In lak'ech (I am another yourself), on 23rd Street off Mission Street was designed and directed by Marta Ayala with guest muralist, Catalina Gonzalez, in 1998. The mural is dedicated to the community, serves as a seed of harmony, joy and peace "Armonîa y Paz".
The mural is to provide a window into the harmony of the universe and to be a symbol of forest preservation. A sleeping mountain symbolizes the potential we all have to take care of the earth, its water and animals. The dessert is the skin of the earth, the mother and father mountains are embraced by the medicine we call Peyote, and are the source of the waterfall. The cave symbolizes the mysteries of the depths of the earth. The 20 Mayan sprockets are to awaken our memory at a cellular level so we can remember our true origins and give us the ability to synchronize with cosmic beams without effort.
Having these images out in public provide a memory seed to ripen as a compassionate protector in those who view it.
For as long as this mural exists it will be a seed provider.
Source: Marta Ayala
The original mural, La Madre Tonantsin, was created in 1991, at the request of my friends and neighbors Juan Pedro and Joyce Gaffney, who feared that their freshly-painted garden wall, on a highly-trafficked stretch of 16th St., would be vandalized. Juan Pedro was the director of Coro Hispano, a chorus dedicated to preserving the musical heritage of the Spanish-speaking world, and I was lucky enough to be a member. My favorite song from our repertoire was “Dios Itla Tonantsine”, a hauntingly beautiful piece written in the Nahuatl language and combining Aztec drumming with Renaissance polyphony. Written by an Aztec maestro trained in European composition, it is a hymn to the Virgin Mary which refers to her as Tonantsin, the mother goddess of the Aztecs. I was intrigued by this free-form cultural syncretism; i had also just given birth to my second child, and the theme of motherhood in all its frightening intensity was very present to me.
Although I have now done some travel in the Yucatan and visited a number of archaeological sites, the creation of the mural preceded my knowing much about Mesoamerican cultures, and I am certainly no expert still. I painted the feelings aroused by the music, and, oddly, I found that many of the pictorial elements I included are actually attributes of Tonantsin (with the exception of the symbols painted on her skin, which I got from a book and in some instances altered). The strongest artistic influence on the piece was an exhibit of Tibetan Thangka scrolls that came to San Francisco in 1990.
The mural was popular in the neighborhood, and received an award from Precita Eyes muralists. Over the years, though, the old wooden fence it was painted on began to flake and rot. With the aid of contributions from locals and a small grant from Precita Eyes, I took on the project of renewing the piece using more weather-resistant materials. The Recology artist residency I’d recently completedled me to incorporate mosaic and relief sculpture into the new mural. Tonantsin Renace (Tonantsin Reborn) was inaugurated in 1998, and has been a much-photographed and beloved part of the Mission ever since. I’m not the only one to observe that on some foggy mornings the condensation makes her appear to weep. But then, there is so much to weep for.
I painted this mural in 2006 after returning home from living in New York and adventures as a vagabond wandering minstrel/farm-hand in Europe. I wanted to express the generosity and gratitude I encountered while living in multi-cultural communities around the world, and plus make a visual statement as to what western hospitality might look like. Growing up in Mendocino, I apprenticed under a Japanese Tea Master learning about zen-buddhism and nature inspired art-philosophy. This background influences my work to this day as a carpenter/builder. The piece itself was the winning entry in a contest sponsored by the Precita-Eyes Mural organization, and my friends Carey Lamprecht and the late Jubal Stedman helped me paint it. I call it "Compassion Lives Here" as it shows a woman holding the inhabitants of a city working in their various roles within it. The woman symbolizes our feminine loving nature that we humans are all capable of.
The artwork is much more a neighborhood and Bay Area narrative than an autobiographical piece. The evidence is in the worker with a broom, the sleeping man, the homeless figure digging through a garbage can, and the side-by-side housing that overlooks the scene — along with a long-haired woman whose hair blends in with the curves of a blue Golden Gate Bridge.
“It’s taking care of the people who live in the neighborhood, like homeless people,” Karpov says. “I was playing a lot of music at the time, so I painted myself playing the guitar, and a bass player, and the guy rifling through the garbage. I wanted to say that compassion exists in San Francisco — at least in some places. But it’s also about music and art.”
Karpov, who grew up in Mendocino and now lives in the East Bay, says his style is heavily influenced by a teacher who specialized in the Japanese arts. Compassion Lives Here has a strong symmetry of colors, shapes, and lines that easily integrate the scene’s disparate parts.
“I’m influenced by black ink lines,” says Karpov, who has drawn and published two children’s books. “I’m strong with that.”
“I’m just glad it’s still up,” he says of the mural, then adds an afterthought that references the area’s eviction rates and rapidly changing demographics: “I hope for peace in the Mission.”
Source: André Karpov
Precita Eyes Muralists Association, Inc. was established in 1977, founded by Susan Cervantes and Luis Cervantes with other artists in San Francisco's Mission District. As an inner city non-profit community-based mural arts organization, Precita Eyes Muralists has played an integral role in the city's cultural heritage and arts education, to enrich and transform urban environments and educate communities locally and internationally about the process and the history of public community mural art, maintaining a deep commitment to collaborating with the various communities. Precita Eyes dedication to collaboration guarantees that creative work produced is accessible, both physically and conceptually, to the people whose lives it impacts. Precita Eyes aims to bring art to the people in every community with an opportunity to develop their individuality and confidence through creative activities and to experience unifying, positive social interaction and change through collaboration.
Source: Susan Cervantes, Precita Eyes
Left to Right: Angel Castellon, John Mendoza, and Anabelle Boloñas
L to R: Roberto Gonzalez, Martin Tellez, Marcella Ortiz, Max Marttila, and Xavier Schmidt
Mission Pie is proudly a for-profit business that is strongly driven by values of fairness and thoughtfulness. Our goal is to offer great food made with conscientiously –sourced ingredients in styles and at prices that make the food accessible to a broad demographic. We also want all our customers to have a delightful experience of being seen, heard and nourished. We believe that productive and profitable businesses are a critical part of a thriving community. We believe in compensating fairly and offering the highest level of benefits possible – we began offering health insurance in our second year of business when we had only a dozen employees, and vacation pay and retirement benefits soon thereafter. We take care of our relationships with farmers and distributors who we work with, and value the longevity and deepening of these relationships over the seasons. We have working relationships with several non-profit organizations and host their clients as interns at Mission Pie, with a shared goal of supporting marginalized youth and adults in overcoming barriers to work.
We count it as one of the great successes that Mission Pie attracts and receives very different people with a range of backgrounds who, were it not for sharing a workplace, would likely not cross paths and forge the deep friendships that they do.
Source: Karen Heisler, Mission Pie
One man in this large mural is wearing a backwards San Francisco Giants cap and a 49ers jersey — but the name on the jersey isn't his. "Aztlan" refers to the modern Chicano movement and to the Aztec people who lived in North America long before Europeans arrived. Butterflies populate the mural, but the face of the biggest butterfly is the Mayan symbol of balance, or yin and yang. Each person, insect, animal, and object in the artwork — which is dense with electrifying colors — is a symbol of native American history and of the Mission District's climate of gentrification.
"The beauty tries to hide the true message," says Francisco Aquino, a longtime Mission District resident and one of the lead artists of the mural, which went up in early 2014. "We try to disguise it with all the flowers and the beautiful colors."
The mural's title translates into English as, "The Mission. The Culture. The Struggle. The People." On the mural's far left-hand side is a tech bus, along with hands trying to stop it from moving. On the far right-hand side is a deportation bus taking people from the United States, along with hands trying to prevent it from leaving. Aquino, 44, was born in El Salvador, came to the Mission at age 3, was schooled there, and has lived in the district ever since. "I'm a Mission boy," he says.
Un Passado que aun Vive is painted with dominating hues of red and yellow, emanating a powerful heated energy with exquisite detail which gives alley visitors an intricate puzzle to decode.
Just as Lévi-Strauss comments on his trip to the Brazilian Amazon, “We will always walk with our past,” (Lévi-Strauss 1974: 44) Bergner’s symbolic depiction of a woman whose family has been torn apart from the civil war in El Salvador, places human identity in inextricable relation to his roots. Within the shadows of a contemporary landscape— the mountainsides, river, streets, and walls of the pupuserias—are the “collective memories” of the Salvadoran Civil War, which “disrupted order and killed the innocent” (Gressel 2009:111) from 1980-1992. American involvement in the war was immensely controversial, and Bergner’s piece pays tribute to the original PLACA project with this topic.
Source: Joel Bergner
“Our Lady of Guadalupe, the sainted Patroness of Mexico, is a very important figure throughout all of Latin America; it was both an honor and a challenge to be asked to include her in the mural I painted in Balmy Alley. She was not really part of my original idea, which is a mural about Dia de los Muertos, the Day of the Dead, to honor my parents who both died in 1999. When I proposed my idea to the Gutierrez family, who own the house at 25th and Balmy, they felt very comfortable with it, but they asked if there were some way to incorporate the image of the Virgin of Guadalupe into my design. That’s how the project got started.
First, I needed to do some research. I already knew quite a bit about her, but at this point I wanted to learn everything I possibly could, about every aspect of her image, the way she is usually represented, and why. Books, pictures, calendars, devotional candles, and people on the street became my resources; nearly everyone had something to tell me to help me complete my mural design. It was the most thorough outreach I’ve ever undertaken, and possibly the most rewarding, as I learned more and more about even the tiniest details of her traditional representation.
In creating her image for my mural, I made two design considerations that are not completely traditional. Most portraits of Our Lady of Guadalupe show her with her hands folded together in prayer, and with her eyes downcast, or closed. I wanted her to be keeping an eye on us, and on the things that happen in our streets. I painted her with her eyes wide open, looking out over the neighborhood, not missing a thing. I also painted her with her arms extended in welcome, blessing everyone in the community. Those loving hands reach out to comfort all who see them, gracing those who have lived here for generations and welcoming all newcomers.
Source: Patricia Rose
*This is a mural detail, and part of a much bigger story.
Section 5: Coatlique and the Virgen de Guadelupe:
Spanish colonizers would not allow indigenous people to practice their own religion. Therefore, indigenous peoples had to use Catholic saints and rituals to maintain their religious connections. The center of this wall has featured an image of the Virgen De Guadalupe for over 30 years. As this version was painted in 2008, a resurgence of Indigenous Spirituality was happening and many began regaining their cultural and historical consciousness. We are no longer forced to hide our idols behind altars. The mother Earth Goddess, Coatlique, is portrayed as the centerpiece of the mural with corn growing on either side of her to represent our connection to the earth. In front of her, a woman holds a portrait of La Virgen De Guadalupe.
Section 7: Black and Brown Unity:
This image connects different neighborhoods, folks and communities that have been victimized by the Eurocentric system. Connecting low riders and scrappers connects African American culture and Latino culture. The Black Panther party members above them are the hero’s of the past. A group of Black and Brown youth of today continues the work that is inspired by the Black Panthers and Brown Berets. This is seen by the Black Panther logo that is on the t-shirt of one of the youth in the scene and the African American brother wearing an Africa Continent piece instead of a blingy dollar symbol. A woman community organizer holds a newspaper which documents the unity between Hunter’s Point, the Fillmore, and the Mission, as they fight the SF Gang Injunctions and Gentrification.
Source: Eric Norberg
The first time I met KASE* was at a wall in Queens, NY in 1998 . I came as guest of Zephyr and Dr.Revolt. Lady Pink was there and Erotica and Clark among others. Kase rolled up on me and said he was down with my family's characters. He kept calling me Mode and I kept correcting him "no, its Bode not Mode" then he would say “ok Mode!” In the short conversation we had, there was mutual respect and that’s all that matters. I let him call me what he wanted to.
I met him later in 2010 at a group show and we both knew each other’s proper names and he signed my book and we took a pic together. I never saw him again. I teamed up with Mace from SF and I did the graffiti angels that would meet him in the great train station in the sky and Mace did the KASE piece. It was monumental meeting The Man, The Legend.
* KASE (born Jeff Brown) was one of the pioneers of the art form known as graffiti that was birthed and popularized in the streets of the South Bronx. KASE managed to complete over 100 pieces on the NYC subway system before 1980, though he had only one arm due to a subway accident when he was 10 years old. KASE passed away on August 15, 2011 from complications due to lung cancer, but his work and artistic influence lives on in today’s graffiti artists.
Sources: Mark Bode and The Source (www.thesource.com)
According to 2010 Census data, 38.7% of reported Mission residents were born in a country outside the United States (Sprague 2012:19). Of these, 63.6% are from Mexico, Central, or South America. This journey of immigration—a shared history amongst a significant portion of today’s Mission neighborhood—is captured and memorialized in Rojas’ piece Enrique’s Journey. The mural was inspired by a book by Sonia Nazario of the same title, which follows Enrique, a young boy, on his journey from rural Central America (portrayed in the right of the mural), to the United States. The boy travels via train, and meets various people along the way, and his grandmother (portrayed in a welcoming purple hue), awaits his arrival on the other side. Uncle Sam and the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) skeletons reach out to grab the young boy (Above left). Enrique is safe, however, as he is guided on his journey by an angel (Above right), yet another protector of Balmy Alley and the Mission community.
Jean Henri Gaston Giraud (8 May 1938 – 10 March 2012) was a French comics artist who earned worldwide fame, predominantly under the pseudonym Mœbius, and to a lesser extent Gir (used for the Blueberry series). He has been described as the most influential bandes dessinées artist after Hergé. (Herge is known to most in the U.S. as the author of TinTin). Source: Art and Architecture SF
This mural was painted by the legendary artists Mark Bode, CUBA, and Stan 153.
Artists with the Anti-Eviction Mapping Project teamed up with the Clarion Alley Mural Project to paint a 20 foot mural in Clarion Alley at Valencia Street. The mural depicts a rendering of the online map of no-fault evictions since 1997 and highlights the portraits of eight San Franciscans fighting their evictions. Viewers can call a phone number 415-319-6865 to hear stories of the people whose portraits are depicted on the mural.
The mural includes a portrait of Alex Nieto, killed by SFPD in 2014 on Bernal Hill, to make the connection between gentrification and the criminalization of people of color. The left panel of the mural, facing Valencia Street, “welcomes” visitors to the alley with a remixed design of a posted developed by the SF Print Collective and pasted around the Mission in the 1990’s in response to the dot com boom.
In partnership with the Clarion Alley Mural Project, this mural project was directed by Carla Wojczuk, and participants included: Eva Mas Silberstein, Anabelle Bolanos, Fernando Rodriquez, Maria Rodriquez, Lee Reyes, Cynthia Crews, Hannah Gallagher, Lee Reyes, Vivian Schwab, Marko Muir, Kim Cirella, James Yelen, Manon Vergerio, Carla L., David Petrelli, Michelle Lewis, Erin McElroy, Jenna McElroy, Joe Mellin, Andy Blue, Megan Wilson, Christopher Statton, Elvira Nieto, Rufugio Nieto, and more.
Source: www.antievictionmap.com
For more infomration on the Narratives of Displacement project, please click here.
“Mission Celebration/Celebracions de la Mision” is a mural that honors Cesar Chavez, founder of the United Farm Workers Union, and celebrates all the things we love the most about our beautiful Mission District. At the top, center, is a smiling milagro of the sun, on a bright, beautiful Mission day. The sky is full of light refracting into all the colors of the rainbow, shining over a huge Mission celebration.
We also honor our neighborhood’s history in this mural: at the far left is the old Mission Dolores, as it looked 200 years ago, and at the lower left we see the “precita” or little dam, from which Precita Park, Precita Avenue, Precita Valley, and the Precita Eyes Muralists all get their names. From the door of the old Mission, we see Ohlone people, the original inhabitants of the neighborhood, walking through the palm trees toward the central celebration. They join bicyclists, a low rider, and costumed figures celebrating Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) and Carnaval (Mardi Gras), as well as everyday people and workers from the community. One celebrant, with a painted face, holds a poster of Cesar Chavez.
From the right side of the mural, we see a monumental portrait of Cesar Chavez, community leader and organizer, and behind him the fertile farms of California with farm workers laboring in the fields. “El Volado” (the Mexican Bus) makes its way toward the central celebration, right behind a diverse group of marchers playing drums and demonstrating their solidarity with farm workers, in support of Cesar Chavez. A “paletero” is there too, with a cart full of popsicles (paletas), and musicians [one of the musicians is Berta’s father], including some Mission District mariachis. Above the mariachis, hanging on a ladder, wall dancers perform acrobatics.
The Victorian building at the center of the mural is a depiction of the building that once stood at this intersection, where the mural is painted. In front of the building Aztec dancers greet the four directions and perform a dance of blessing for the community.
The decorated frame that surrounds the mural features milagros, both traditional and innovative. Milagros are small devotional offerings that are used in prayer, and they represent the substance of our prayers. Some of the traditional milagros that we’ve included show hearts, hands, feet, the sun, the moon; we also include milagros of non-traditional shapes: our artists’ palettes, a paintbrush, a shooting star, a spray can, and even a taco.
Source: Precita Eyes
In a city that is rapidly changing to cater to the one-percent at every level, Clarion Alley Mural Project (CAMP) is one of the last remaining truly punk venues in San Francisco, organized by a core and revolving group of individuals who have collectively volunteered tens of thousands of hours throughout its history over the past 21 years.
As part of CAMP’s mission to be a force for those who are marginalized and a place where culture and dignity speak louder than the rules of private property or a lifestyle that puts profit before compassion, respect, and social/economic/environmental justice, CAMP artists/organizers Megan Wilson, Christopher Statton, and Mike Reger completed Clarion Alley Mural Project’s Wall of Shame and Solutions to address the current crisis of displacement and the dismantling of our city’s historic culture.
Wilson herself was evicted in 2008 through the Ellis Act from her home of 13 years. In 2013 she was evicted from her studio at 340 Bryant Street, along with 150 other artists, by developer Joy Ou of Group i to make way for new tech offices. 340 Bryant Street was one of the last remaining affordable industrial spaces for artists’ studios in San Francisco. Additionally, during the painting of the Wall of Shame and Solutions Wilson was held by a Mission District police officer (with a back-up team of two officers) for 30-minutes for “breaking San Francisco’s Sit/Lie Ordinance” by sitting on the ground while taking a break from painting the mural. Source: Clarion Alley Mural Project
Laura Campos was born in Mexico and grew up in Texas. While young, and not yet legal, she was called an illegal alien on a regular basis. When she did become legal, she was still called an "Alien". This is the reason she tends to paint aliens. Her work has helped her work through her feelings for that word.
1982 - 2011
Discolandia was an iconic music store, a symbol of the Mission, owned and operated by Sylvia Rodriguez. For decades, the store was the go-to place for Latin music – to purchase music records or buy tickets to upcoming concerts. So many concert tickets were sold at Discolandia that the owners would often get backstage tickets to local concerts. This resulted in a friendship with the artists, who supported the business by stopping by the store to tell Rodriguez about upcoming records. This created an even bigger customer base of fans, who knew where to go to find out about the latest recordings of their favorite Latin music artist.
Discolandia, like most music stores, experienced dwindling sales due to the rise of the internet. More people were purchasing their music online, and less people walking through the doors of Discolandia.
Though the store closed in January 2011, the ‘Discolandia’ sign remains in place (as of July 2017). The sign was crafted by the owner, Sylvia Rodriguez in 1962.
Source: El Tecolote (www.eltecolote.org)
Cesar Chavez Restoration Narrative: “Si Se Puede” is a monumental iconic mural on Cesar Chavez Elementary School in the Mission District painted in 1995. The mural suffered water damage on the upper strip where damaged plaster was removed and re-stuccoed. In 2014 Precita Eyes restored the mural with funding from the San Francisco School District and the Capitol Improvement Fund. This mural pays homage to the vision of the founder of the United Farm workers Union. As a labor leader, civil rights champion and educator in his own right, Cesar Chavez is a compelling role model for the children of all ethnic origins who are being taught to live so harmoniously in a school such as this one.
His portrait is surrounded by roses, grapes, and other crops native to this continent. A brilliant sun radiates from behind his head in front of the giant geometric wings of the farm worker eagle, spanning much of the horizontal length of the mural. The bright rays of the sun symbolizing his enduring spirit intersect with the black wings creating patterns of light across its surface and spreading out over other parts if the mural. Framing the late great leader is an arched trellis with entwined grapevines and climbing roses. Chavez is holding the hand of the child, one of many that are marching forward toward their future. In the left corner is an elder farm worker picking grapes. The grape arbors weave between the school’s windows, representing the life, work, and struggle of the people who have created the agricultural richness of California.
The red grapes symbolizing the blood of the workers and that water their tears. In the far right corner is a cornfield with a young native girl coming from behind it. She is near Dolores Huerta another strong leader of the United Farm workers Union and one of the most outstanding woman political leaders of this state and country. In her hand, she holds a pair of wire cutters, which she had used to open a cyclone fence, allowing more children access to freedom and education. Assisting Dolores Huerta a huge realistic eagle spreads its wings. One of these children is hand signing the farm worker’s eagle. Huerta is handing a scroll to a student written with the popular phrase, “Si Se Puede”. The scroll winds between the children into the center of the mural, into the hand of Cesar Chavez, where it reads with a quote from him, which says, “Help me take responsibility for my own life so I can be free at last.
Source: Susan Cervantes
My motivation to paint this mural was the rich history and artistic culture of the Hispanic and Latino community within the Mission district of San Francisco. Another part of my motivation was the change going on in the neighborhood. Evictions resulting in gentrification was heavy at the time. All the mural’s magical parts came together with the hope and faith that I could make Mission district natives proud. I poured my heart into my work and reached out to fellow artist, David Cho, hoping it would bring positive energy back into the community. It brought people from all walks of life together.
The mural represents (to me) culture, history, life, death, and the music of the Mission district. I want people to feel the energy the mural brings. That there are a lot of special elements when it comes to the Mission culture. The Mission has an influence on artists such as myself and David. It's a place of rich artistic practices, from classic traditional mural art to the best spray can art. I want observers to find that feeling between the two - to feel how much I wanted there to be something beautiful on that wall.”
Source: Mel Waters
2007 Precita Eyes Community Mural Workshop
Directed by Susan Cervantes with student participants: Tracy Clark, KuKu Kamal, Lisa Hall, Kelly Donnelly, Kelly Barrett, Kristen Foskett, Robert Jimenez, Sasha Gainor, Grace D'Anca, Rachel Lee Holstein, Ernesto Aguilar, Andrea Barry, Mary Lou Spiegelman.
Theme of Cultural Diversity and Peace
In the center of the mural are the portraits of two strong women back to back. They anchor the tree of knowledge whose leaves are made of multicolored hands around an eagle spirit representing the power of vision and creativity in the world above. On the far left side of the mural is a flowing design of a pigeon moving in space. Above is a storyteller "You can walk straight when the road is bent".
Below is a mission neighborhood scene with Mariachis and children. On the other side of the tree it pays homage to the indigenous people, colorful flower motifs and crystal spirits. Over the window is a figure "Rising Up" to begin anew. She faces a wall/ barrier border that divides people particularly pointed at the Middle East crisis but also representing all people who wish to find sovereignty in their homelands.
On the banner above the reaching arms says "Be the change you want to see in the World" a quote from Mahatma Ghandi.
Source: Susan Cervantes, Founder of Precita Eyes
As local musicians, poets, housing advocates, and community members joined forces in commemorating one of the Mission District’s most beloved voices this Saturday, Carlos “Kookie” Gonzalez stood among his peers before a colorful mural at 24th and South Van Ness Streets, carefully observing his work.
“This mural is a stance against big business and big money,” the local muralist and retired juvenile probation officer said during the mural’s unveiling, which also served as an anti-displacement rally. “It greets the techies coming off BART into their new luxury apartments in the Mission, and for those of us who are still here, it portrays everything that ‘Chata’ represented in this community.”
Gonzalez referred to Micaela “Chata” Gutierrez, the woman depicted in the new mural on a wall facing west at the corner of 24th and South Van Ness. It overlooks a lot where, throughout the course of the day, people of all ages stopped to protest evictions, partake in a community concert, and honor Gutierrez by dancing rumba under her portrait. Short haired, with glasses and a tight smile, the popular radio host and DJ was a local hero who died in 2013 after a decade-long battle with liver cancer.
“Chata was always willing to help out — she was there for the community and opened up the station to talk about issues that affected us, such as police brutality, unemployment, education,” said Gonzalez about the influential radio personality who, for more than 40 years, worked as an activist and exposed generations of listeners to salsa, Latin Jazz, and rumba through her show “Con Clave” on KPOO 85.5 FM.
Source: www.missionlocal.org
Swoon grew up in Daytona Beach, Fla., where the ocean is a part of daily life. When the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill happened, she said she felt compelled to express her angst in the best way she knew how: creatively. Symbolically speaking, the spirit of the sea was suffering, and that was the inspiration behind Thalassa.
The goddess’ sternum is composed of a horseshoe crab plastron, her rib cage is framed with writhing pipefish, and her hair is tangled with seaweed. Scattered on the floor around Swoon were prints of fish skeletons and other amorphous oceanic shapes waiting to be pasted together into watery ribbons.
Though one’s first impression is of the life-affirming elegance of Curry’s unfinished sea goddess, she says that in the end, viewers will discern the deleterious effects of oil. But, she said, she’d like us to interpret the piece as a poetic personal reaction to the tragedy, not simply as an oil company protest.
She hopes Thalassa speaks “the language of connecting to nature.”
Source: NOLA.com
According to the Norris, Victorion “speaks to the subject of gentrification in the Mission District of San Francisco, supporting the persistence of Latino business owners and residents. The mural also speaks to the importance of the preservation of original San Francisco Victorian homes through a ten-foot robot, suitably named, “Victorion.” the “Defender of the Mission,” takes form as a giant Victorian house crushing the so-called “hipsters”, cafes, and businesses that are raising the cost of living and lowering the quality of life for native Mission District residents, whose houses are portrayed with “For Sale” and “For Lease” signs throughout the piece.”
Thousands of mostly minority residents have been displaced from the Mission to the surrounding Bernal Heights, Outer Mission, and South Bay neighborhoods since the early 1990’s due to rising housing costs brought on, in part, by the so-called “dot-com boom.” Mural art such as Norris’ Victorion has taken to “defend” the Mission which, as Precita Eyes muralist Fred said in a personal interview, “can have a paradoxical effect. The art itself raises housing costs, thus leading to further gentrification” (personal interview 2012).
Contemporary Mission Muralismo was immensely influenced by the works of such Mexican artists as Diego Rivera, Jose Clement Orozco, and David Siqueros, each of whom are memorialized in Escarraman’s Icons (above). Also included are Frida Kahlo (far right), actress Maria Felix and composer Augustin Lara, muralist David Siqueiros and others. A second Balmy tribute to Kahlo (below) lies hidden behind the bushes as an old, unused garage door (the owner’s new garage door is now replaced with Jesus meditating at Mt. Shasta) at the opposite end of the alley. In the far right of the piece, the artist includes a self-portrait of himself as a child, suggesting these Mexican artists are not only icons but fathers of the contemporary Mission Muralismo movement.
© Copyright by Alyson Sprague 2012 (http://alysons.weebly.com)
“Mission Celebration/Celebracions de la Mision” is a mural that honors Cesar Chavez, founder of the United Farm Workers Union, and celebrates all the things we love the most about our beautiful Mission District. At the top, center, is a smiling milagro of the sun, on a bright, beautiful Mission day. The sky is full of light refracting into all the colors of the rainbow, shining over a huge Mission celebration.
We also honor our neighborhood’s history in this mural: at the far left is the old Mission Dolores, as it looked 200 years ago, and at the lower left we see the “precita” or little dam, from which Precita Park, Precita Avenue, Precita Valley, and the Precita Eyes Muralists all get their names. From the door of the old Mission, we see Ohlone people, the original inhabitants of the neighborhood, walking through the palm trees toward the central celebration. They join bicyclists, a low rider, and costumed figures celebrating Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) and Carnaval (Mardi Gras), as well as everyday people and workers from the community. One celebrant, with a painted face, holds a poster of Cesar Chavez.
From the right side of the mural, we see a monumental portrait of Cesar Chavez, community leader and organizer, and behind him the fertile farms of California with farm workers laboring in the fields. “El Volado” (the Mexican Bus) makes its way toward the central celebration, right behind a diverse group of marchers playing drums and demonstrating their solidarity with farm workers, in support of Cesar Chavez. A “paletero” is there too, with a cart full of popsicles (paletas), and musicians [one of the musicians is Berta’s father], including some Mission District mariachis. Above the mariachis, hanging on a ladder, wall dancers perform acrobatics.
The Victorian building at the center of the mural is a depiction of the building that once stood at this intersection, where the mural is painted. In front of the building Aztec dancers greet the four directions and perform a dance of blessing for the community.
The decorated frame that surrounds the mural features milagros, both traditional and innovative. Milagros are small devotional offerings that are used in prayer, and they represent the substance of our prayers. Some of the traditional milagros that we’ve included show hearts, hands, feet, the sun, the moon; we also include milagros of non-traditional shapes: our artists’ palettes, a paintbrush, a shooting star, a spray can, and even a taco.
Source: Precita Eyes
The Mission Dolores mural is one of the best preserved pieces of indigenous painted art from the period of first contact with Europeans. Using indigenous materials, the native Ohlone artists produced a mural in 1791 which is a graphic representation of the way in which Catholicism in the California missions were filtered through indigenous beliefs. In 1796 the current altar was placed directly in front of it and very soon the mural was forgotten.
Work that I did in the early 2000's resulted in the first systematic photography of the mural. I was able to stitch these photographs together and project images of the mural onto the inside of the dome at the Mission Dolores Basilica.
The mural was first discovered during an early 20th century renovation of the altar by an Irish Catholic Fennell family.
Source: Ben Wood
MAESTRAPEACE, mural on The San Francisco Women’s Building, 18th and Valencia Streets, Collaborative work by Juana Alicia, Edythe Boone, Miranda Bergman, Susan Cervantes, Meera Desai, Yvonne Littleton and Irene Perez, © 1994, All Rights Reserved. Restored in 2000 and 2012, interior murals added in 2010.
1993-1995
The MaestraPeace murals were created by a design and painting team of seven women, thrown together in an arranged marriage through a call for artists sponsored by The Women’s Building in 1992. Our volunteer caligrapher, Olivia Quevedo, contributed the beautiful script throughout the piece. Over one hundred women volunteered to assist us in the creation of the painting. The core team of seven was chosen to collaborate on what was originally a much smaller space, about 10′ x 25′ on the 18th Street facade. Instead, we decided to surprise the mural committee and assembled community at the meeting to show our sketches with a monumental drawing that encompassed both facades. The design was received with great enthusiasm, but there was not sufficient funding for such a project scope. But TWB and the community, including ourselves, committed ourselves to a fundraising effort that included selling women’s names to be “embroidered” on the ribbon that runs through the murals on both facades.
In 2000, the mural was defaced and we had to erase black spray paint full of misogynist and racist epithets. The women’s community camped out around the building to protect the mural in protest, and we restored and anti-graffiti varnished the first fifteen feet high all around the walls.
In 2010, after the building had been retrofitted, we added on to the 18th Street facade around the entrance, and brought the mural inside and upstairs to the second floor, continuing the motifs of textiles of many nations, and ribbons of women’s names.
In 2012, five of the original team as well as many of our students and volunteers, worked for three months to restore the faded and peeling mural, with updated techniques and a sealant/consolidant finish that will protect the mural for many years.
Source: www.juanaalicia.com
The Llorona mural is located at the site of Juana Alicia’s 1983 mural project, Las Lechugueras (The Women Lettuce Workers), which depicts farmworkers and their battles against working conditions and pesticide poisoning in California. Given a 90-day warning in 2001 that the mural would be destroyed because of water damage to the wall, Juana Alicia developed the La Llorona project to pick up where Las Lechugueras left off.
With La Llorona, Juana Alicia engages environmental struggles involving women around the world, foregrounding the classic Mexican myth of the woman who allegedly drowned her children and is damned to weep for them.
Source: www.juanaalicia.com
Directed by Fred Alvarado and Max Marttila
This mural reflects the varied realities of life in Central America - poverty, violence, and war - celebrations of music and culture and redistributed land. The mural was originally painted in 1984, during the Central American wars and was intended to both call attention to the wars and to oppose the U.S. government's intervention. The artists aimed to create a symbol of solidarity, love, and respect for the people of Central America. This mural is part of an artistic effort named "Placa", which painted murals along a one block alley in the Mission District of San Francisco and transformed a neglected barrio alley into an outdoor art gallery.
Over time, most of the murals faded or suffered water damage, and have been painted over with new artworks depicting new themes: gentrification and displacement, and more modern takes on Latin American culture. But the 200-square-foot piece by Miranda Bergman and O'Brien Thiele remains. It covers the rear of a two-car garage and shows a sweeping collage of symbols evoking Central America in the 1980s: overflowing baskets of papayas and bananas, vivid red bougainvillea, grim mothers of the "disappeared" carrying pictures of their loved ones, young soldiers with machine guns, a stern-faced Ronald Reagan, and a soaring dove of peace.
The artists briefly considered a new theme for their work, something more reflective of modern times. "But then we realized that the things we were hoping for then - peace, sovereignty, prosperity in Central America - haven't happened yet. Those issues are still all too real," said Bergman. "This mural is a snapshot of history, not just in Central America but in this neighborhood, too. We want to honor that."
Sources: SF Mural Arts and SF Gate
“The man in the middle is on a journey that is very difficult and emotional, which is why he has his eyes closed, deep in thought. He’s leaving his home, culture, family, and everything that he is familiar with, which is portrayed on the right side of the mural. His home country has beauty as well as problems, which is why I painted families, bright cultures, and tropical scenery, but also a street kid, protesters, and low-paid factory workers bent over their work. The woman, who is his girlfriend or wife, is staying behind, which is very painful for both of them. This situation is very common for many friends and room-mates of mine who are from El Salvador, Mexico, Brazil, Colombia, Iraq and other countries. The man is coming to the large American city, which also has its positive and negative aspects. He finds it cold (both the weather and the culture), overly-organized and technical, and many people are zoned into materialism and a spiritually-empty media (which explains the zombie-TVs and the bug-eyed people). Some people make money off of all this, but they, too, are victims (which is why they’re portrayed as being bug-eyed as well, and zoned into their money). On the positive side, there are families having fun together and a relatively high standard of living.”
Source: Joel Bergner, featured in CITY
The main elements of inspiration for the diptych mural “Family Life” and “Spirit of Mankind” were the 70-year-old acacia trees in Precita Park directly across the street from the mural. Trees of life and spirit emerge as the central elements around which everything else moves. In the panel on the left the tree has been painted with 7 multicolored branches and 7 multicolored blossoming flowers: 7 being symbolic of the 7 color rays of the sun, the 7 musical tones, the 7 days of the week, the 7 planets and so on. The tree in the right panel if the same 7 branched tree but reversed, and the truck is white in order to represent the purity of the soul. The branches are the fire of the spirit reaching upward from the initial spark in the center of the mural and shooting out above the frame if the mural panel.
The family is depicted in the center of the Left Panel as beginning with a man and a woman. Above them in the boughs of the tree are the ages of our life cycle: birth, childhood, old age, and death. The family is represented in the Right Panel by the familiar faces and everyday life of the neighborhood people around Precita Park.
Source: Susan Cervantes, Precita Eyes
*In collaboration with CUBA (Clarence Robbs), and David Petrelli (D8)
Carnaval San Francisco cultivates and celebrates the vibrantly diverse Latin American and Caribbean roots of the Mission District and the greater San Francisco Bay Area. Under the guiding principle that music, dance, and art have the power to heal and unite people, we aim to create spaces of harmony and revelry in which cross-cultural relationships can grow and flourish.
Carnaval San Francisco has been an opportunity for many cultures to come together in one spirit to share their creative expression.
About Sistas Wit Style
Sistas-Wit-Style (based in Oakland, CA) was established in October 2000 with dance forms originating from Trinidad and Tobago. We are dedicated to providing youth, teens, & adults with a Caribbean cultural experience that enables them to make a positive difference through dance.
Our Carnival band Sistas-Wit-Style and Associates was started in 2004. SWS&A has taken first place in multiple Carnival parades and holds the title for Carnival Queen of 2014. Through our carnival band we provide a support system for youth and adults to fight obesity, channel their energy to something positive and “free up” themselves. We are heavily involved with spreading the Caribbean culture in our community and across the nation. We have received commendations from respected Congress members, State of California Board of Directors, and the City of Oakland for our achievements.
The ‘Carnaval’ mural was a project initiated by Susan Cervantes of Precita Eyes. The primary motivation behind the mural was to create a beautiful experience documenting the annual ‘Carnaval’ festival in the Mission. The mural is located where the parade route ends, and we wanted to continue the festive atmosphere.
The message of the mural is simple: to embrace the art of celebration and happiness.
About the Artists
Precita Eyes Muralists Association and Center (est. 1977) is a multi-purpose community-based arts organization that has played an integral role in the city’s cultural heritage and arts education. The organization sponsors and implements mural projects throughout the Bay Area and internationally. As a community-based mural organization, we believe that it is our mission to not only enhance the urban environment, but also to reach out to educate the community at large. We seek to do this by bringing art into the everyday lives of neighborhoods and communities in a way which is meaningful to them. We share a deep commitment to making artworks accessible, both physically and conceptually, to viewers from diverse backgrounds who may not be regularly exposed to the arts.
Mixcoatl is an Aztec name in the náhuatl language, and it means "The Milky Way." The Milky Way is many stars blended into one galaxy. This Is symbolic to us because our dream and visión is to bring together many Indigenous cultures to represent in one store.
Mixcoatl specializes in authentic, original Indigenous handmade arts, jewelry, and clothing from all the Américas. We want to share our culture and keep our traditions alive. We want to support all the artisans by bringing these authentic crafts to our beautiful neighborhood called La Mission.
Source: Connie Rivera and Ricardo Peña, owners of Mixcoatl
