stressed that as assessed by a Recreation and Parks Department structural engineer, the sculpture should be considered a threat to public safety and will need to be dismantled and stored on site while Arts Commission staff completes the formal deaccessioning process. Upon Ms. Manton’s suggestion, Ms. Cummings agreed that public notice of the artwork’s removal will need to be posted within the park.” SFAC February 17, 2010 meeting.

The untitled sculpture was created by Paul Selinger (1935-2015) with funds donated by the Levi Strauss Company, for the garden.

Paul Selinger was born in Chicago, Illinois. At the age of 12, his family moved to Mill Valley, California. In 1958, Paul completed his undergraduate studies at U.C. Berkeley with a Bachelor of Fine Arts, then followed with a Master of Fine Arts in sculpture from the San Francisco Art Institute. Shortly after completing his master’s degree, he traveled to South Korea and began his lifelong love affair with Asia, living in Korea, then Hong Kong, for the next ten years. Paul taught sculpture at the University of Hong Kong and became an internationally recognized artist in 1969 when he created massive public sculpture installations and designed and built a playground filled with abstract sculptures — believed to be the first of its kind in Southeast Asia — in Hong Kong’s Shek Lei resettlement estate. After returning to the U.S. he continued to work in metal, plastic, wood, and other media, producing small pieces for homes and gardens, and large pieces for public display

Paul established his last studio in Petaluma in 1998, creating lyrical yet dynamic wall sculptures imbued with his love of nature, movement, poetry, and calligraphy.

This piece is still listed in the San Francisco Art Commission’s Data Base as existing.

 

Robert Reid and the GGIE

 Posted by on September 9, 2018
Sep 092018
 

Palace of Fine Arts
Location now: Unknown

Robert Reid and the GGIE

Robert Reid working on the Palace of Fine Arts murals                                                             Photo: Smithsonian

In keeping with the mission of this website to catalog all art owned by the San Francisco Art Commission, we would be remiss if we did not include one of the greater pieces of art from the Golden Gate International Exposition, that has been lost.

Robert Lewis Reid’s murals for the Palace of Fine Arts building at the Panama–Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco, in 1915 was an extraordinary tribute to the Arts. Eight huge panels graced the ceiling of the rotunda: The Four Golds of California (Golden Metal, Wheat, Citrus Fruits, and Poppies); plus Ideals in Art, Inspirations of All Arts, the Birth of European Art and Birth of Oriental Art. San Francisco’s Palace of Fine Arts was re-built in the 1960s and these paintings no longer exist.

Robert Reid GGIE Palace of Fine Arts

From The Jewel City Chapter 12: Above, in the dome, Robert Reid’s eight murals, splendid in color, are too far away to be seen well as pictures. Two separate series are alternated, one symbolizing the Progress of Art, the other depicting the Four Golds of California. The panel in the east, nearest the altar, is “The Birth of European Art.” The sacred fire burns on an altar, beside which stands the guardian holding out the torch of inspiration to an earthly messenger who leans from his chariot to receive it. On the right is the Orange panel, representing one of the California golds.

“Inspiration in All Art” comes next. The veil of darkness, drawn back, reveals the arts: Music, Painting, Poetry, and Sculpture. A winged figure bears the torch of inspiration. The second of the California golds, the Wheat panel, follows, and then “The Birth of Oriental Art.” The allegory here is the ancient Ming legend of the forces of earth trying to wrest inspiration from the powers of air. A Chinese warrior mounted on a dragon struggles with an eagle.

Gold, the yellow metal, is the subject of the next panel, followed by “Ideals in Art.” In this appear concrete symbols of the chief motives of art, the classic nude of the Greeks, the Madonna and Child of Religion, Joan of Arc for Heroism, Youth and Material Beauty represented by a young woman, and Absolute Nature by the peacock. A mystic figure in the background holds the cruse wherewith to feed the sacred flame. A winged figure bears laurels for the living, while the shadowy one in the center holds the palm for the dead. Last of all comes the Poppy panel, representing the fourth gold of California.

“The entire scheme – the conception and birth of Art, its commitment to the earth, its progress and acceptance by the human intellect, – is expressed in the four major panels. They are lighted from below by a brilliant flood of golden light, the sunshine of California, and reach up into the intense blue of the California skies.” This, as well as much of the interpretation of the eight pictures, is drawn from Reid’s own account.

Title: Oriental Art

Title: Oriental Art –

Photo from The Sculpture and Mural Decorations of the Exposition – A. Stirling Calder.  Website: Books About California

Photo from The Sculpture and Mural Decorations of the Exposition - A. Stirling Calder Found at

Titled:  The Golden Wheat – Photo from The Sculpture and Mural Decorations of the Exposition – A. Stirling Calder.  Website: Books About California

 

Fabric Collage

 Posted by on September 6, 2018
Sep 062018
 

Laguna Honda Hospital
375 Laguna Honda Boulevard
Foreshill

Bay Area Foothills by Merle Axelrad Serlin

Bay Area Foothills by Merle Axelrad Serlin

These collages by Merle Axelrad Serlin  are comprised of thousands of small pieces of fabric, fiber, paint and cloth. The fragments are carefully arranged, layered, pinned and sewn together onto a cotton canvas. The artist uses a variety of fabrics including, but not limited to, cotton, linen, rayon, wool, silk, hemp, and tulle. When she is not able to find a piece of fabric that achieves the desired effect, Serlin uses acrylic-based fabric paints to create her own.

Cliff at Lands End

Cliff at Lands End

Merle Axelrad Serlin was a successful and pregnant architect when she made her first quilt, a predictably sewn coverlet of black, gray, pink and green that she finished the day before her son was born. “It was a dog . . . god-awful,” she recalls more than a decade later. But Serlin was clearly a quick study with no dearth of talent. She took a quilting class, won a few awards and switched to quilts as wall art.
With a little tinkering, Serlin developed a layering technique that let her bring more color, light and texture to her projects. She calls it “fabric collage,” and one of her most recent works is a stunning example. In “California Ricelands,” a Sacramento Valley farmscape commissioned by the California Rice Commission, Serlin uses hundreds of pieces of material—some hand-painted or -dyed, others fresh off the bolt from the local fabric store. A golden field is executed in velvety chenille; the flooded paddies are in soothing shades of blue and green.
“People describe this as painting with fabric,” she explains. “But I see it more as a blending of painting and sculpture because it is a three-dimensional medium.” Serlin’s pastime became full time in the late 1990s, when she landed a contract with the California Environmental Protection Agency to complete eight landscapes for the agency’s downtown headquarters, depicting the heights of Mount Shasta to the Monterey Bay Canyon. Other commissions—public, hospital and private—have streamed in ever since. Her studio, on the second floor of the Art Foundry & Gallery at 10th and R streets, opens for Second Saturday every month. – Sacramento Magazine May 2010.

Marin Headlands

Marin Headlands

The art pieces are behind UV resistant glass and lit from above making photographing them nearly impossible, photos of the art pieces unframed are from the artist’s website.

The budget for the artwork in the new wing of Laguna Honda Hospital was $3million, thanks to the 1% for art program. The budget for these three pieces was $47,000.

Below are photos of the collages, as occurs in many public buildings the artwork takes second fiddle to the handout rack.

Merle Axelrad Serlin *Merle Axelrad Sirlin *Merle Axelrad Sehlin

Hands by Vicki Saulls

 Posted by on July 7, 2018
Jul 072018
 

Eureka Valley Rec Center
100 Collingwood
Castro

Titled From the Heart Outward, this piece sits in the lobby of the Eureka Valley Rec Center.

Titled From the Heart Outward, this piece sits in the lobby of the Eureka Valley Rec Center.

The project consists of casts of hands of citizens throughout the neighboring community.  The call for volunteers read:  “My sense of the center is that it’s a really welcoming place for diverse interests and community groups. I wanted to use the welcoming theme and came up with the idea of using hands and gestures. My plan is to use various groupings–parents and children, friends, couples, partners–doing gestures. They could be holding hands, holding a basketball, playing cards. I expect some people will have ideas better than mine as far as the final gestures used,” says Saulls.

The pieces, cast by Erick Dunn, are of cold cast bronze and zinc aluminum

The pieces, cast by Erick Dunn, are of cold cast bronze and zinc aluminum

There are three hands at the entry to the Rec Center

There are three hands at the entry to the Rec Center.  This piece is titled Welcome Hands

These hands are made of concrete and were cast by Concretework Studio

These hands are made of concrete and were cast by Concretework Studio

Vicki Saulls has been on this site several times before.

This project was commissioned by the SFAC at a cost of $42,000 in 2004.

Take Root

 Posted by on June 30, 2018
Jun 302018
 

Chinatown Public Library
1135 Powell Street

Take Root by Rene Yung

Take Root is a set of bi-lingual panels referencing traditional Chinese salutary plaques in contemporary materials of rear-illuminated, die-cut anodized aluminum. The Chinese text is based on calligraphy written for Take Root by well-known artist and calligrapher C. C. Wang. It features a Chinese-American saying about setting roots in America, that is adapted from a traditional saying about returning to the old country at life’s end. The English text is a poetic translation.

Take Root by Rene Yung Light sconces bear the names of key departing and arrival cites in Asia and America.
Take Root by Rene Yung

Copper-leafed columns bear copper panels that are etched with bilingual community poems about the library and referencing the immigrant history of the community.

Take Root by Rene Yung

*Take Root by Rene Yung

Rene Yung is a visual artist living and working in San Francisco, California. She grew up in colonial Hong Kong before emigrating to the United States. Her work combines visual imagery with text to explore issues of culture and identity. She has exhibited nationally and internationally, including at the Palazzo Giustinian Lolin, Venice, Italy, as part of the 1995 Venice Biennale; Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston, Texas; Center for the Arts, Yerba Buena Gardens, San Francisco; San Jose Institute of Contemporary Art; the Richmond Art Center, Richmond; and other Bay Area institutions. 

Take Root by Rene Yung

Skydancing

 Posted by on June 28, 2018
Jun 282018
 

Laguna Honda Hospital
Pavillion Atrium
375 Laguna Honda Boulevard
Forest Hill

Sky Dancing by Takenobu Igarashi

This is Skydancing by Takenobu Igarashi they are painted aluminum sculptures, reminiscent of blossoms and suspended from aircraft cables.

Sky Dancing by Japanese artist Igarashi has taught at Chiba University and the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). He collaborated in the foundation of the Faculty of Design at Tama Art University (Kaminoge Campus) to set up the first computerized design education in Japan and was the first Head of the Design Department.

In 1994, he ended his 25 years of design activity and moved to Los Angeles to become a sculptor. After working with marble, he discovered terracotta and wood as his material. He returned to Japan in June 2004.

Representative works are in the permanent collection of over 30 museums worldwide including MoMA. He has been awarded the Commendation of the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Katsumi Masaru Award, the Mainichi Design Award, the IF Design Award and the Good Design Award for his achievements and activities in the field of graphics and product design.

Igarashi has been an emeritus professor at Tama Art University since April 2015.

The hospital had a $3 million budget for the artwork within the new wing of the hospital, thanks to the 1% for art requirement in San Francisco public buildings.

The budget for the three pieces provided by Takenobu Igarashi was $238,686

Much of the art at Laguna Honda is not accessible to the general public, so only 2 of Igarashi’s 3 pieces appear in this website.

Nuotatori

 Posted by on June 21, 2018
Jun 212018
 

North Beach Pool
661 Lombard Street

Nuotatori by Vicki Saulls

This piece, by Vicki Saulls, is an actual cast of 23 residents of North Beach shown in their swim gear.

Ms. Saulls also created Locus, a second piece of art that can be found at this North Beach pool.

Vicki Saulls was born in Idaho and raised in the northwest, Georgia, and California. Saulls graduated with a degree in Art from University of California at Santa Cruz. Vicki embarked on a career as a museum modelmaker and sculptor for natural history museums, aquariums, and parks, at such venues as Monterey Bay Aquarium, Yosemite National Park, Papalote Museo del Ninos and the National Museum of Natural History in Taichung, Taiwan. After 20 years in the San Francisco Bay area, she moved to New York in 2005 to join Blue Sky Studios on Dr. Suess’s Horton Hears a Who (2008), Vicki is now Lead Sculptor for Blue Sky, sculpting character maquettes for their many development projects & feature films.

Nuotatori by Vicki Saulls

Nuotatori is Italian for Swimmers

The piece was commissioned by the SFAC for $75,000 in 2007.

Nuotatori by Vicki Saulls

The casts are made of a polymer added gypsum

Building the Iron Horse

 Posted by on June 19, 2018
Jun 192018
 

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

Building the Iron Horse by Owen Smith

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.

Jun 152018
 

Christopher Park
5210 Diamond Height Boulevard
Diamond Heights
Ceramic tiles by Peter Van Denberge

These whimsical tile plagues are by Peter Vandenberge and reside inside, what is now, the nursery school in the Christopher Park Rec Center Building.

Christopher Park Public Art

Born in 1935 in The Hague, Vandenberg grew up in Jakarta. “I was obsessed with making things out of clay,”  “I was like Pigpen,” the Peanuts character. “My mother and father were always telling me to get out of the mud.”
In 1942 the Japanese invaded Indonesia and placed the expatriate population into POW camps,  “The whole goddamn thing was a nightmare,” he recalls. “There was not enough food, there were no sanitary conditions, and people were bashed around; they were dying like flies.” When the war ended in 1945 and Shell Oil evacuated the family to Australia in the wake of Sukarno’s revolt against the Dutch, “we were just about dead; we looked like those guys in Somalia.”
Ceramic Sculpture by Peter Vandenberge
After a year in Australia and a few years in post-war Holland, VandenBerg’s father moved to California, and Peter, then 19, followed. Twice over the next several years, he returned to Europe where he visited Giacometti and Joan Miró. The impressions made on him by both artists were long-lasting, and as a result, he’s continued, throughout his career, to employ the color palettes and gestures of artists who he admires.
Ceramic Sculpture by Peter VandenbergeVandenberge received his B.A. from California State University in Sacramento and his M.A. from UC Davis while working as Robert Arneson’s first graduate student assistant.  He taught at California State University in both San Francisco and Sacramento from 1966 until retiring.  He currently lives in Sacramento.
Ceramic Sculpture by Peter Vandenberge
*Ceramic Sculpture by Peter Vandenberge
*Ceramic Sculpture by Peter Vandenberge
*Ceramic sculpture by peter vandenberge *Ceramic Sculpture by Peter Vandenberge
 These pieces were commissioned by the SFAC in 1971.  Unfortunately, the value of these is most likely unknown to the people that work in the building, as there is some damage to them, and when I was there, a considerable amount of items were simply stacked up against them.
Christopher Park Rec Center artwork

Laguna Line

 Posted by on June 14, 2018
Jun 142018
 

Laguna Honda Hospital
375 Laguna Honda Boulevard
Forest Hill

 

Laguna Line by Cliff Garten

Laguna Line (The possibility of the Everyday), 2010 Bronze with patina

By observing Laguna Honda residents using wheelchairs and the handrails located throughout the building, Cliff Garten saw the potential for a public artwork in the form of a handrail. While meeting all codes and functional requirements, he transformed a ubiquitous handrail into a sensuous sculpture that addresses the space at a visual, tactile and psychological level. The Esplanade features approximately 600 feet of sculptural handrail elements that interpolate the interactive qualities of the handrail into other situations and activities in the hospital. The handrail is cast in bronze and embellished with the color palette of the Esplanade, providing additional visual cues as people navigate through the space.

Cliff Garten has been on this site before.

Laguna Line by Cliff Garten

*Laguna Line by Cliff Garten

The 604 linear heet of Handrails was commissioned by the SFAC at a cost of $238,108.

Reflections

 Posted by on June 12, 2018
Jun 122018
 

Laguna Honda Hospital
135 Laguna Honda
Forest Hills

Reflections by Diana Pumpelly Bates

This bi-fold, water-cut, stainless steel access door is by Diana Pumpelly Bates. The design incorporates selected elements of the new architecture of the hospital and imagery derived from the surrounding environment. The relationship of the lines and shapes in the imagery are intended to suggest a “landscape of reflection.”

Reflections by Diana Pumpelly Bates

Diana Pumpelly Bates is a sculptor and public artist working in bronze, iron, and steel. Her work has been included in exhibitions at the Oakland Museum, Oakland, The Triton Museum in Santa Clara,  the Oliver Art Center at California College of Arts and Crafts; the National Civil Rights Museum, Memphis, Tennessee; and John Jay College, New York. She has completed several public art commissions for transportation agencies, and a number of Public Art Programs in Northern California.

The backside of the door shows its workings.

Reflections by Diana Pumpelly Bates

The gates were commissioned by the SFAC for $100,000.

Rabbinoid on Cell Phone

 Posted by on June 11, 2018
Jun 112018
 

Laguna Honda Hospital
Garden Area
375 Laguna Honda
Forest Hills

Rabbinoid by Gerald Heffernan

This life size bronze is called Rabbinoid on Cell Phone and is by California artist Gerald Heffernon

Gerald Heffernon lives in Winters, California.  He has shown at galleries and museums nationally as well as in France, including the Crocker Art Museum in Sacramento and the Centre Pompidou in Paris.   He has been awarded over a dozen public art commissions since 1978, including those for fire stations in San Jose and Sacramento, parks in Sacramento and Denver (both in progress), and the Light Rail Station in Sacramento.  Mainly depicting animals, most of his sculptures are made of bronze.  He also works with concrete, granite and aluminum and has created suspended sculptures, paintings and other wall-mounted works.  He says, “Many of my pieces are whimsical. I like a playful, rather upbeat approach.”

This piece was originally in Stern Grove, placed there in 2005, at a cost of $50,000.  Due to vandalism, it was placed in storage for many years, and now resides at Laguna Honda Hospital.

Rabbinoid by Gerald Heffernan

Glass Flowers

 Posted by on May 10, 2018
May 102018
 

Portola Branch Library
380 Bacon Street
Portola/Excelsior

California Wildflowers by Dana Zed

Dana Zed has been exhibiting her art nationally and internationally for over 30 years. She holds a BA from Brown University in Rhode Island.  She has works  in the permanent collections of The Corning Museum in New York and The Oakland Museum.  Zed owns and operates a glass studio in Oakland as well as teaching ceramics to kids in the East Bay. She also teaches adults at Esaeln Institute in Big Sur.

Dana Zed Portola Library

California Wildflowers is a set of four handmade glass and metal shutters installed in the front window of the Portola Branch Library. This set of 20 glass panels depict California indigenous wildflowers, such as chamomile, daisy, echinacea, lavender, morning glory, poppy, star flower and western dogwood. The artist was inspired by the many nurseries that once were located in the Portola neighborhood.

The glass pieces were commissioned by the San Francisco Arts Commission for an amount not to exceed $36,000.

Portola Library San Francisco Public ARt

Balboa Has its Name up in Mosaic

 Posted by on March 29, 2018
Mar 292018
 

Balboa at 39th and 34th Avenues

Balboa Sign Posts by Colette Crucher

Balboa at 34th Avenue

These two sided sign posts on Balboa street were commissioned by the SF Arts Commission as part of the Balboa Streetscape Improvement Project.  They were created by artist Colette Crutcher, who has been in this site many times.

Mosaic Balboa Sign Posts

Balboa at 34th Avenue

The site of the Balboa Streetscape Improvement Project extends from 34th to 39th Avenue. The $3,200,000 renovation provided a safer and more pleasant environment for pedestrians, motorists, cyclists, and transit riders to enjoy the neighborhood.

Colette Crutcher Balboa Streetscape Improvement Project

Balboa and 39th Avenue. This marker contains film strips in deference to the 90 year old Balboa Theater down the street.

Balboa Streetscape Improvement Project Colette Crutcher

Shadow Kingdom

 Posted by on January 27, 2017
Jan 272017
 

16th at Missouri
Potrero Hill

Dagget Park Public ARt San FranciscoThe plaque at the site reads: This artwork is inspired by the history of Mission Bay, a 5,000 year-old tidal marsh that was once the habitat of a rich array of flora and fauna.  Growth of the city in the 19th century brought shipyards, warehouses and railroads and this part of the bay was eventually filled with sand and dirt from nearby development, as well as debris from the 1906 earthquake. The five panels that form Shadow Kingdom evoke this layered history. Ship masts intersect with topographical and architectural references. Some of the plants and animals that once lived here, like elk, beaver, salmon, sandpipers and pickle weed are also depicted.  When viewed from a distance the sculpture takes the shape of the California grizzly bear, a species that last roamed San Francisco in the mid-1800s. As the sun arcs across the sky, these once endemic species are projected as shadows onto the terrain they once inhabited.

Adriane Colburn Shadows public artAdriane Colburn was the selected artist for this project.  She holds a BFA in Printmaking, from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, 1997 and a MFANew Genres from Stanford University, 2001.

Public Art in San Francisco, Shadows, Dagget ParkColburn describes her work: In my practice I seek to reimagine maps and photographs of places (and networks) that are obscured by geography, scale or the passing of time. At the core of this is a fascination with the way that our attempts to make sense of the world around us through maps, data and images result in abstractions that are simultaneously informative and utterly ambiguous. I create my installations by transforming images through a system of physical removal, cutting out everything except imperative lines, thus creating constructions that are informed by voids as much as by positive marks. Through this cutting and display, an intricate array of reflective shadows results. All of my projects are based heavily on research and have a strong connection to place. My work tends to have a fragile appearance, however, my recent projects are constructed primarily of steel and aluminum, giving them a high level of permanence while maintaining their delicacy.

Grizzly Bears Daggett Park Adrian Colburn San Francisco Public Art *1-dsc_0111The San Francisco Art Commission budget for this project was $193,000. The piece sits at the entry of a 453-unit development by Equity Residential, on the edge of what is now called Dagget Park.

San Francisco Public Art Bear

Jaques Overhoff and Margaret Mead

 Posted by on September 14, 2015
Sep 142015
 

150 Otis Street
Mission/South of Market

 Jaques Overhoff Sculpture SF

This sculpture, by Jaques Overhoff, has sat on the side of 170 Otis Street, The Social Services Building, since 1977.

The abstract sculpture is accompanied by a poem by Margaret Mead. At this time I am unable to determine whether or not this is part of Overhoff’s intent or a separate art piece all together.

Margaret Mead Poetry

Jaques Overhoff, who has been in this site many times before was born in the Netherlands.  He attended the Graphics School of Design at the School of Fine Arts in Amsterdam, and the University of Oregon.  He moved to San Francisco in the late 1950s and was well known for his civic sculptures in a variety of styles.

jaques overhoff

*Jaques overhoff

 

Handsignals

 Posted by on August 17, 2015
Aug 172015
 

McCoppin Plaza
Market Street and Valencia

Handsignals

Titled Handsignals, this piece sits in a small park made available after the tearing down of the Central Freeway that once bi-sected the area.  The McCoppin Hub Project was a joint project between SFMTA, SFAC and SFDPW. For this reason it was impossible for me to garner from the hundreds of meeting minutes that I read, exactly what this piece cost the taxpayers of San Francisco.

McCoppin Hub PlazaOriginally proposed by Rebar the final product was created by MoreLab. Handsignals refers to the formal qualities of the numerous theater signs prevalent in the Mission District, and repurposes that vocabulary to “advertise” a new public space.

Handsignals at McCoppin HiubAccording to their website: “Handsignals repositions the meaning of the common pedestrian traffic signal by replacing the familiar “red hand” and “walking figure” with custom symbols designed to represent themes deeply imbedded in Mission District culture. The piece playfully explores the relationship between a community and its emblems, identity and its abstractions, the sign and its signifier. Lit both during the day and at night, the modules blink on and off in a slow, irregular pattern, creating new combinations of symbols whose meaning and relationship to the neighborhood will change as the neighborhood continues to evolve”.

DSC_3954

Bruce Hasson’s Ark

 Posted by on June 15, 2015
Jun 152015
 

Father Boeddeker Park
295 Eddy Street
The Tenderloin

Bruce Hasson

The Ark – 1985 – Bronze

This piece, by Bruce Hasson, sits in Father Boeddeker Park.  The statue, as well as the park have essentially been inaccessible to everyone until the parks 2014 renovation.

According to the plaque that sits with the statue “Following a 1983 trek in the Peruvian Andes, Hasson was inspired by the mysteries of Inca stone work.  The Ark resembles a large geological artifact.  It is symbolic of a sanctuary that protects life and a reminder of the importance of preserving endangered animals and their natural habitat.”

The Ark by Bruce HassonHasson lives and works in San Francisco, and is responsible for other iron work around San Francisco.

Hasson was originally payed $20,400.  In 2010 the Ark underwent a $21,000 renovation thanks to the Koret Foundation’s donation to the ArtCare program.  The piece has the concrete base repaired, it was cleaned and then a protective coating was added.

First Responder Plaza – SF

 Posted by on May 4, 2015
May 042015
 

1245 Third Street
Mission Bay

First Responder Plaza SF Paul Koos

The new City and County Public Safety Building houses the police administrative headquarters, a relocated district police station, a new district fire station, San Francisco’s SWAT team and fleet vehicle parking.   Part of the design included the First Responder Plaza at the corner on Third Street, designed by artist Paul Kos who was responsible for the Poetry Garden in SOMA.

In First Responder Plaza, Paul Kos created a design around three central motifs standing for Police, Fire and Paramedic Services.  A bronze bell, a seven point star and a conifer as a natural flag pole. According to Kos, “The three main elements comprise my three tenors, all unique icons, all on the same stage at the same time.”

DSC_2601The  “All Is Well Bell” is suspended from a large red arch. Kos was inspired to incorporate a bell into his design after seeing multiple bells at the Fire Department Museum as well as in the Fire Department Repair and Maintenance shops he visited while doing research for this project.

Kos worked with  bell foundry, Paccard, in Annecy, France the same foundry that cast many of the very large bells for the Campanile at UC Berkeley. (American bell foundries no longer cast large bells).  The bell cost $300,000.

DSC_2599

The seven point star, made of black granite was identified early on in his process as a respectful and poetic symbol for the Police, because it represents the department’s core values: truth, justice, fortitude, temperance, prudence, tolerance and brotherhood. The 22″ high star serves as a bench, as well as a symbolic focal point.

When full grown the conifer, the third element, will serve to provide a human touch.

The art budget for the Public Safety Building was $3.2 million. While it is difficult to determine through public records exactly what was spent on the plaza alone, it appears to be in the neighborhood of $850,000.

Spiral of Gratitude

 Posted by on April 29, 2015
Apr 292015
 

Spiral of Gratitude

Spiral of Gratitude is part of the $3.2 million Percent for Art Program that went into San Francisco’s new Public Safety Building.

Spiral of Gratitude, by New York artist Shimon Attie, is a suspended, 17 foot tall 10 foot round glass cylinder that is lit from a skylight above. The cylinder is inscribed with a poem that contains sentiments of survivors based on information gathered in interviews by Margo Perin with the relatives, partners, and co-workers of police officers who were lost in the line of duty.

There is also a text in bas relief behind the cylinder on the concrete wall.

Photo Courtesy of SFAC

Photo Courtesy of SFAC

Spiral of Gratitude

Let us turn together in this circle of remembrance as the light shines through our words.
And we lift our gaze toward the sky to honor the men and women who risk their lives in the line of duty.
See their courage gleaming through the glass, spilling through the words of our love.
Band with us to celebrate the beloved behind every star.
Draw on their courage, their strength, their honesty.
Let us raise our heads together into this spiral of memory
to honor the sacrifice that ripples through time, through the generations.
Never do we have the gift of goodbye.
The only choice is to carry on, make our peace.
An object in motion keeps moving forward.
The voices of the fallen echo every day,
their reflection mirrored in the warmth of a smile,
the glint of an eye, the tilt of a head.
The time spent together was too short
and the missing long.
They are the fallen
and we must not fall.
We can move back or forward, upwards or down, but we cannot remain still.
We must rise to protect, as they did.
In their honor we must persist,
turn our pain into compassion,
never forget the man, woman, child they were,
and lift our heads as we ascend toward the light.

While it is difficult to determine the exact cost of the project from public documents, it is clear that is exceeded its $700,000 budget.

Six Degrees

 Posted by on March 31, 2015
Mar 312015
 

2825 Diamond Street
Glen Park

Six Degrees at Glenn Park Library

Six Degrees is an artwork installed in the entrance of  Glen Park Branch Library done in 2007 for $36,000. The artists are Reddy Lieb and Linda Raynsford.

The circular art elements were inspired by the history and ecology of Glen Park. The circle, which the artists used as their main geometric design form, is intended to symbolize wholeness and community.

Specific references in the artwork are:

  • In 1889, an amusement park was built in Glen Canyon to attract potential home buyers. One of the attractions was tightrope walker Jimmy “Scarface” Williams.

Jimmy the Tightrope walker from Glen Park Circus

  • Early streetcar tracks in Glen Park are silk screened on another metal circle.

Glen Park Street Cars

  • An abstracted glass bat house refers to a recent mosquito abatement program that included the installation of nine bat houses near Islais Creek.
  • A blue painted circle represents Islais Creek.
  • In 1965, when there were plans to destroy the southwest portion of Glen Park to improve automobile transit, three woman—Geraldine Arkush, Zoann Nordstrom,and Joan Siebold, collectively known as the Gum Tree Girls— helped prevent that development.

Glen Park Library Art

  • The outline of a red-tailed hawk’s wings is painted on a yellow circle.
  • Copper cut-outs fused in glass are images of plant life in Glen Park.
  • A poem written by local poet Diane DiPrima for William Blake is fired into a circular glass medallion near the bottom of the artwork. The entire poem reads as follows:For Blakeby now it is too late to wonder
    why we are wherever we are
    (tho some peace is possible): singing on the breath
    & we have had bodies of Fire and lived in the Sun
    & we have had bodies of Water and lived in Venus
    and bodies of Air that screeched as they tore around Jupiter all our eyes remembering Love

Diane DiPrima poem

 

Art at Glen Park Library

Reddy Lieb has a BA in art and an MFA in Glass Blowing, she lives in San Francisco.   Linda Raynsford has a BFA from California College of Arts

Gwynn Murrill at the San Francisco Zoo

 Posted by on September 15, 2014
Sep 152014
 

San Francisco Zoo
Sloat and The Great Highway
Lakeside

Bronze Cougar at SF ZooCougar III by Gwynn Murrill

Gwynn Murrill is a Los Angeles based artist who received her MFA from UCLA in 1972.  Murrill has three sculptures at the San Francisco Zoo.  Cougar III and Tiger 2 are at the front entryway and Hawk V is located at the Koret Animal Resource Center.

Bronze Tiger at SF ZooTiger 2

Gwynn Murrill has always worked with animals as her subject matter. Stripped of surface detail the sculptures are almost abstract in form.

Bronze Hawk at SF ZooHawk V

The Arts Commission purchased Hawk V for $29,000. Tiger 2 was purchased for $85,000, and Cougar III for $65,000.  All three sculptures were purchased with funds generated by the City’s percent-for-art program, which allocates 2% of capital projects for art enrichment.

While I think that all three of these sculptures are lovely, and truly adored by children that visit the zoo, I am not sure why Ms. Merrill (while a Californian, not a San Franciscan) has been given the exclusive commissions for the bronzes in the zoo.  There are many bronzes sitting throughout the zoo and they are every bit as spectacular, including two by local Doctor Burt Brent.

 

Ndebele

 Posted by on August 5, 2014
Aug 052014
 

1601 Griffith Street
BayView / Hunters Point

NdebeleThis abstract sculpture composed of three vertical elements, is titled Ndebele and is by Fran Martin.  It was installed in 1987.

Ndebele by Fran Martin SFAC

I have tried three times over many many months to find this piece.  It is listed at the pump station but it is actually on the side in a small gated area off of  Shafter Avenue.

Fran Martin received her M.A. in Art in 1973. She fabricated and exhibited sculpture until 1995.  Since 1994, she has been co-founder of and ardent worker at the  Visitacion Valley Greenway Project (VVGP).

Griffith Pump Station SFPUC

 

The Griffith Pump Station was built in 1985, and is part of the SFPUC wastewater enterprise system.

SFPUC Wastewater Enterprise System

 

SFAC Shame on You

 Posted by on July 21, 2014
Jul 212014
 

1351 24th Avenue
Outer Sunset

Henri Marie-Rose sculpture at SFDPH

This travesty sits in front of the San Francisco Department of Public Health Building.

Sailor and Mermaid

The only photograph I could find was through the Smithsonian Institute.

Sailor and Mermaid by Henri Marie-Rose

The sculpture, titled Sailor and Mermaid, originally was made of copper sheets, cut, pounded, and welded, with bronze. It sits on a concrete pad. It was done in 1970 by Henry Marie-Rose.

Marie-Rose, who died in 2010, has been in this blog before with work both on a fire station in the financial district and about his work as a teacher.  His death makes this even more tragic as it is now absolutely irreplaceable.

Henri Marie-RosePhoto from the Potrero View

There is absolutely no excuse for this piece to be in this state, especially as it sits in front of a San Francisco government building. The San Francisco Art Commission, which is the owner of the piece, has a lot to answer for.

UPDATE

I want to thank Joe Eskenazi for this wonderful follow up article.  After he read my post he tracked down someone at the SFAC and the result was this article on Tuesday August 5th in SF Weekly

Raiders of the Lost Art: Another San Francisco Sculpture Goes Missing
By Joe Eskenazi
@EskSF

For 30-odd years, Cindy Casey and her husband, Michael, renovated ornate elements of city buildings and works of art here in San Francisco. Not so long ago, Michael died. Now Cindy maintains a blog about public art here in the city.

Or, sometimes, the lack thereof. On a recent trip past the Ocean Park Health Center on 24th Avenue, she was expecting to find Sailor and Mermaid, a glorious, 12-foot high copper sculpture crafted in 1970 by Henri Marie-Rose. Instead, all that remains is a stump roughly the size of a garden gnome.

As it turns out, the statue had been gone a long time.

Years ago, the artist’s son, Dr. Pierre-Joseph Marie-Rose, a pediatrician with the city’s Department of Public Health, visited the site for a meeting. He was shocked to find only the gnome-sized stump. He was even more shocked at the nonchalant explanation health center personnel offered him: They allowed the foliage to cover the sculpture for years and, when they finally cut it back, Sailor and Mermaid was gone.

The San Francisco Arts Commission believes the sculpture was swiped in the early 1990s. Dr. Marie-Rose made his serendipitous discovery in the late 1990s. It was left to him to inform his father of the loss.

In fact, Henri Marie-Rose’s lost work could stand in for any number of Arts Commission pieces. The body is undertaking a yearslong comprehensive survey to chart the whereabouts of its 4,000-plus items, many of which are unaccounted for. The commission has additionally loaned out some 754 works to 183 city agencies and offices. It does not know where many of them are.

The list of public artwork stolen or vandalized since 2007 runs to 15 pages. Among the more memorable losses are the serial thefts of the Mahatma’s spectacles from the Ferry Plaza Gandhi memorial; the filching of plaques from the Shakespeare Garden; and the theft of all four bronze tortoises from the eponymous Fountain of the Tortoises in Huntington Park. Hundreds of instances of graffiti are documented, including one wit who chose to scrawl “Just sit your fat ass down and relax” on the bronze chairs near the Church and Duboce Muni stop.

Kate Patterson-Murphy, the Arts Commission’s spokeswoman, urged concerned residents to report vandalism and contribute to the city’s ArtCare fund.

That won’t bring back Sailor and Mermaid, however.

Henri Marie-Rose died in 2010. His sole accounting on the Arts Commission’s list of public works is a copper relief emplacement on the exterior of a fire station on Sansome Street. It is mounted several stories above the sidewalk.

And, as such, it is still there.

Covering Construction

 Posted by on June 23, 2014
Jun 232014
 

4th and Folsom
South of Market

Randy Colosky SOMA San Francisco

This piece, sponsored by the SFAC, is by Randy Colosky. It is titled Ellipses in the Key of Blue.

Elipses in the Key of Blue

According to Randy’s Website: Ellipses is the Key of Blue is 140 ft. long x 8 ft. tall, digitally printed and drawing mounted on plywood.

Randy Colosky SFAC Subway

According to the sign on the wall next to the piece: Ellipsis in the Key of Blue is a temporary mural by Randy Colosky commissioned for the construction barricade at the site of the upcoming Central Subway Yerba Buena/Moscone Station.  Colosky has worked in the building trades and is interested in the formal by products of the construction process.  The imagery for this mural was crated with drafting templates used in mechanical drawing.  Through repetition the template pattern becomes visually sculptural as it incrementally shifts, revealing how small movements make up a much larger gesture.

*********

The drafting template offers an interesting scenario in that it is a fixed pattern. Like fractals repeating in nature, the template pattern (as it is incrementally moved in the act of drawing) generates its own algorithm. According to the artist, “this fixed algorithm takes the decision making out of my hands as to the ultimate composition, which makes the drawing process more of a meditative execution of the piece.”

I personally thought it looked just like my screen when I win a game of spider solitaire.  It is really and truly mesmerizing.

4th and Folsom Mural

It is a bit tough to shoot as the surface is very, very shiny.

serpent mural in SOMARandy is an Oakland based artist.  He received his BFA in ceramics from the Kansas City Art Institute.

Mural on the construction lot at 4th and folsom

The Central Subway is a line being built connecting ATT Park with Chinatown, going through SOMA and Union Square,  a distance of 1.7 miles at a cost of  $1.578 billion. The project is funded primarily through the Federal Transit Administration’s New Starts program. In October 2012, the FTA approved a Full Funding Grant Agreement, the federal commitment of funding through New Starts, for the Central Subway for a total amount of $942.2 million. The Central Subway is also funded by the State of California, the Metropolitan Transportation Commission, the San Francisco County Transportation Authority and the City and County of San Francisco.

The three stops, this one in SOMA, Union Square and Chinatown, all are large construction sites at this time, if you are a visitor to San Francisco, that is what is happening, and will for several more years.

Randy Colosky

 

The SFAC funding was accomplished with Resolution number 0603-13-151: Motion to authorize the Director of Cultural Affairs to enter into an agreement with Randy Colosky for an amount not to exceed $25,000 to design artwork imagery and create production files for the Central Subway: Construction Barricade Temporary Art Public Art Project for Yerba Buena/Moscone Station, which will be on display for one year from approximately mid-2013 through mid-2014.

Arelious Walker Stairway

 Posted by on May 5, 2014
May 052014
 

Innes Avenue
Bay View / Hunters Point

Arelious Walker Stairway

This was the proposal that was written for the Call for Artists by the SFAC:

The Arelious Walker Drive Stair replacement is a dynamic community project in partnership with the San Francisco Redevelopment Agency and the Department of Public Works to create ceramic tile mosaic steps on the Arelious Walker Drive extending uphill from Innes Avenue to Northridge Road in the Bay View Hunters Point neighborhood. The stairway provides a vital connection from an isolated low-income community to the India Basin Shoreline, the Bay Trail, Herons Head Park, and future development at Hunters Point Shipyard. The mosaic steps project will enhance the character and livability of the surrounding area so that it becomes a gathering place consistent with the nature and spirit of the neighborhood. The project will also beautify the site by landscaping it with California native plants, succulents, and other drought tolerant species to attract birds, butterflies, and other wildlife.

Stairways of San Francisco

The new stair comprises 87 equal steps, each measuring four feet wide (4’) and seven inches high (7”). Each riser will be faced in ceramic tile mosaic ½ inch thick.

Stairways of San Francisco

The artists chosen are the same lovely ladies that are responsible for two tiled stairways in Golden Gate HeightsColette Crutcher and Aileen Barr.  Both ladies have been in this website many times before.  The cost for the installation was slated to be $90,000.

Arelious Walker Stairway

 

*

Tile Stairs in Hunters Point*

Aileen Bar, Colette Crutcher*

Bayview hunters point tile stairway*

Collette Crutcher Aileen Bar Stairways

 

 

 

Rain Portal

 Posted by on April 7, 2014
Apr 072014
 

SFPUC Building
525 Golden Gate Avenue
Civic Center

Ned Kahn's Rain Portal

Rain Portal by Ned Kahn.  Kahn has several pieces around San Francisco that you can read about here.

Ned Kahn’s Rain Portal is located inside the lobby of the new Public Utilities building.  Kahn’s Firefly graces the exterior of the building and you can read about it here.

Rain Portal seeks to permeate an interior architectural wall with rain. Drops of water falling inside of an undulating polycarbonate membrane suggests the endless cycle of evaporation and precipitation.

According to Kahn, “One of the paradoxes of the Rain Portal is that much of the entire history of architecture can be viewed as the endeavor to keep rain out. Here we have invited it in.”

DSC_8282

 

The installation covers two walls located on either side of the lobby stairway. The installation is a self-sustaining system that continuously recycles water to create the illusion of rain inside the clear polycarbonate wall panels. The extruded polycarbonate has multiple cells of plastic that through which water is pumped up from a reservoir at the bottom of the panels and released as small drops into the top. The artwork was dedicated with the opening of the building in June 2012.

SFPUC Rain Portal

The installation of Rain Portal cost $24,800, and was done by Gizmo Art Productions.  I was unable to find what the piece itself cost.

SFPUCThese two plaques are not part of Ned Kahn’s installation, but rather part of the buildings effort to be one of the foremost water conscious buildings in the world.  An important reminder while California enters another year of severe drought.

This work has been deaccessioned. 

Spirogyrate

 Posted by on March 11, 2014
Mar 112014
 

Terminal Three
SFO
Post TSA

spyrogyrate at sfo

One weekend in January 2014 the city of San Francisco and the contractors opened the new Terminal Three to the public before it went live.

I used the opportunity to capture as much public art as I could before you had to buy an airline ticket to get access to this part of the airport.

The lighting in the terminal is pretty bad.  There are big windows letting in lots of natural light, but the placement of the art made reflections, often the only thing, I was able to photograph.

This piece by Eric Staller proved to be very popular, it didn’t hurt that there was a DJ playing music for the kids to enjoy as well.

Spirogyrate by Eric Staller at SFO

Eric Staller was commissioned by the SF Arts Commission to create a children’s play area at SFO.  These are twelve, six foot diameter, spirals that seemingly propel one another like gears. The gears are laster-cut acrylic and are motorized to move both clockwise and counter-clockwise. The spirals sit under plate glass, and motion sensors activate the spirals to not only move, but change colors as people walk over them.

eric staller spirogyrate

Eric Staller was born in 1947 in Mineola, New York. His father’s avocation has been architecture, this inspired Staller to study architecture himself. In 1971 Staller completed a Bachelor Degree in Architecture at the University of Michigan.

Kids area at sfo

 

Spirogyrate was commissioned by the SF Art Commission for $304,000.

spiral at sfo

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