Public Art Proposal Display

Art Proposals for Potrero Yard Modernization Public Art Project - Stairwell on Mariposa Street

Public Comment Period:

August 05, 2024 to August 19, 2024

Proposal Viewing Location

Proposals located at Mariposa St. at Bryant St.
Public Comment
View the Proposals

The San Francisco Arts Commission is conducting a review process to choose an artist to design a glass artwork for the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency’s Potrero Yard. The artwork will be architecturally integrated into the façade of a multi-story stairwell on Mariposa Street (at York Street) and measure approximately 3,800 sq. ft.

The goal of the project is to create an artwork that illuminates and celebrates the people, history, and diverse cultures of the Potrero Hill and Mission neighborhoods and adjacent American Indian and Calle 24 Cultural Districts, and highlights SFMTA’s mission to promote environmental stewardship and provide reliable, safe, and affordable transportation for all. Four artists were chosen as finalists by a Public Art Review Panel to design proposals for this opportunity. They are: Christopher Burch, Juan R. Fuentes, Jet Martinez, and Josué Rojas.

Propuestas de obras de arte para el Proyecto de Arte Publico para la Modernizacion de Potrero Yard

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Christopher Burch

Monday on the 48

Christopher Burch Proposal Board.jpg

Christopher Burch’s conceptual artwork design is inspired by the profound and often invisible connection between public transportation and its impact on culture. Monday on the 48 embodies the resilience of San Francisco's Potrero Hill and Mission neighborhoods, confronting the challenges of gentrification and escalating housing costs. These historically diverse communities struggle to retain their homes, memories, and cultural identity amidst rapid urban change. The SFMTA plays a vital role in bridging people and culture across San Francisco, safeguarding the city's distinct histories and traditions. Through this artwork, the Artist aims to illuminate the strength and spirit of individuals encountered on the 48 bus, celebrating their resilience, and underscoring public transportation's pivotal role in sustaining the city's cultural vibrancy.

Potrero Hill and the Mission have long thrived as hubs of cultural diversity, renowned for their deep-rooted history and tight-knit community bonds. However, recent decades have seen significant gentrification, displacing many longtime residents and altering these neighborhoods' social fabric. Despite these challenges, the spirit of Potrero Hill and the Mission endures, reflected in the communities' steadfast efforts to safeguard their homes, memories, and cultural identities.

The inclusion of diverse flowers in Monday on the 48 symbolizes the resilience and cultural richness of these neighborhoods. The Mexican sunflower embodies faith, loyalty, and adoration, reflecting residents' enduring spirit. The dahlia, Mexico's national flower, signifies elegance, creativity, and dignity, while the bird of paradise represents beauty and excellence. The mariposa butterfly symbolizes transformation, illustrating the evolution and adaptability of cultural practices in these areas.

Monday on the 48 transcends a bus ride, honoring lives interwoven within this journey. It pays tribute to individuals enriching their neighborhoods despite adversity, celebrating their stories and emphasizing public transportation's integral role in fostering a connected and culturally vibrant San Francisco. This artwork seeks to illuminate unseen yet profound connections between public transportation and cultural resilience, reminding us of the community's power in navigating change.

View a larger image of Monday on the 48

Hogar

Jet Martinez

Jet Martinez Proposal Board.jpg

Hogar is inspired by “Arbol de la Vida” (Tree of Life) sculptures from the Central Mexican states of Mexico and Morelos.  These clay sculptures often feature brightly painted tree forms often depicting people, animals and flowers.   They can depict images of life in small towns, or Biblical scenes, or simply colorful representations of Nature. 

In this case, the Tree represents the Mission District and the larger San Francisco community.  The Tree also represents the idea of Home, hence the title Hogar.  The Arbol imagery elicits a familiar Mexican aesthetic that resonates with many other Latin American cultures represented in the Mission District.  While primarily intended as a joyful and uplifting naturalistic image, it is certainly also a nod to the Mission’s beautiful and strong Latino heritage and identity.  Additionally, the vivid natural imagery speaks to Muni’s mission of providing clean, more environmentally friendly public transportation for our community.

Martinez’s conceptual design features several distinct elements. The tree/tree trunk uses the classic Muni red and Muni logo as patterning and symbolizes Muni as a pillar of the Mission and the San Francisco community, with its branches supporting and reaching out to every corner of the community.  The flowers represent the multitude of cultures that make up the Mission District and the larger San Francisco community.  Using color combinations drawn from national flags of many countries, the flowers are meant to be a varied and colorful bouquet.  This bouquet symbolizes the Mission District; A community that finds strength and beauty in its diversity.  At the center of the bouquet, are four larger flowers representing Indigenous cultures and Indigenous knowledge.  Finally, the birds represent us, the members of the community.  The birds move around the tree like passengers on the bus. The birds also represent choice.  The birds could go anywhere, but in this case they stay home, in their beautiful little tree.  The birds represent the choice to remain in the Mission District. 

The final touch, as envisioned by the Artist, is a thin gold outline around all the elements of the composition.  This outline symbolizes the peace and prosperity promised in San Francisco’s motto: “Oro en Paz, Fierro en Guerra (Gold in times of Peace, Iron in times of War)”.

The structure of the tree design features a symmetrical composition.  This symbolizes an ordered structure—harmony.  The birds, however, introduce an element of asymmetry, representing disorder and chaos.  The notion of creating a tension between these two concepts of order and disorder speaks to the idea that our home, our community and by extension Muni, is in a constant flow, seeking to create order and harmony even when disarray is at hand.

View a larger image of Hogar

Transfer to Tomorrow

Josué Rojas

Josué Rojas Proposal Board.jpg

Transfer to Tomorrow is a site-specific tribute to the SF Muni workers, East Mission neighborhood, past present and future community, and the state-of-the-art transportation, housing and educational activities that will take place at the site. The new MUNI yard and housing will take shape in the context of the rich cultural and historical space that is San Francisco. In San Francisco, we hold a strong tradition of creative culture-bearing and art making. At the same time, we are on the cutting edge of technology, innovation in sustainable green practices and the arts.

Transfer to Tomorrow is a celebration, a tribute and a prayer for a more responsible tomorrow. It invites the viewer to think about the natural world, the City of SF, and where ––and how–– we source our energy and transportation.

Artist Josué Rojas has designed a modern approach to a traditional artform. Embarking from the Salvadoran Folk Tapestry in the La Palma style, Rojas’s conceptual artwork design is filled with depictions of wildlife, animals, buses and the natural world. As a native of this neighborhood and a MUNI rider throughout all of his youth, the Artist specifically highlights the working-class employees and ridership of the MUNI System. Utilizing both realistic and posterized imagery for delivery of bright, fun colors, the artwork weaves abstract patterns and formations into a tapestry of color and flowing rainbow—a symbol of hope. Transfer to Tomorrow is an expression of joy, intended to tap into nostalgia and inspire young people to know more about their own cultural and natural roots, including the natural history of San Francisco and the Bay Area.

Transfer to Tomorrow is inspired by the history, current and future culture of the environment and transportation innovation. Muni is a vital service, providing equitable access to mobility and is seen as a vital lifeline for the city. An all-electric fleet of buses to be housed at the site represents a new dawn on the horizon for MUNI, this neighborhood and the city of San Francisco. It is a tribute to past workers while honoring future workers and riders of MUNI.

View a larger image of Transfer to Tomorrow 

Mariposas en la Misión

Juan R Fuentes

Juan R Fuentes_Mariposa-SM.jpgJuan R. Fuentes’s conceptual artwork design represents the diversity of a young family in the Mission community. They are the future Chicanx or Latinx children whose families may have migrated to San Francisco in search of a better future. Included at the bottom of the design is the word “La Misión” mimicking the MUNI logo and Mission community.

The young man is wearing a t-shirt with the word “Aztlán” on his chest. For Chicanos in the 1960s, Aztlán was a spiritual and political guiding force in the Chicano Movement. The homeland of Chicanos is known as Aztlán. Aztlán is the ancestral home of the Aztec people. “Aztecah” is the Nahuatl word for people of Aztlán. The Aztecs are believed to have traveled from the north to what is now Mexico City.

Migration has been a difficult journey for many, and the Mission is a microcosm of this movement of people from Mexico and Latin America. To represent these struggles, the Monarch butterfly was added. A journey that the Artist’s own parents followed, though they were born along the Texas and Mexico border. Fuentes’s parents were forced to migrate first to New Mexico then to California where they settled in Monterey County’s farm labor camps in the early 1950s. The migrant population is what makes up the rich cultural fabric so special to the Mission.

As a printmaker, Fuentes approached his design and concept like a giant poster or a print. The image was carved in linoleum then printed by hand before the color was added. The Artist wanted the light to come through the linoleum cut lines when light hits the glass. He has included a very colorful palette, and the sky has been turned into a mosaic of MUNI wires, resembling a stained glass effect.

View a larger image of Mariposas en la Misión

Opportunity For Public Comment

Please take a few minutes to review these artwork proposals and provide feedback. The proposals are available online at www.sfartscommission.org/calendar/proposal-displays, or accessed by the QR Code below, where you can leave feedback in the public comment form. Comments may also be submitted via email to sfacpublicartcomment@sfgov.org by Monday, August 19, 2024 at 5:00 p.m. PST.

Public comments will be considered by the Review Panel as part of the Final Review Panel meeting where the Panel will recommend one proposal for implementation. Please note that public comments do not constitute a vote.

The Final Review Panel meeting will take place remotely during the first week of September 2024. All Artist Review Panel meetings are open to the public. An agenda for the meeting will be posted 72 hours in advance of the meeting on SFAC’s website under the Public Meeting section: www.sfartscommission.org

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December 18
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1:00 PM to 2:30 PM
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December 16
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2:00 PM to 6:00 PM
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December 11
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2:00 PM to 4:00 PM
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December 09
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1:00 PM to 3:00 PM
Hybrid: City Hall | Rm 416 and Online
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