Tompkins Stairs

 Posted by on August 7, 2019
Aug 072019
 

Tompkins Avenue
Between Putnam and Nevada
Bernal Heights

Andre Rothblatt, was the architect responsible for the design of the Tompkins Stairway Garden.  The zigzag tile design was inspired by the Steps to Peace painted by youth in the Syrian town of Deir Atiyah.

Children of Syria painting the Stairway of Peace. Photo from Designboom.com

According to a 2019 article in the San Francisco Chronicle:

The park  “won a $15,000 community challenge grant from the city to landscape the hill, but with no water, the unaccepted bit of Tompkins fell back into disrepair during the drought.

They tried again with additional neighbors in 2016, this time applying for and receiving a water meter for irrigation from the Public Utilities Commission. They partnered with the San Francisco Parks Alliance to win a variety of grants, including another community challenge grant from the city, this time for $100,000.”

Even though :”The block remains unaccepted (the City of San Francisco takes no responsiblity), and its upkeep remains firmly on the shoulders of its neighbors.”

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Words Fly Away

 Posted by on March 8, 2019
Mar 082019
 

Ocean View Branch Library
345 Randolph Street

Words Fly Away by John Wehrle - 2003/2004

Words Fly Away by John Wehrle – 2003/2004

This is a fabulous piece for a library.  John Wehrle imagined the library interior as a metaphor for a book.  He covered the library in jumbled letters, words and pictures.

According to the artist’s website: Created in 2004, Worlds Fly Away is a complete installation – floor to ceiling, using a variety of materials to create a theater of effects permeating the stairwell and second-floor hallway of the Ocean View Branch Library in San Francisco. Color, image, and language are the elements that transform the library interior into an allegorical experience akin to being inside of a book. It is a bit of a perceptual puzzle. The flying and falling letters, stretched to the limits of comprehension, can be assembled (with some effort) into words, sentences and ultimately meaning. The textual intarsia of the hallway required over a thousand pieces of linoleum to create letters and shadows spelling out the line from the idiomatic folk tale, “ The sky is falling. A piece of it hit me on the head. Other literary quotes are embedded in the tile faience, and, in several languages, on the ground floor of the library.

Here is a video of the piece

Born in San Antonio Texas, Pratt is a graduate of the Pratt Institute.  He moved to California and became a teacher at the California Academy of Arts and Crafts in Oakland.

In 1973 he broke out on his own, he presently lives and works in Richmond, California.

Words Fly Away

The project was commissioned by the SF Arts Commission for $112,000.
Words Fly Away

*Words Fly Away

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Beneath the trees there is a saying. "and where is the use of a book: thought Alice, without pictures or conversation"

Beneath the trees there is a saying. “and where is the use of a book: thought Alice, without pictures or conversation”

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.

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

Esmeralda Slide Park

 Posted by on April 29, 2017
Apr 292017
 

Winfeld and Esmeralda
Bernal Heights
April 2017

esmeralda slide parkIn the 1970s a group of volunteers, with some help from the city, conceived and created Esmeralda Slide Park.  That volunteer organization later became the Bernal Heights Neighborhood Center.

New York Times article published in 2010 noted that “At the park’s dedication party in 1979, a shrieking Mayor Dianne Feinstein slid down her chute, racing and defeating the district supervisor, Lee Dolson. Mayor Willie L. Brown Jr. enjoyed the plunge at a rededication in 1998, wearing a three-piece suit and a fedora. Tom Ammiano, the District 13 assemblyman and a nearby resident, has also enjoyed gleeful descents.”

Esmeralda Street Stairs and Park

A $14,000 crowd funding project was formed by Joan Carson and graphic designer Nancy Windesheim for the tile installation called The Locator at the top of Esmeralda Slide Park.    The locator was completed in 2017.

The Locator Tile Installation

Designed by Windesheim the tile installation was done by Rachel Rodi. The design features a compass surrounded by “Esmeralda Slide Park” with arrows pointing in 4 directions: Cortland Avenue, Bernal Hill, Downtown, and Mission Street. The color blue signifies the sky, the greens represent open space and trees, and the textured grey rings suggest the surrounding urban landscape.

The view from the top of the slides

The view from the top of the slides

Originally schooled as a painter and ceramic sculptor, Rachel Rodi has been a practicing artist for over twenty five years. Rodi graduated in 1977 with a Bachelor of Arts from Regis University, Denver. She is presently the Senior Staff Instructor at Institute of Mosaic Art in Berkeley, California.

Nancy Windesheim holds a BA in Graphic Design from UCLA, where she focused on typography.

The Locator Tile installation

Oct 042014
 

San Francisco Zoo
Mother’s Building

murals at sf zoo

These murals, on the Mother’s Building at the San Francisco Zoo were WPA projects.  They were done by three sisters: Esther Bruton, Helen Bruton and Margaret Bruton.

Helen Bruton has murals in downtown San Francisco that you can read about here.

Here is an excerpt explaining the sisters work on the Zoo murals in their own voices:

This Oral history interview with Helen and Margaret Bruton, 1964 Dec. 4, is from the Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.

Interview with Helen and Margaret Bruton
Conducted by Lewis Ferbrache
In Monterey, California
December 4, 1964

LF: All right, Margaret and Helen, about the Fleishhacker Mother’s House mosaics – you were mentioning Anthony Falcier and how you learned from him.

HB: Yes, he was actually, at the time, a tile-setter in Alameda, but he was a thoroughly-trained mosaicist from his early days in the old country. He used to tell us how he came over here. He came over here to work on the courthouse in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, which evidently had a mosaic top. And then he came out to San Francisco, to join a group of Italian workmen who were doing the mosaics down at San Simeon for the Hearst Castle. Since then, we ran across another man who worked in that same crew, several in fact. In fact, I think there was one on the WPA whose name I can’t remember. But if it hadn’t been for Mr. Falcier, I don’t know what we would have done, because he gave us pointers that we would have been quite helpless without. About how to set up the drawing, how to reverse it, how to divide it in sections in such a way that when the actual mosaic was mounted on the wall – which was an operation that began from the bottom and worked up –the section that you were mounting was square enough in shape so that it didn’t sag or settle too badly at one side or another, and begin to throw the thing out of wack. Because everybody that saw us working always had the same expression. “”Oh, that’s just like working a jig-saw puzzle.’’ Well, it was a little like a jig-saw puzzle on a big scale.

Bruton Sisters Tile Murals

LF: What were the sizes of these tiles, did you say?

HB: Well, the material that we used – as I said we couldn’t get any – there was no such thing as getting “smalti,” which is hand-cut Venetian enamel material. We used for the material some commercial tile that was manufactured at that time in San Jose, California, by a small tile outfit called Solon & Schennell, or the S&S Tile Company. They made a beautiful commercial tile, too beautiful to be very successful as commercial tile, because they couldn’t really satisfy the jobbers, who insisted on a perfect match to every lot of tile, which they had catalogued by number. There was so much variation in their tile that there was a great deal of waste from a practical commercial standpoint. And the tile that we used was mostly that tile that was what they would call a second, because of the variation. We had names for these tile colors, one was called St. Francis, and St. Francis varied in color all the way from deep Mars violet to a fawn color almost, or a strong ochre color, warm ochre, but it was the same glaze, depending on where it was put in the kiln it would come – that would be the range of shades.

LF: Different shading?

HB: Yes. And it was very, very strong, very good body to the tile, except that it was so tough that before we could even cut it up in smaller pieces, use any kind of tools on it, we had to have the thickness reduced by about half. And the way we did that was, we took it to a marble works over in Berkeley, over in Emeryville, really, on the waterfront there in the industrial section, and they would mount the tile on slabs of marble set in plaster of Paris, glazed side protected of course, with the bottom side up, and rub about half of it off. Then it would come in a workable thickness. And poor Len sawed it, used to saw it in strips of about three-quarters to an inch in width. And from then on we could cut it into any size we wanted, with some good strong tile nippers. Except that there was a difficulty in setting it up, finally because of the very absorbent terra cotta back, which drew the water out. When the cement coat was put on the back of the tile, it sucked the water out unless the terra cotta was dampened beforehand. So we always had the problem, when it came to mounting it on the wall finally, of dampening the back without making it so damp that the surface, which was eventually to be the fact of the decoration, would be still kept dry enough to hold on to the paper. And we did. It just made it a little bit more complicated in the process. But it was in the mounting that Mr. Falcier was so valuable. He’d come over with us from Alameda every day. I think it took us about almost a week for each one – five days for each panel. And he’d actually mix the concrete, the mortar. Esther was helping me on that. I don’t know where Marge was, and Len, I don’t remember Len being there. It is funny, but he must not have been with us when we were actually working with Falcier. But anyway, Mr. Falcier would mount a certain amount face out – you see the paper would still be stuck on the face – and each day we’d move up so much. We might set eight or nine pieces, depending on the way the design built up, the sections built up.

LF: You would have your cartoons to go by, I would imagine?

HB: Yes.

LF: Did all three of your get together on the selection of the subject matter, the topics? Did you talk it over between the three of you?

HB: Oh, I suppose we did.

LF: Or what it suggested by the City or –?

HB: I think it was, not – as a matter of fact, I think that particular thing was pretty much my job of designing. Somebody else, probably Esther or Margaret might have suggested the subject matter actually, but I remember it was a matter of – I remember hardly doing more than one sketch of that, especially St. Francis. I think I put it down and that was it. Of course, there was more work put on it as you got to getting it full size, but I think that first sketch, which was rather unusual for me because the more work I did the more fooling around that I do in design, and maybe not really improving it.

Bruton Sisters Interview

LF: You had to submit the design or the sketches to Dr. Heil or someone in his office?

HB: Yes, and then of course, you’d bring in a sketch and a proposal of what material was to be used.

LF: Did you estimate your time and what you needed?

HB: Oh no, you couldn’t possibly, because we’d never done such a thing before. But I don’t remember that it took, I’m afraid that I couldn’t say exactly how many months it took, whether we were two months on it, or three months, or whether – considering both the panels, we might have been perhaps three months.

LF: This was the first work done in the building?

HB: I think Helen Forbes and Dorothy Puccinelli were working at the same time. In fact, I know they were. But we were not there anything like – that project continued for a long, long time, but of course we didn’t actually have to work out there at the building until it came to installing the panels.

LF: I see. Where did you do your work then?

HB: At home in Alameda.

LF: In Alameda, that’s interesting.

HB: That was the house that we’d always lived in, and we had a wonderful big studio in the top floor, the whole top floor with great big dormer windows on three sides.

WPA Tile Murals SF Zoo

LF: And you completed the mosaic murals in the house and had them moved?

HB: They were in sections, you see. We did it on the floor. We laid it out on the floor as we completed it section by section. One thing that made this particular material still more complicated was that the color was only on the fact. So we used to have to lay it out roughly on the face so we could see what we had done, what we had before us. But, of course, when it came to mounting it, the mounting paper, the heavy paper on which it was mounted and transported, had to be put over the face. So when it was laid out on the floor, then we mounted paper over the face so it all disappeared. In other words, it was completely covered up and dismantled. And we had to get the paper off the back and clean it up so that the mortar could go directly on the back.

LF: This is the Fleishhacker Zoo Mother House? In other words, it was a sort of resting place, and so on, for mothers and their children visiting the Zoo? Is that correct?

HB: Yes. It was a memorial given by Mr. Herbert Fleishhacker, as I understand it, given in memory of his mother, Delia, because it says across the face of it, “To the memory of Delia Fleishhacker.” And I remember Mr. and Mrs. Fleishhacker came over one day to see it. They wanted to see it while it was still on the floor to see that there was not going to be anything offensive slipped in, and they had to climb three flights of stairs to get up to it, but they did it.

LF: This was when it was being installed or — ?

HB: Just before, when it was completely laid out.

LF: In your house?

HB: At home in Alameda, yes, because they wouldn’t see it again until it was all on the wall, so that was something they had to do, if they wanted to see it.

LF: I’ve never seen this because naturally a man can’t go in to see –

HB: No, but this is on the outside.

LF: It’s on the outside? I thought it was on the inside.

HB: Oh no, it’s –

LF: It doesn’t say here in the thesis where it was located so –

MB: It’s right on the outside of the building.

HB: I have a number of other photographs that will give you a better idea. That doesn’t give you an idea of the outside. (Interruption to look at photographs).

Mother's Building San Francisco Zoo

LF: You were talking about the mosaics, Miss Helen Bruton, on the outside of the Fleishhacker Zoo Mother’s Rest House. I had thought they were inside, but they are outside. They have stood up against the weather, have they?

HB: They just seem to be exactly the same as they were. That was one of the things I was interested in. The other day I looked at them hard, to see what was going on and I can’t see that there’s been any deterioration at all. Of course, they’re not actually exposed to the weather. It’s a loggia, they’re at either end of a long loggia perhaps sixty feet long, and you can turn from one to the other which makes it –

LF: You believe this was finished then probably in the late spring of 1934?

HB: Yes, yes, I would say that very definitely because I think we have a little tile with the date on it. It’s there on the panels.

Signature Tile for Bruton Sisters

 

Jan 222014
 

114 Powell Street
Union Square

Helen Bruton Bell

In the very narrow entry way to the Hotel Union Square are these two exquisite tile murals.  While the hotel was originally built in 1908 for the 1915 Pan Pacific International Exposition, the murals were not added until 1935.

Murals at the Golden West Hotel

The murals were done by Helen Bruton Bell (1898-1985)  Ms. Bell was a fascinating woman.  One of three artistic sisters, she was born in Alameda.  She attended the University of California for one year.

During World War I, she worked with her sisters Esther and Margaret in occupational therapy at the Letterman Hospital in San Francisco. In 1920 she moved to New York to take classes at the Art Students League for one year under sculptors Stirling Calder and Leo Lentelli.  (She returned several years later to study drawing with Boardman Robinson.)

After those two years, she joined her sisters in Europe to study art, mainly in Paris.

Returning home, she became interested in California-Spanish architecture. She was commissioned by tile producer Gladding-McBean and Company to create mosaic panels for the Mudd Memorial Library at the University of Southern California. In 1929 Helen, her mother and her sisters traveled to New Mexico where all three girls painted and sketched. When they returned they gave a joint exhibition at the Beaux Arts Gallery in San Francisco. Helen also exhibited at the California Society of Etchers and the Progressive California Painters in 1934.

 

Fleishacker Pool Tile Murals Bruton

*Fleishacker Mural by Margaret and Helen Bruton

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Murals by the Bruton Sisters – The Fleishacker Building.

 

Helen later worked with her sister Margaret on a W.P.A. project for the Fleishacker Park in San Francisco. The sisters designed and implemented the two mosaic panels that were the first tile mosaics to be done in San Francisco by local artists. Helen later received a commission from the University of California Berkeley to create mosaic panels to adorn the University Art Gallery (1936).

She continued to live in the San Francisco Bay Area eventually settling in Monterey, California with her sister Margaret until her death in 1985.

There is a marvelous interview done by the Smithsonian of the two sisters in their later years that you can read here.

 Helen Bruton Murals at the Hotel Union Square

Murals at the Hotel Union Square

The Golden West Hotel

The hotel was known at the Golden State Hotel in the 1950’s and became the Hotel Union Square in 1982.

Tile Benches at Alta Plaza

 Posted by on January 13, 2014
Jan 132014
 

Alta Plaza
Steiner/Clay/Scott/Jackson
Pacific Heights

Tile Benches at SF Alta Park

 

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

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

Alta Plaza Playground Tile Benches

 

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

Aileen Barr Tile Work*

Tile bench at top of Pac Heights Park*

Tiles in the bench at Alta Plaza in Pac Heights SF

 

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Tile Benches by Aileen Barr in Pacific Heights

 

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

 

 

A Mosaic of Bay Area History

 Posted by on December 20, 2013
Dec 202013
 

San Francisco International Airport
Terminal 1 Connector
Level 2

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

This artwork is inspired by historical decorative styles found in the Bay Area. The left panel, Bay Area Victorian, draws its sources from the ornament on old homes in the Mission District, Pacific Heights, the Western Addition and Potrero Hill.  The right panel, Bay Area Deco, references downtown Oakland in its heyday, when the Fox and Paramount theaters were built.  Both the celadon grey-green of the I. Magnin store and the cobalt blue and silver facade of the Flower Depot were inspirations.  Bay Area Funk, the center panel, is the collection of Berkeley memorabilia from the 1960’s. There is a humor and lightness to the appropriations of comic books and record album covers, alongside flyers and posters from clubs that were popular during that decade, such as the Fillmore and the Avalon Ballroom.
Joyce Kozloff at SFO
Joyce Kozloff was born December 14, 1942, in Somerville, New Jersey.  She received her

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

Bay Area Funk

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

Terminal 1 long mosaic SFO

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Mosaics at SFOsai

Thousands and Thousands of Tiles

 Posted by on December 19, 2013
Dec 192013
 

San Francisco International Airport
International Terminal
Main Hall

Tile mural at SFO International TerminalGateway 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.

Ik Joong Kang
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.
Gateway 2000
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Ik Joong Kang at SFO

Mission Dolores Mosaic

 Posted by on August 17, 2013
Aug 172013
 

Mission Dolores
16th and Dolores
The Mission District

Tile Mural at Mission Dolores

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.

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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.

GGP’s Sea Serpent

 Posted by on May 29, 2013
May 292013
 

Koret Childrens Quarters
Golden Gate Park

Phoebe Palmer GGP Mosaic Sea Serpent

This divine sea creature is by Phoebe Palmer.

On an architectural scale, Phoebe is building densely textured, sculptural ferro-cement walls and working in mosaics and metal sculpture as well as her “normal” mediums of paint and pastels. Phoebe has taken the characters formerly inhabiting her paintings and pastels and cast them in the round as she breaks into the classical realm of ceramic sculpture.

This is Palmer’s first piece of public art.

The ferro-cement-and-tile creature weighs nearly a ton and cost about $10,000.

Phoebe Palmer at GGP Sea Serpent

According to San Luis Obispo.com:

From the start, the sea creature was a ‘her,’ Palmer said, “After a while, I just started calling her ‘the beast.’ ”

Palmer did 15 to 20 “little clay models” of the head, each with a different expression. She and Peterson agreed on one that “was somewhat sweeter than what he initially had in mind, I think.”

As always, making art is learning by doing, and “Phoebe always dives right in,” said her husband, Peter Fels.

Palmer made a rebar metal frame for the head and covered it with aviary wire — like chicken wire, only smaller — and metal lath similar to what would be used for plastering.

“Of course, it was harder to get the nice expression in wire than in clay,” she said.

Palmer fashioned the tail and midsection, and cemented the entire sculpture.

She made about 10,000 “little tile scales” out of medium-fire porcelain, roughly 1-inch triangles with a curved bottom. They were fired once, glazed and then fired again.

Other tiles as small as a quarter-inch were needed for the head, “so I would be able to keep her nice expression … It was a pain painting stripes on a quarter-inch tile,” Palmer said with a laugh. “As I kept having to make yet another batch … I muttered about the beast’s voracious appetite for tile.”

She recalled that “trial-and-error was the name of the game.”

It took many glaze experiments and test arrangements of more than 15 types of tiles. Some have a little yellow tip, she said, “and then two or three other glazes applied in stripes or speckles.”

The beast’s “eyes and lips were made out of bigger pieces of ceramic,” clay that shrinks 12 percent in the firing, “so getting the eyes to fit in the eye socket was a challenge.” In fact, she made “about 15 pairs before I got it right, plus tons of 3D glaze samples — the glazes act differently on the curved sample than on a flat one.

“Next time,” she said, “I’d make the eyes first and make the cement to fit them.”

She also made four sets of lips before getting the right color and texture.

In retrospect, Palmer said, everything concerned with such a complex creature took longer than expected. In fact, “even the installation is going slowly, and won’t be completed until the end of March. They are plumbing it to emit mist out of the nostrils.”

 

GGP Sea Serpent

Tile Art at Jackson Playground

 Posted by on April 5, 2013
Apr 052013
 

Jackson Playground
17th and Arkansas
Potrero

Jackson Playground, San Francisco

One of three park reservations made by the Van Ness Ordinances of 1855 in working class Potrero Nuevo, the site was originally known as Jackson Square. Undeveloped and virtually ignored for more than 75 years, Jackson Square was made into a playground in the twentieth century. A 1930 map shows a simply landscaped park with a small building, possibly a clubhouse, on the Mariposa Street side. The same map shows what was probably an oval cinder running track occupying much of the park. Very little on it appears in the city records.

It was run down and overrun for years and the aging playground could no longer meet the needs of neighborhood families.

The Potrero Hill Parents Association (PHPA), a cooperative formed by concerned and active parents came to the rescue. In 1993 they submitted a $335,000 proposal to Rec. and Park’s Open Space Fund. That first year, they were awarded $50,000, the next year, they got $100,000, and in 1995 they received the remaining $205,000. With the full funding in place, a detailed design plan had to be approved by the Recreation and Park Department before any ground could be broken.

The design and planning process took over a year. Working with Department of Public Works landscape architect John Thomas, PHPA came up with a striking new plan for the 10,500 ft. space. It laid out separate play areas — one for toddlers, the other for kids 5 to 12 and up — and separated them by a low, gracefully curving wall, comfortable for seating and incorporating art in the design. Other features included tables, benches, new trees and ground cover.

Josh Sarantis Tile Work

Neighborhood artist Josh Sarantitis supplied the art. Chosen by the San Francisco Art Commission to conduct a tile-decorating workshop for kids, he taught some 125 young artists how to paint and glaze tiles. Their 150 hand-painted creations are installed atop the seat wall. Josh did the colorful mosaics along its sides.

Josh Sarantitis Tile Work

Joshua Sarantitis has been creating monumental professional work in public spaces for over 20 years. His 40 commissioned works include glass installations and mosaic murals located regionally and abroad.   He has a BA in Fine Arts from Oberlin College, and studied at the Arts Students League of New York under Gustav Rehberger, Marshall Glasier and Michael Burban.

 

Jackson Playground, Kids Tile Work

 

A Joan Brown Obelisk at 343 Sansome Street

 Posted by on February 15, 2013
Feb 152013
 

343 Sansome Street
The Financial District

Joan Brown Obelisk at 343 Sansome StreetFour Seasons by Joan Brown

This tiled obelisk is by Joan Brown. Joan Brown was an American figurative painter who was born in San Francisco and lived and worked in Northern California. She was a notable member of the “second generation” of the Bay Area Figurative Movement.

She studied at the California School of Fine Art (now San Francisco Art Institute), where her teachers included Elmer Bischoff.   Her sculpture is not as well known, and yet she did several of these obelisks, there are at least 3 in San Francisco.  These include the Pine Tree Obelisk in Sidney Walton Park, Obelisk in the Rincon Center, and this one.  Sadly, in 1990, she was killed while doing an obelisk installation in India.

The sculpture is a result of both the 1% for Arts Program and the POPOS program of San Francisco and is available for viewing between 9:00 am and 5:00 pm Monday through Friday.

Joan Brown's Four Seasons

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Art in the POPOS at 343 Montgomery

Privately-owned public open spaces (POPOS) are publicly accessible spaces in forms of plazas, terraces, atriums, small parks, and even snippets that are provided and maintained by private developers. In San Francisco, POPOS mostly appear in the Downtown office district area. The 1985 Downtown Plan created the first systemic requirements for developers to provide publicly accessible open space as a part of projects.

The public art requirement created by the downtown plan is commonly known as the “1% for Art” program. This requirement, governed by Section 429 of the Planning Code, provides that construction of a new building or addition of 25,000 square feet or more within the downtown C‐3 district, triggers a requirement that provide public art that equals at least 1% of the total construction cost be provided.

 

La Madre Tonantsin

 Posted by on November 27, 2012
Nov 272012
 

3495 16th Between Sanchez and Dehon
Castro District

Colette Crutcher is a multi discipline artist. Her career began with painting and printmaking, but now covers a broad spectrum, from very large to very small, from public to intensely personal, from abstract to figurative, and across a range of media: painting and drawing, collage, assemblage, paper mache, concrete, ceramic and mosaics.

According to Collete’s website: This mural is a renovation of La Madre Tonantsin, a similar mural I painted there in 1991. The original fence was rotting, and along with it the mural. A grassroots fundraising campaign, helped by a grant from Precita Eyes, enabled me to create this new version. Rather than sticking to paint alone, I incorporated a variety of semi-sculptural media. (The mural was done in 1998)

The piece was made for the headquarters of the Instituto Pro Musica, an organization dedicated to the performance of music old and new from Spain and Latin America. I sing with their choral group, Coro Hispano de San Francisco, and used my artwork to express feelings evoked by this powerful musical heritage. The goddess represented is Tonantsin, the mother of the Aztec gods. I am not particularly well-versed in pre-Columbian religious practices; I just used the theme as a springboard for my imagination.

A Facelift for Junipero Serra Park

 Posted by on October 20, 2012
Oct 202012
 

300 Stonecrest Drive
Lakeside

There are two ceramic tile murals by San Francisco artist Bean Finneran, installed in 2007 at Junipero Serra Playground in San Francisco. The pieces are part of the SFAC Civic art collection and cost $23,000.

Employing just two shapes, squares and darts, Bean Finneran varied the color relationships to create two distinct artworks for the new clubhouse. The optical effect of each is strikingly different. On the south wall, facing the playing fields, the 7-foot by 9-foot pattern appears to be vertical stripes, while the north wall’s 7-foot by 8-foot mural becomes a series of oscillating squares. Viewers may discover, upon further investigation, that each pattern contains the other.

Finneran found inspiration in Islamic tile patterns and American quilts but drew on her love of strong color to give the patterns a cheerful, modernist flair. According to the artist, the clubhouse architecture and placement strongly influenced her designs. The south mural, overlooking the playing fields, is best viewed from a distance, and responds to the strong verticality of its site. A more animated statement greets visitors on the north, which faces the playground’s main entrance.

Laurey (Bean) Finneran began her career as co-founder of the theatre group Soon 3 and later became a successful jewelry maker. She is currently an active ceramic artist who exhibits frequently both nationally and internationally. This was her first public art commission.

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Aileen Barr’s work at West Portal Playground

 Posted by on September 16, 2012
Sep 162012
 

West Portal Playground
131 Lenox Way

A $1.5 million renovation project in 2005 saw the West Portal Park’s original clubhouse expanded and upgraded. The park includes a picnic area, playground and large play field. The building also features artwork commissioned by the San Francisco Arts Commission Public Art Program.

“The Secret Garden,” a series of hand-carved tiles by artist Aileen Barr, depicts various flora and fauna native to the area, including leaves, flowers, plants, insects and birds.

Aileen has tile work in many places throughout San Francisco. Aileen Barr studied Ceramic Design at the National College of Art and Design In Dublin, Ireland, graduating in 1985. She worked in New York for a number of years and it was here that she discovered her fascination with handmade tile.

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Hidden Gems in Bernal Heights

 Posted by on September 8, 2012
Sep 082012
 

82 Coleridge Street
Bernal Heights

This tile mosaic is titled Colloidal Pool and is by Peter Almeida. Done in 1988 it is suggestive of a puddle with ripples moving concentrically over leaf sheaves.

 The view from Coleridge Mini Park

Coleridge Mini Park

Lincoln Park – Tile Bench

 Posted by on April 27, 2012
Apr 272012
 
Lincoln Park/Sea Cliff
32nd and California
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Aileen Barr

This project was made possible by the Friends of Lincoln Park, San Francisco Parks Trust and the San Francisco Department of Parks and Recreation.

Aileen Barr has a large body of tile work around San Francisco. She studied Ceramic Design at the National College of Art and Design In Dublin, Ireland, graduating in 1985. She worked in New York for a number of years and it was here that she discovered her fascination with handmade tile. Working in tile and architectural ceramics allows for the creation of larger works of art and can open up endless possibilities.

The imagery for the Lincoln Park bench was derived from historic photographs from the 1890s, including the Sutro Baths and the Midwinter International Exposition in 1894, filtered through Barr’s creative vision. The tiles themselves were produced in Barr’s ceramic studio in San Francisco, supplemented by the rectangular tiles supplied by Heath Ceramics in Sausalito.

Installation of the tiles was a challenge, handled by Riley Doty and Phylece Snyder, with assistance from Justin Unverricht.

Philadelphia – Following your spirit

 Posted by on June 23, 2011
Jun 232011
 

My favorite artists are ones that find their passion and pursue it, with no thought to commercialism, or the sale.  The thing that is shunned by the neighbors, until they realize you aren’t a crazy old coot, you have a vision and it is just different.

Well I found one of those in Philadelphia.  His name is Isaiah Zargar.  His work looks like that of an educated artist, and he is, having graduated from Pratt Institute in NYC.  While a young 19 year old he discovered the folk art of Clarence Schmidt which definitely inspired his work.

In 1994, Zagar started work in the vacant lots located near his studio.  After tiling the adjacent property (which is the photo above)  The vacant lots became “Magic Gardens” at 1020 South Street in Philadelphia.  He constructed a massive fence to protect the area and then spent the next 12 years excavating tunnels and grottoes, sculpting multi-layered walls and tiling and grouting the 3,000 square foot space.  In 2002, the actual property owner wanted to sell the property, the community came together and incorporated as a non-profit to promote and preserve this wonderful slice of heaven.

There are wonderful sayings all over the place including:  “I built this sanctuary to be inhabited by my ideas and my fantasies.” Another says, “Remember walking around in this work of fiction.”  The top photo has a saying running through it “Art is the Center of the World.”  I could put up 100 pictures, and it wouldn’t be enough.  To say nothing of the fact that he has created over 130 other murals scattered throughout the South Street Area.  If you get a chance to visit Philadelphia, get off the beaten path and go see the “Magical Gardens”.

San Francisco City College Mosaics

 Posted by on June 13, 2011
Jun 132011
 

Two polished marble mosaics stand at either end of the Science Hall on the City College of San Francisco Campus.  These mosaics are by the Swiss-born artist Herman Volz and represent fields such as physics, chemistry, biology, and mathematics in tiny tiles.

Completed on site, the mosaics took two years to install with a staff of eight workmen. Each tile is of varying thickness, resulting in shadows that emphasize their shape. Each marble tile was carefully polished, cemented onto the façade of the building, and then polished again. Begun during “Art in Action” at the Golden Gate International Exhibition (1939-1940), they were restored in 2005.  They are absolutely huge, and it is very difficult to get a good enough photograph to convey the message.  This is taken from several yards away, just to give you a sense of the massiveness of the project.

Volz was educated in Europe and came to the US in 1933, where he became well-known as a painter, lithographer, and mosaic/ceramic artist for the WPA. He exhibited at San Francisco’s Museum of the Legion of Honor from 1937-1941 and won the San Francisco Art Association prize in 1937.

The color palette of the mosaic is also difficult to photograph, I have broken out some of the more easy to photograph pieces for you here.

The quote in this detail photo reads “Give me a base and I move the world.”

Malibu, California – Adamson House

 Posted by on April 23, 2011
Apr 232011
 

This is the Adamson House, also known as Vaquero Hill, a historic house with lovely grounds in Malibu, California.  It has been called the “Taj Mahal of Tile” due to its extensive use of decorative ceramic tiles created by the Malibu Potteries company. The house was built in 1930 for Rhoda Rindge Adamson and Merritt Huntley Adamson, based on a Mediterranean Revival design by Stiles O. Clements of the architectural firm of Morgan, Walls & Clements.

The tiles are what drew me to the house.   Malibu Potteries produced an amazing variety of shapes, sizes, colors, and designs.  Sadly only in existence for six years, they distributed tile world-wide. A mural was shipped to a bank in Shanghai, but most of the tile with its Saracen, Moorish, and Spanish designs went to Los Angeles homes and buildings constructed in the late 1920s.  This included Los Angeles City Hall, a mural depicting William Henry Dana’s ship, The Pilgrim, in San Pedro Bay in 1834 which were installed at the Dana Junior High School in San Pedro in 1928.  Simon Rodia, an employee at Malibu Potteries, reportedly often rode home in his carpool with pockets bulging with tile fragments. Later he was to become famous as the builder of the Rodia Towers (commonly called Watts Towers).

The most comprehensive collection remaining today is at the Adamson home. Examples include the 5 layer terra cotta tile roofs, exterior and interior walls, floors, and ceilings. Fountains, faience jardinieres, and tables in the garden.  One of the more interesting of the tiles were done to represent a Turkish carpet, notice the fringe on the edges.

A fire destroyed a large area of the  Potteries in 1931. Mrs. Rindge planned to rebuild, the great depression, however, with an accompanying building slump greatly reduced the demand for ornamental tile. In 1932 the pottery closed never to operate again.

The residence is within the Malibu Lagoon State Beach Park. The Adamson House was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1977 and designated as a California Historical Landmark in 1985.  The second photo is from their website, as no photography is allowed inside the home.  You are required to take a guided tour, but if you are in the area, I recommend it highly. When there be sure to notice the thresholds, they were all broken shards of tile.  The reason isn’t really known, some feel that it helped to give a notification that things were changing, as each room held a very specific tile pattern and theme, some think it went back to ancient times of evil spirits not being able to move across crooked lines, and some think it was ways to get rid of waste in the factory.

http://www.adamsonhouse.org/
If you are interested in Malibu Potteries this book is available, and while not perfect, not enough pictures for my liking, it is one of the only ones I have found.

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