Lower 24th Street is in the center of San Francisco’s eclectic and predominantly Hispanic Mission District. It runs along a tree-lined street known as “The Heart of the Mission.” The stretch of 24th Street running from Mission Street to Potrero Street boasts a vast number of colorful and unique specialty stores, restaurants, taquerias, Mexican bakeries, fresh produce grocers, butchers, cafes, and art galleries, as well as the greatest concentration of murals in the city.

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The Mission District is San Francisco's oldest neighborhood, dating back to the completion of Mission Dolores by Spanish priests, soldiers, and ranchers in 1776. Many immigrants of Irish, Italian and German descent settled in the area after the Gold Rush of 1849.

By the early twentieth century, the area was home to a high concentration of movie theaters and a bustling stretch of stores on Mission Street, dubbed the "Mission Miracle Mile."
Following World War II, many residents moved out of the neighborhood to the rapidly developing suburbs. At about the same time, the neighborhood began experiencing a new immigration wave from individuals coming from Latin America.

Contact: Erick Arguello
Lower 24th St. Merchant and Neighborhood Association
lower24thst@aol.com

Mission Artists

2929 24th Street: A New Museum
Abner Nolan is a San Francisco-based artist and educator. His work has been included in exhibitions at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, the Nelson Gallery at UC Davis and SF Camerawork. In 2006, Nolan produced a series of posters for the San Francisco Arts Commission’s Art on Market Street program, and a monograph of his work was published this year by TBW Books. Nolan is currently an adjunct professor in the photography program at the California College of the Arts.

3135 24th Street: Ms. Teriosa
Kelly Ording was born and raised in Northern California and received her BFA from the San Francisco Art Institute. She has been involved in exhibitions throughout the Bay Area, the U.S. and Internationally including Triple Base Gallery (San Francisco), New Image Art Gallery (Los Angeles) and Ichi (Tokyo, Japan). Kelly has worked on several projects with Bay Area artist, Jetro Martinez, including murals with The Clarion Alley Mural Project, Mission District, San Francisco as well as Elementary School No. 5, Florianopolis, Brazil.

Jet Martinez is a Mexican-born, San Francisco- based painter and muralist. In addition to exhibiting paintings throughout the country and internationally, his public works can be found in San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York, Arizona, Colorado, and in Mexico, Brazil and Switzerland. Jet is passionate about public art, and as an organizational member of the Clarion Alley Mural Project, he aims to fulfill a vision of a more colorful, engaging and imaginative San Francisco.

2782 24th Street: We Built This City
Californian-artist Tahiti Pehrson’s work seeks to examine the memorialization of memory. Born to a Bay Area art teacher, art was always present in daily life as a language. Growing up in early years on the coast of Northern California and the wilderness of the Gold Country Foothills, nature is a prominent theme. Later, immersed in the blooming skateboard scene of the eighties and early nineties, Pehrson designed skateboard graphics and traveled in search of art in squat artist colonies in Europe. Attending school at the San Francisco Art Institute and showing internationally in galleries and streets, Pehrson continues to cut paper scenes and create ephemeral art.

Triple Base's ongoing project, 24th Street Promenade

The Jelly Donut at 3198 24th Street
Artist: Allison Shields
Installation: Untitled

A work-in progress, this mural will be painted inside the donut store depicting the neighborhood cityscape. The painted view will give visitors a view of the colorful architecture that would be seen if a wall did not exist.

Sunrise Cafe at 3120 24th Street
Artist: Clare Haggarty
Installation: El Alter de Recuerdos de Calle 24

Haggarty has created a souvenir mug display in the window of the Sunrise Restaurant. However, these are not the mass produced mementos seen in your average gift shop. Instead each mug is a unique portrait of the past and present one-of-a-kind businesses on 24th Street. The specialty shops, cafes, and restaurants depicted mirror the variety of people who live in the neighborhood. The mugs simultaneously serve as a record of how the neighborhood has changed and how some places have stood the test of time.

Accion Latina at 2958 24th Street
Artist: Matthew Rana
Installation: Canto de la Calle

In collaboration with the bilingual newspaper El Tecolote, artist and writer Matthew David Rana will produce a special edition of the newspaper based on material found in its archive. This project highlights El Tecolote's 40 year history of citizen journalism and radical cultural work in the Mission. The special edition of El Tecolote will be available at the newspaper's regular distribution points in mid-January 2010. For more information visit: http://news.eltecolote.org/news/

2904 24th Street
Artist: Jerome Waag
Installation: Twenty-four Pelican Calls

Waag has set up a neighborhood survey office in a vacant restaurant space, conducted through the public pay phone operated by The Pelican Group. The artist will call the phone at random, letting the phone ring until someone answers. A list of twenty-four questions concerning the neighborhood will be the starting point for conversation. Snippets of conversation will subsequently be displayed in the storefront window.

2867 24th Street
Artist: Kenneth Lo
Installation: Trophy Store

Who do you wish you could be? What do you wish you had done so far with this single human lifetime? The answers our imaginations present expose an underlying vulnerability and an unfulfilled longing. We ask children what they want to be when they grow up. This project asks a similar question of adults, and then seeks to present the idealized answer as a plausible reality. Working with select participants in the neighborhood, Lo has created a window into the dreams and aspirations of a community.

Tony's Market at 2751 24th Street
Artist: Zachary Royer Scholz
Installation: Tony Tony Tony

Scholz has repainted the sign running above the windows of Tony’s Market. Some time in the past, two Coca Cola sponsored signs replaced this once hand-painted sign. This project involved removing the dingy signs and painting new signage on both facades of the corner store. The design of this new sign gives Tony’s Market a brighter and more positive presence within the community.

Roving Projects:
Lynn Marie Kirby: 24th Street Listening Project
7th day Adventist Church, St. Francis Fountain, Center Nail Salon, the AA Meeting House and the Brava Theater (on designated days)

Listening brings quiet into the frenetic noise of our time by pausing to focus on what we hear - it is about focusing attention. Kirby has been listening to sites along 24th Street. She has taken notes from these listening sites and placed these sounds, now as language notes, into the forms found at these different locations--signs, programs, menus, price lists, brochures and posters. For the Listening Project, you are invited to listen actively with Kirby on designated days. Listening times and locations are posted on the Triple Base web site www.basebasebase.com and may be reserved by calling (415) 643-3943. At the end of the shared listening period, listener's notes will be added to the accumulation materials recording the shared experiences.

Forrest Lewinger: Untitled (Signs)
This project is made up of the comedic and tragic things we may find ourselves doing during times of economic hardship. By combining phrases found in love letters and internet scams, Lewinger has created a disjointed narrative whose protagonist embodies ideas of desire, the need for companionship, and the conflation of economic and emotional distress. The texts will be worn on sandwich boards along 24th Street on the 1st and 3rd Saturdays through January 31, 2010.

Elaine Buckholtz: Wandering Night House
On December 18 & 19, from dusk into the evening , Buckholtz will wander the the San Francisco streets with a portable light cart, dousing the Mission Corridor street facades with subtle light projections.

Amber Hasselbring: Mission Greenbelt: Lower 24th Street
Hasselbring will sow wildflower seeds in tree basins, window boxes and sidewalk planters along the Lower 24th Street Corridor. The seeds will germinate this winter and bloom in the spring. In March 2010, she will conduct a botanical survey to measure the outcome.

Other art happenings and community resources

• Casa Sanchez - Donating food to the launch party.
• La Parilla Grill - Donating food to the launch party.
• Tio Chilo - Donating food to the launch party.
• L's Caffe - Donating food to the launch party.
• Galeria De La Raza: Galeria de la Raza will host Pachanga! an annual art auction on Saturday, November 21st from 7-10 p.m. Works are available for preview on Friday, November 20th from 7-9 p.m. Studio 24 on the corner of 24th and Bryant, will be open to provide the public the opportunity to purchase items fine crafts by local artists and inquire about Galeria’s programs.
• Triple Base Gallery: present Serena Cole's first solo exhibition, I Wanna be Adored. The artist’s iconic figures are exquisitely rendered yet often dark and haunting, leaving the viewer to question what is missing or wrong.
• Precita Eyes Mural Arts & Visitor Center: Precita Eyes Muralists partners with Mission Arts and Performance Project and hosts a holiday bazaar and book signing with live music by DJ Special K, contributing artists to sign books and of course original artwork by local artists on Saturday, December 5.
• Acción Latina: Acción Latina presents: 2009 Encuentro del Canto Popular. Progressive Latino musicians from both sides of the Bay will come together to inspire social change through an eclectic mix of music, ranging from Chicano Hip-Hop to Reggae-infused Flamenco. December 4 and 5.
• Brava Theater Center: Presents Me, Myself and I Series, four different tales from theatre/performance artists that will surprise and awaken your imagination and inspire you to write your own tale! November 19 – December 3, 2009 (World & Regional Premieres of solo works)
• Mission Cultural Center for Latino Arts
• Red Poppy Art House: On the night of the Art in Storefronts launch, Red Poppy will host borderOUT, a collaborative of queer immigrant artists as they present "Pa' ti, pa' mi y pa' todos!" a presentation of theater, live music and spoken word by Maria Machetes, Joel Molina, Carlos Oxford and Trilce Santana. $10-12 admission. Doors open at 7:30 p.m. Show at 8 p.m.
Murals: Balmy Avenue
• Mission Girls
• Mission Economic Development Association (MEDA)
• Quetzalcoatl: mosaic snake sculpture