ArtSeed Events at Flax Art

Friday, January 28th is ArtSeed Day at FLAX Art & design! All day on that day, ArtSeed artists, families and the board members will be given a 10% discount on materials purchased that could most benefit ArtSeed (a donation drop box will be at Flax). In addition, Flax will donate 10% of the proceeds on those purchases back to ArtSeed. Flax is on Market Street where Gough St. turns into Valencia St. in San Francisco.

Also, please join us on Friday, January 28th 4-6pm at Flax for a reception with refreshments (no RSVP required).

If you would like to attend the ArtSeed board meeting which follows the reception that evening at the store 6-7:30pm, please contact Josefa Vaughan at : 415-409-1761, email: josefa@artseed.org

Exhibition: Hospital Walls – Clandestine Marks at Flax Art Supply

1699 Market St.(at Valencia), San Francisco, CA 94103 Market

Join us in January 2011 for a show of provocative photo documentation made by youngsters and artist mentors of graffiti in the Presidio’s Public Health Service Hospital in 2008 before the building’s recent conversion into upscale apartments.
The project’s original title was Urban Art: 11th Hour

Closing Reception Friday, January 28, 4-6pm

Elaborate graffiti covered the walls of the derelict Public Health Service Hospital in the Presidio before it was renovated to become The Presidio Landmark Apartments. In 2008, a group of youngsters, under the guidance of Presidio-based ArtSeed, documented these walls and works. The resulting photographs are featured in this colorful exhibition.

For almost two decades before its renovation and 2010 opening as rental apartments, the derelict Public Health Service Hospital in San Francisco’s Presidio acted as an immense canvas for graffiti artists of all stripes. Its walls, both inside and out, were adorned with images and texts made surreptitiously, mostly by young people who sneaked into the unprotected building. From abandoned and cluttered patients’ rooms, to kitchens, hallways, exterior walls and even the morgue, lively pictures and words —sometimes scary, oftentimes touching, skillfully rendered or funky but always colorful and provocative — were everywhere to be seen.

The pristine walls of the now-transformed building just inside the Presidio’s Fifteenth Avenue gate are now free of the hundreds of graffiti made over many years. Nonetheless, these works live on thanks to documentary photographs made in 2007 by youngsters, most likely the same ages as the graffiti artists themselves. Administered by Presidio-based ArtSeed, a grant from CHALK (Communities in Harmony Advocating for Learning and Kids) made the project possible. Erin Wallace, student leader of the undertaking, wrote the CHALK request and helped oversee the entire operation. Hundreds of digital photographs were made in the building by about ten students under the guidance of an equal number of adult artists. The Flax exhibition brings together a selection of these documentary photographs.

Founded in 2000, ArtSeed is a San Francisco-based, non-profit, arts-education organization. Its programs include classes at the Burnett Child Development Center in Bayview Hunters Point and Sherman Elementary School in Cow Hollow and a week-long Summer Arts Intensive. Long-term apprenticeships join aspiring and professional artists in ambitious projects that cross-fertilize diverse communities.

e-mail: josefa@artseed.org, phone: (415) 409-1761, www.artseed.org

2008 Participants

Youth Lead Artists, Organizers, and Volunteers: Erin Wallace, Ariana Breall, Jessica Yee, Maxx Garvich, Michelle Quan, Zoriyah Carter. Shariff Hasan, Rebecca Banka, Geru Mabrey, Conor Cooney, Stone Boren, Jesse Jenks, Ian Wallace, Satchel Wilkinson, Francisco Ferrer, Lucas Kane Gillenkirk, Nathan Seastruck, Luca and Eliana Perr, Sydney Van Bueren, Katrina Leung, Aniyah Carson, Christaupher Peacock, Jacob Galvan

Adult Administrative Allies: Laurie Halsey Brown, Matt Boris, Joan Nelson, Allerton Steele, Kevin Quan, James Joves

Summer Intensive Artists and Assistants: Marissa Kunz, Charles Trey Houston, Jiana Watson, Manon Bogerd-Wada, Tom Mogensen, Chizu Houston, Jenny Sultan, Patrick Hector, Josefa Vaughan

Other Artists and Adults: Richard Mitchell, Patricia Diart, Kristen Hove, Tim Armstrong. Christine Jegan, Marc Ellen Hamel, Seth Lower, Felix McNee, Charlie Wilkinson, William Scott, Travis Knapp-Prasek, Alden Jenks, Nelson Cooney, Brannon Boren, Brian Downs, Kate Rees, Liliya Titar & Day Health Center Seniors, Christina Wallace, Lucas Griffth, Dave Seabury, Amy Crumpacker

Also on display:

William Scott painted the Egyptian African American Divas in response to a gift from ArtSeed’s Executive Director, Josefa Vaughan. Upon her return from a trip to Cairo in 2007 she gave him a book on Egyptian royalty and the treasure they left behind. William is one of ArtSeed’s greatest treasures!