History
Precita Eyes Muralists Association was founded in 1977 by Susan and Luis Cervantes, who had come to the Bay Area several years before and started a family. Susan Cervantes was inspired by Las Mujeres Muralistas, the first all-women group of collaborative muralists. Cervantes adopted the Mujeres uralists' philosophy of collaborative, accessible, community art. [1]
The organization evolved from a community mural workshop in which the participants designed and painted the mural “Masks of God, Soul of Man” for the Bernal Heights Library. [2] The group signed the piece as Precita Eyes Muralists because the project was a collaborative effort. The name of the organization comes from the fact that most of the muralists were from Precita Valley, which gets its name from Precita Creek. Precita is a diminutive form of the Spanish word ‘presa,’ which means dam; the word ‘Precita’ means little dam. [3] The ‘Eyes’ in the name are what we perceive the visual world with, our own eyes.
After the first mural, the group of artists continued to be interested in creating murals. They completed two major mural commissions and several more portable murals. Two years later, the group applied for non-profit status in 1979. In 1998 Precita Eyes expanded its operations with the purchase of the building at 2981 24th Street, near the well-known Balmy Alley. [4] As of 2007, Precita Eyes had supported nearly 100 murals in the Mission neighborhood, [5]
Precita Eyes celebrated its 30th anniversary in 2007 [6] and continues to conduct several mural projects each year. Recent projects include two international projects, one in Beijing, China [7] and the other in parts of Palestine and Lebanon. Other recent local projects involved the restoration of two San Francisco Parks, Excelsior Playground and Crocker-Amazon Playground. They also host an annual Urban Youth Arts Festival, with artists painting on boards in Precita Park. [8]
Murals are an expression of the culture of the neighborhood; in an article about Precita Eyes, muralist Juana Alicia Montoya said "In the 1960s and '70s, the Mission District became the cultural heart of the Chicano movement in California... and the murals were an integral part of that movement, as was theater and poetry." [9] The book Chicana and Chicano Art: ProtestArte says "Arts organizations such as Precita Eyes continue to support Chicano muralism's original objective: to create public art that authentically represents a community's history and culture." [10]
The Mission District, commonly known as the Mission, is a neighborhood in San Francisco, California. One of the oldest neighborhoods in San Francisco, the Mission District's name is derived from Mission San Francisco de Asís, built in 1776 by the Spanish. The Mission is historically one of the most notable centers of the city's Chicano/Mexican-American community.
The Royal Chicano Air Force (RCAF) is a Sacramento, California-based art collective, founded in 1970 by Ricardo Favela, José Montoya and Esteban Villa. It was one of the "most important collective artist groups" in the Chicano art movement in California during the 1970s and the 1980s and continues to be influential into the 21st century.
Clarion Alley Mural Project (CAMP) is an artists' collective in San Francisco's Mission District. The mission of CAMP is to support and produce socially engaged and aesthetically innovative public art, locally and globally as a grassroots artist-run organization. CAMP is a community, a public space, and an organizing force that uses public art as a means for supporting social, economic, racial, and environmental justice messaging and storytelling. The project is currently co-directed by Megan Wilson and Christopher Statton with a board of directors that includes Wilson, Statton, Shaghayegh Cyrous, Keyvan Shovir, Ivy McClelland, Kyoko Sato, Fara Akrami, Katayoun Bahrami, and Chris Gazaleh. Clarion Alley runs one block in San Francisco's inner Mission District between 17th and 18th streets and Mission and Valencia streets.
Balmy Alley is a one-block-long alley that is home to the most concentrated collection of murals in the city of San Francisco. It is located in the south central portion of the Inner Mission District between 24th Street and Garfield Square. Since 1973, most buildings on the street have been decorated with a mural.
Mission Muralismo was an artistic movement that brought awareness of issues as well as depicted everyday life as lived by the people in the San Francisco Mission District and other barrios around the world. The Mission was an artistic playground for muralists to speak out about injustices and social issues around their city, the country and the world. Latin American muralists voiced their cries for international attention and aimed to create awareness for the social and political problems of Latin America through the murals they painted. The Nicaraguan community especially contributed to artistic projects to shed light on the Nicaraguan Revolution and their struggles from 1979 to the 1990s.
The Chicano Art Movement represents groundbreaking movements by Mexican-American artists to establish a unique artistic identity in the United States. Much of the art and the artists creating Chicano Art were heavily influenced by Chicano Movement which began in the 1960s.
Juana Alicia is an American muralist, printmaker, educator, activist and, painter. She has been an educator for forty years. Juana Alicia, as part of the faculty Berkeley City College, founded and directed the True Colors Public Art program. Her sculptures and murals are principally located in the San Francisco Bay Area, Nicaragua, Mexico, Pennsylvania, and in many parts of California.
The Women's Building is a women-led non-profit arts and education community center located in San Francisco, California, which advocates self-determination, gender equality and social justice. The four-story building rents to multiple tenants and serves over 20,000 women a year. The building has served as an event and meeting space since 1979, when it was purchased by the San Francisco Women's Center. The building is shielded from rising real estate costs in the Mission District because that group has owned the building since 1995.
Miranda Bergman is an American contemporary muralist born in 1947 and grew up in grew up in the San Francisco Mission District where she attended Balboa High School. Bergman is known for of the seven women artists who in 1994 created the MaestraPeace mural, the largest mural in San Francisco, which covers The Women's Building. Most of the murals created/co-created by Bergman straddles artistry and social activism, giving her a space to express both social struggles and cultural celebrations. She now lives in Oakland.
Las Mujeres Muralistas were an all-female Latina artist collective based in the Mission District in San Francisco in the 1970s. They created a number of public murals throughout the San Francisco Bay Area, and are said to have sparked the beginning of the female muralist movement in the US and Mexico. Their murals were colorful and large scale and often focused on themes such as womanhood, culture, beauty, and socio-political change. Patricia Rodriguez, Graciela Carrillo, Consuelo Mendez, and Irene Perez are recognized as the founders and most prominent members of the collective, but other female Chicana artists assisted along the way and even joined later on, such as Susan Cervantes, Ester Hernandez, and Miriam Olivo among others.
Patricia Rodriguez is a prominent Chicana artist and educator. Rodriguez grew up in Marfa, Texas and moved to San Francisco to later pursue an art degree at Merritt College and this is where she learned about the Mexican American Liberation Art Front (MALA-F) and the Chicano Movement. In 1970, Patricia received a scholarship to the San Francisco Art Institute and this is where she met Graciela Carrillo. Together, they created and founded the Mujeres Muralistas, the first Chicana women's mural collective in San Francisco.
Edythe (Edy) Boone, is an African-American artist and activist. She has worked as a muralist, counselor, and art teacher throughout her life in an under-served area in California.
Susan Kelk Cervantes is an American artist who has been at the epicenter of the San Francisco mural movement and the co-founder and executive director of the community-based non-profit, Precita Eyes Muralists.
Elba Rivera is a Salvadorian-born artist who concentrates on realism, surrealism, and abstract expressionism. Rivera focuses on uncovering subjects related with human's dismissal for nature with surrealist and abstract expressionist techniques. She is best known for her participation in San Francisco community mural art movements and for the art piece, Family Expectations, which depicts an intricate composition of several women whose appearances indicates family union.
Marta Ayala is a Salvadoran-American painter and a woman muralist in San Francisco. Her work involves experimenting with colors, themes, etc. She is not tied to a single theme, medium or style. The majority of her work revolves around engaging with the community by collaborating together with other artists and teaching classes. She experiments with various colors and uses easily definable lines in her paintings and murals. Ayala's paintings and murals display a mix of colorful images reminiscent of childhood, earthly materials such as rocks and water with a mix of ancient culture. This is the reason for the word "primitive" to describe her work.
Sirron Norris is an American illustrator, muralist, and arts educator. He is known for his work on the FOX animated television show Bob's Burgers and for numerous cartoon-style public murals, including ones at Balmy Alley, Clarion Alley, and Mission Dolores Park, and galleries around San Francisco. His murals often include political messages, local themes, and his signature blue bear. He has worked with several local non-profits, including SPUR and El Tecolote.
A Mexican American is a resident of the United States who is of Mexican descent. Mexican American-related topics include the following:
Irene Peréz is a muralist known for her membership in the Latina muralist group, Las Mujeres Muralistas and her contributions to the group mural Maestrapeace, at the Woman's Building in San Francisco, California.
Graciela Carrillo is a Chicana artist and muralist in San Francisco and member of the all-female Chicana/Latina artist group Mujeres Muralistas. She is a co-founder of Galería de la Raza, a gallery utilized to showcase the everyday lives of the Chicano community through art during the Chicano Civil Rights movement through the Chicano muralist movement.
Nancy "Pili" Hernandez is an Irish Chicana interdisciplinary artist and activist. Her art often portrays climate injustices, with a key topic being water pollution. Her artwork is intended to promote changes in climate policy, and spread awareness about climate change.
