Dullroar

At Market St. and Duboce in San Francisco, thee's a trippy mural (shown at right - click on it for a larger version) all about the wonders of reading. I especially like the way the books blend into houses. As Joe pointed out, this mural has something in common with the South Side Goodwill mural that I blogged about back in February. That mural is also about books (and the weird faded bluish green people who reach for them). I think I like the style of the Pittsburgh mural, but the San Francisco mural is a lot more lyrical.

The books in the picture are: Chaim Potok, "The Chosen", Gabriel Garcia Marquez's "100 Years of Solitude", Maya Angelou's "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings", "The Art Book", Cervantes' "Don Quixote", J.D. Salinger's "Catcher in the Rye", and Douglas Adams' "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy". An eclectic mix, but all good.

Now that you've put up with my hack criticism, for more information about the mural, try this page. It's evidently part of a larger "Bay Area Mural Awareness Month" program. That's one major difference between Pittsburgh and San Francisco's murals: SF murals are usually documented somewhere. I keep trying, but finding information about Pittsburgh murals is always a challenge. (Disclaimer: I only look for information about the web, so differing amounts of Internet penetration into various cities yadda yadda yadda blah blah blah, don't sue me.)

Posted by Andy at 02:06 PM | Permalink

On the way from one side of San Francisco to the other, Joe and I passed Arriba Juntos's building (on Mission between 14th and 15th), which is painted with an amazing mural (shown at right - click on it for a larger version). The rest of the block looked a little desolate, which only emphasized this mural. On the lower right of the mural, there's a scroll with some writing on it:

We're blessed to have a mother who comforts our souls with summer breezes, cleansing our bodies with every drop of her sows. Respect her kindness, her love, and her nature. Never throw oil into the stormdrain and always recycle... don't allow the sacrifices made for the future and offered by Earth to have been in vain.

To end on a random note, Arriba Juntos seems to go by its initials, AJ. My hometown synagogue, Adath Jeshurun, also goes by AJ.

Posted by Andy at 02:03 PM | Permalink

Gizmodo has a blurb and some pics of trompe l'oeil murals on decorated telco cabinets. Awesome.

Posted by Andy at 03:50 PM | Permalink

On the side of the building at 421 Main St. in Half Moon Bay, California, there's a mural that "pays tribute to the traditions, hard work, and spirit of the men and women who founded the Coastside." Or at least, that's what the plaque next to the mural says. It's interesting how the artists pieced together the component images collage-style. And who could argue with a picture that puts the church on one side, the jail on the other, and the people in between?

By the way, the mural was painted by Adriana Gallego and Claudio Dirochea. You can click on the image for a larger version, but I have to say, there's a much better version of the picture online, here. I think the photographer for that picture used a ladder to escape horrible perspective skew (tm).

Posted by Andy at 10:38 AM | Permalink

On the corner of Brody where it crosses Market in San Francisco's SoMa section, there's a video game mural painted on the side of an antique shop. There's Donkey Kong, Q*Bert, Space Invaders, ghosts from Pac Man, an Atari joystick, and don't miss the "1 UP" and "2 UP". And as Joe pointed out, the Mercedes coupe that's parked below Q*Bert probably dates from about the same era as these video games.

The picture at right is just a detail from the mural. Click on it for the whole shebang.

Posted by Andy at 10:57 PM | Permalink