Public Art Proposal Display
Art Proposals for Herz Recreation Center Public Art Project
The San Francisco Arts Commission is conducting a review process to choose an artist to create a work for the new Herz Recreation Center at Sunnydale Ave. and Hahn St. The artwork should be a community asset, promoting peace and harmony. The artwork should also reflect the identity of the surrounding neighborhoods, while being appropriate to the Herz Recreation Center and contributing to its welcoming community environment. Three artists were chosen as finalists by a Public Art Selection Panel to design site-specific proposals for this artwork opportunity: Miguel Arzabe, Natalya Burd, and Sanjay Vora.
Basket(ball) Weaving is inspired by the woven basketry of the Ohlone people- the first known inhabitants of the land. The Ohlone baskets were often given as gifts and used in important community ceremonies, much like how in the textile tradition of my Bolivian heritage, fine textiles commemorated significant events. To begin the design process I will partner with Mercy Housing in the Sunnydale Neighborhood to host a series of three art workshops. We will make colorful posters within the theme: The Community at Play. These posters will be cut into strips and woven with another poster that portrays a basketball Earth held in a pair of hands. The colorful palette is a celebration of the diversity of people who call the area their home now. The pattern is inspired by the basket motifs. Note that the portraits depicted in the proposal design are placeholder images that will be substituted with the posters created by the community in the art workshops. The resulting paper weaving design will be rendered into a 9’ x 6” wide by 8’ tall Byzantine smalti glass mosaic on the Recreation Center’s facade by the fabricator Mosaika. The individual pieces of glass are half an inch wide or less. Basket(ball) Weaving is my gift to the Sunnydale community. I hope it draws people together to play in a spirit of vibrant inclusion - a welcoming greeting for a variety of community recreation.
For the exterior wall of the Hertz Recreation center, I used a close-up image of a Monterey Cypress tree, a symbolic tree for Mclaren Park and San Francisco-which was originally introduced to the Bay Area in the 1880s. This was almost at the same time as the development of the Sutro Forest and the Sunnydale neighborhood. The image of the tree is placed on colored glass and mirror panels, that slightly change its appearance depending on the light and the time of the day. I hope for viewers to be engaged in the tree's movement through space and light and to be immersed in the peaceful presence of the tree (viewing it from top to bottom). Additionally, I hope the vibrant, multicultural Sunnydale Community comes to light via the interchangeable colors of the glass panels.
Throughout time, joy and play amongst family and community have been universal to the human experience. The Herz Recreation Center and adjoining plaza is designed for this very purpose--for gathering, for playing, and for experiencing joy amongst the Visitacion Valley neighborhood and greater community. I think of my piece as being born from a reflection of what was, is, and will be in the spaces of the Herz Recreation Center Plaza and surrounding neighborhoods. Comprised of 36 colorful and uniquely painted ceramic tiles, and 36 mirror¬polished stainless steel tiles, this experiential and interactive wall piece will celebrate and reflect the multiracial, multicultural and intergenerational joy and play of this vibrant neighborhood. Through a composite visual depiction interspliced amongst actual reflections, visitors will experience the painted visuals of people playing and smiling spread across the ceramic triangles while they will simultaneously "see themselves", the plaza, and the park reflected in the juxtaposing mirror triangles. The concept imagery currently depicted in the renderings are an example of what the various people in the scene could be doing and how they may appear.
Opportunity For Public Comment