As I think about what I am thankful for this Thanksgiving, I am thankful for all of you. I started this blog a few years ago but I could not have grown it to what it is all by myself. Thank you to all of the artists who bring constant delight and surprise into our days as we move about San Francisco. Thank you to our community of readers, galleries and contributors who help us figure out who created different pieces around San Francisco and who inspire us to continue sharing and creating this blog for all to enjoy. HUGE Thanks to Jane and Naveed who work very hard keeping this blog going. It’s all the small moments like finding this elephant in the dark on my walk home that keep me amused and inspired and thankful.
Lot’s of love and gratitude,
Chloë
French street artist JR Inside Out Project on Market St in San Francisco
Last year we wrote about Frenchman’s JR project “Inside Out”. He created a global art project to show personal identity through art and also reflect the faces of who we really are around the globe. A year later there are still faces popping up around the city. Right now you can see the posters on the wall on Market Street at Golden Gate Avenue in downtown San Francisco, Ca.
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Bottom picture by Max Erhman, Insect by Jet Martinez. Surfboard by Ian Ross.
We recently attended the opening for Chroma, An Exploration into SF Street Art Culture that is on display at Gensler.
Gensler is a global firm of architects, designers and planners who work on small projects like designing wine bottle labels to massive projects like the 2016 Rio Olympics where they led a consortium of architects and planners on developing a master plan. They have been sponsoring art exhibits for 25 years in their offices around the world. In San Francisco they do them quarterly.
Michelle Heinemann of Gensler who curates their shows is a fan of street art and a friend of Max Erhman (EON75). This quarter she organized an exhibit to showcase the art of six local emerging artists whose work can be be enjoyed on the street and in offices around the Bay Area. The exhibit is at Gensler’s hip SoMa office space. The work of each artist is displayed separately in several rooms, lobby space and corridors, much like it would be enjoyed in a normal living or office environment.
Their quarterly shows are open to the public. Chrome is on exhibit until December 14th. You can visit their office at 2 Harrison on The Embarcadero in downtown San Francisco.
About Gensler
Gensler is a global firm of architects, designers and planners who work on small projects like designing wine bottle labels to massive projects like the 2016 Rio Olympics where they led a consortium of architects and planners on developing a master plan.
What? Graffiti 101 class at 1AM SF in San Francisco, Ca
Have you ever passed by graffiti writing on a wall and wondered what it said? I certainly have. I spend hours trying to decode it for Street Art SF so when I recently discovered that 1:AM Gallery teaches a class on how to decode graffiti, I signed up for it.
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For months someone has been letting out their heartbreak and relationship drama all over the streets of San Francisco. We’ve been calling him the Street Breakup Artist. The messages of spite, heartbreak, and anger are appearing in the Marina/ Pacific Heights neighborhoods. We hope these aren’t a commentary on what it is like to date in SF!?! It’s a fascinating piece of insight into San Francisco dating from the male perspective because in general tales of heartbreak and dating difficulty in SF tend to be more vocalized by women. In the press and amongst my friends, tales of the difficulty of dating men with Peter Pan syndrome are more likely to gain attention. One of our regular contributors, Catherine, has captured the majority of the Street Breakup artist’s writings. If anyone knows the street breakup artist we would love to hear the breakup story that goes with this rant. As with many epic stories, this one may be forever shrouded in mystery as to what actually occured. Fortunately, we all have imaginations 😉
Meet Catherine
Catherine Cason is a contributor to Street Art SF. She regularly captures pieces in unexpected places in Pacific Heights, Russsian Hill, Nob Hill and the Marina areas of San Francisco. Catherine is a fashion merchandiser at Sephora. Hint: if you want to be up on the latest trends in nail polish follow her instagram. She has a personal style blog about all things she finds fabulous in life called The Merchant Project. Read Catherine’s take on the street break up artist.
Endless Canvas is an online zine that documents writing and street art around the Bay Area. We went to see their art show, SPECIAL DELIVERY last weekend and feel it is something not to be missed. It is open to the public again this coming Sunday September 30th from 12-6. More details here.
Special Delivery is a large scale mural exhibition featuring a crazy awesome number of artists from Oakland / San Francisco Bay Area. 3 stories of a warehouse are completely covered in street art. The variety and sheer number of beautiful pieces were breathtaking. There was no way for us to capture everything there in our first visit. Over time, we will try to get the pieces we did photograph into each artist’s archive on Street Art SF.
A little more convincing 😉
Special Delivery Bay Area 2012 Trailer from Mapache Films on Vimeo.
Our friend Ari Mir, CEO of Pocket Change, an Android gaming payment solution company, wanted to get a large piece of street art done inside of his new office space in SOMA and a piece done inside his apt. After discussing his requirements and style preferences, we linked him up with the guys at the gallery, 1:AM on Sixth in San Francisco. 1:AM worked with Pocket Change to clarify their ideas and arranged for Jurne and Toro to create this fun mural that is reflective of their business. It truly is a stunning installation piece that weaves in their logo and corporate concept so well.
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Jurne
We spend so much time on the street looking at other peoples characters, we needed some street art alter egos of our own. I love the simplicity of Kage’s characters so I asked him to create street versions of us. Here is Kage‘s signature character.
Here is what we look like in real life.
We love how Kage turned us into characters on mailing stickers. They capture little bits of each of our personalities so well.
Finally, Chloë is in Adobe Creative Suites 24/7 for work and iphone filter obsessed so she distressed them a bit for the about page.
This was my (Chloë’s) first year at Burning Man. I was blown away by the amount of street art there especially by San Francisco and East bay artists. The quality of some of the work was amazing. Inside my camp Ideate, we had shipping containers masterfully decorated by Ian Ross and Max Erhman (Eon75). They were absolutely stunning at night when they were washed with lights. Unfortunately I only managed to get some photos of them during the day while we were setting up.
I was mainly there for the experience and to do lighting for my camp. I didn’t have my camera with me the majority of the time as I was going with the flow, so I didn’t capture some of my favorite pieces or do justice to Ian’s and Max’s pieces in our camp. But, I couldn’t resist sharing some of the pieces I did capture. Next time, I will plan ahead of time how to keep a camera protected on the playa and in dust storms 😉
We’ve been on vacation amazingly off the grid to the wilderness of Utah and Burning Man but street art never sleeps. We saw some amazing pieces while we were gone. We can’t wait to share all the backlog of what has been going on in San Francisco with you and the amazing graffiti from Burning Man (a lot of San Francisco artists representing and some pieces from Utah as well.) Sorry we missed meeting a few of the artist who passed through town. Thank you for all your notes and we will answer them as soon as we can.
Much Love from the Street Art SF Team
Zero Publishing is releasing a book about Cryptik’s work and will feature a few of our photos. The book is called Cryptik: Eastern Philosophy. We love his work and style and have previously published an interview about his movement meant to wake people up to a higher level of consciousness. His work is large and scale and a unique style mixing amazing calligraphy and large graphic typically two toned wheat paste pieces.
Read more about it on the Huffington Post – The New Book CRYPTIK: Eastern Philosophy Introduces the Artist
Whether you know who Hugh Leeman is or not, you have probably seen his work around the streets of San Francisco. His pieces are hard to miss. They are massive, graphic yet humanistic, strong and minimal in color, reminiscent of a postage stamp typically featuring a compelling face in the center and a cryptic QR Code in the corner.
There is a sense of familiarity to his work. The faces feel so recognizable, it’s as if I should know who the subjects of the pieces are. I often wonder if the person is someone famous and always feel like I just can’t pinpoint who he could be. Who does Hugh Leeman paint and what is the story behind his art? The Bold Italic found out in a compelling video interview of Hugh at work in his apartment. The people are familiar, but why they feel recognizable is more wonderful than I imagined.
Contribute to Hugh Leeman’s Project
You can purchase a t-shirt from Hugh’s web site or scan the QR code at the end of the video to donate to Hugh’s “Voice to Voiceless” t-shirt project. Stop by White Walls Gallery to pick up one of his paintings when they exhibit his work.
*FAQ – What is a QR Code?
A QR Code is a 2D barcode originally developed by the automotive industry that embeds any type of data – a website link, an image, a vCard (contact card) etc. There are many free QR Code readers that you can download for your iPhone or android. The codes are everywhere right now so download, scan and have fun. Next time you pass Hugh Leeman’s work, check out the subject’s story.
