We Are San Francisco / Somos San Francisco

Chinese artist Zhan Wang used stainless steel pots and pans, as well as silverwareto create San Francisco cityscape

Must apologize for my long silence. Have been concentrating on staying healthy and been busy in my studio creating. I am now headed into my busiest time of year which is Dia de los Muertos, Between now and early November I will be preparing, painting, jewelry making and adding my own style of folk art for purchase.

One of the main projects I'l be working on is an installation for SOMArts Dia de los Muertos Exhibit. This year the title is: “Visions at Twilight”.  

“Visions at Twilight” is evocative of the loss of culture and people being felt in the Bay Area now—in this time of displacement our Day of the Dead exhibition focuses on the evictions of families, artists, cultural centers, and non-profit spaces, calling on artists to question and challenge the people and policies that are destroying the cultural fibers of the city and the Bay Area. "

In working with this theme, I wrote a poem / statement that gives some insight into the installation I'll be building. The title is We Are San Francisco / Somos San Francisco.

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What is San Francisco to you?

Change, change.

Shifting, shaping

rapid, thoughtless,

minimize, multiply,

erase, recreate.

Homogenized beauty,

suburbs in the city.

A rainbow of people,

fade into

shades of grey.

Onslaught continues,

more land, more money,

more buildings, more restaurants,

more evictions.

This change to fear or face

for those who stay,

whose soul remains?

Perhaps like the serpent we must shed our skin.

We slough the old,

return anew,

reaffirmed, reborn, renewed.

Still here, united still,

to proclaim, to remember, to connect and communicate.

We are San Francisco.

We breathe in the difference

and exhale community.

The serpent sheds it’s skin

and we and our generations remain.

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Will be posting with some work in progress pieces for the installation and will also be promoting the event as well Get ready!!

Hope all is well and sending healthy and positive thoughts to you all.

Martha