Guest Nomad: Public Art in San Francisco

This week’s Guest Nomad is Kirsten Alana. Kirsten is a recently-single photographer and avid traveler who learned the hard way in 2009 that the secret to happiness doesn’t include only fulfilling the expectations of others, while ignoring her own desires.

She now tries to live each day as if it were her last, fully pursuing her love of adventure while also trying to serve others in big and small ways wherever her travels take her. You can check her out online at her website and twitter account.

As the daughter of an artist who did many murals on many buildings during my growing-up years, I’m intensely fascinated by public art. Just ask some of the brides and grooms who I’ve posed in front of graffiti.

Show me a mural on the side of a building and I get a little giddy. That is a backdrop just waiting to be taken advantage of in my opinion. Never mind that actual graffiti is still considered destruction of property to many. I’m a fan!

So, it is probably no surprise that I make it a habit to take a walking tour of every city I visit and one of my main objectives is to find all the public art I can.

Museums are wonderful, and I most certainly visit those whenever possible, but public art has one advantage over most museums: it is free. And usually charged with political and/or social opinion that I almost always learn from.

During a recent trip to San Francisco, I was quite pleased to find it a town of abundant public art. No matter the neighborhood – from Dolores Park to The Mission, everywhere I walked I was able to find public art to marvel at and photograph.

While some art was more hidden or subversive, some was blatant and often famous in one way or another. Some murals directly paid homage to famous artists, such as Frida Kahlo. Some art was evocative of historic periods long past, like the age of Art Deco.

I even had one extensive conversation with a shop-owner who seemed more proud of the mural on the side of his building than he was of the shop he owned.

As a photographer, and a woman descended from artists, it’s mostly likely not shocking that I have this fascination. But I hope you will agree, looking at these images, that public art is something we should cherish and try to preserve whenever possible. I also hope it will make you more aware of art in the places you travel to and live in.