"Alive In The Arts" by Lauren Tolbert, BobCut Magazine

By Lauren Tolbert
December, 2019

I moved to San Francisco with expectations. I wasn’t coming from a place of naivety or experience, neither hope nor a lack thereof. I knew that historically, the San Francisco Bay Area is known for its activist spirit. I had a list of Beat Generation sites to check off — of top museums to visit and historical moments to envision.

But I was also aware of the circumstances I was stepping into — absurd housing costs, an increasingly homogenous culture and an inseparable relationship between the Bay Area and tech. The list of grievances is as evident in national newspapers as it is in overheard coffee shop conversations. The atmosphere was tangible even before I moved to San Francisco from Atlanta six months ago, when any mention of my upcoming move inevitably drifted into “oh'“ territory.

But somewhere between the critiques and the praise, I tried looking for it. For the push and pull relationship that develops when a city finds itself at a turning point. After six months here, I’ve found that the Bay Area’s intersecting artistic and activist communities push on— albeit at a subtler beat.

Despite what every recent article on the city might have readers believe, these communities have sounded an alarm for the issues the city faces for decades. The severity of the circumstances is sharper, but the desire to fight back— the casual tenacity that has long defined the area— is nothing new. Even so, there is a sense of mourning in the Bay Area, and ignoring this sense is a disservice to the groups we owe so much too.

Though I moved to San Francisco for a job, I committed to the move because of all that San Francisco represented— for the historical counterculture, for the overlap of the outdoors and the cityscape, for the joy we all take in complaining about the weather (which isn't that bad, but I’ve yet to live through a winter, so call me in six months).

Every time I visit a favorite bookshop or stop to check out street art, I’m aware of what we all owe our artists. But with any mention of artists in San Francisco, the conversation— and the Google search— always spirals. Bay Area residents, myself included, are on guard, and rightfully so. But rather than complaining, I set out to find a way to support and celebrate the Bay Area’s artist-activists in the most pragmatic way possible.

There are simple ways to go about this, from the volunteer groups to the donation pages. But I’m new in town. I wanted to know who deserved my— and our— attention. I’m not the only Bay Area transplant, after all. My Google searches brought lists of organizations and causes but few answers. I ended up finding my way to a list of upcoming events on SF/ARTS.

The first on the list took me back to the start with a visit to an institution that has witnesses the Bay Area’s shifts firsthand. The UC Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (BAMPFA) is the visual arts center of UC Berkeley, bearing a history that dates back to 1881. Today, BAMPFA engages in cultural dialogue through art and film, inviting its community into these conversations. This atmosphere has defined BAMPFA and its surrounding community for years. 

I met with David Wilson, BAMPFA’s Guest Artist Programmer and a local artist himself, at the museum to hear more. A couple of years ago, I worked in a museum for a bit, growing accustomed to the slow mechanics of a non-profit. But with permanent galleries, drop-in art spaces, and spontaneous workshops, BAMPFA was alive on that Sunday afternoon. 

One of the exhibits Wilson talked me through, the San Quentin Project, displays Nigel Poor’s work with incarcerated men at San Quentin State Prison in Marin County, CA. The exhibition, which ran through November 21, 2019, features photographs and visual documents of Poor’s and from the prison’s archive. 

In support of the exhibition, BAMPFA also offered their “Trace Your Love Line” — therapeutic arts therapy programs on October 20 and November 20, 2019. 

“That’s a workshop that was planned last minute,” Wilson said. “It’s kind of nice that we can also be spontaneous and try and respond to things, which we’ve done in the past, especially if there’s something that happens in the community, and then you feel like you can respond to it.” 

This spontaneity, I discovered, is a defining quality of BAMPFA. The museum is also home to a drop-in arts space, dubbed the Art Lab, inviting the public to use their space and supplies.

“The goal that we’ve identified for ourselves and how we communicate it is that we try and give access to printing to community focus groups and things that are not for sale,” Wilson said of the Art Lab’s purpose. “And also we have a priority of supporting activist work.” 

Before marches or rallies, the Art Lab pulls resources together to help the community create protest posters. They keep these posters on hand, ready whenever they’re needed. 

For the local community, the Art Lab offers access to resources that some may not otherwise have, giving anyone a chance to respond to social developments or even complete personal projects. 

“That’s the hope— to have the informality of the space be kind of like a dialogue around the project with people coming and sharing their experience,” Wilson said. 

Though of course I know otherwise, museums, to me, feel like history— like a moment to look back on but never experience. But BAMPFA is at once a museum and a welcoming public space.

Evidently, I’m just behind, because at BAMPFA, this is business as usual.

“I think the Bay Area has a long tradition of foregrounding political engagement, and this museum has always been very engaged in contemporary thought processes and experimental art,” said Wilson. “So there’s definitely a long history and this is maybe just a new iteration of something that’s been always here.” 

With only six months to my name as a Bay Area resident, I loved the idea that the community, though under immense pressure, is still moving— still making do with what they have and what they don’t have.

Even so, I realize that this idea is a hopeful one. Across the Bay from Berkeley, in neighboring San Francisco, the pressure is, in its own way, perhaps more poignant, with rising costs pushing artist-activists further out of the city with each new rental agreement.

Though I felt this tension throughout the city, some areas feel more strain than others. Before I dove into my research, I had the Mission District muralists in the back of my mind. Since full disclosure is my M.O., let it be known that I don’t live in the Mission. I have no ties to the neighborhood beyond my love for its energy and late-night burritos.

Meanwhile, the Mission is at a turning point, pointedly demonstrating the effects of gentrification. I wanted to devote this subject its due attention, so I deferred to a verifiable source.

Nearly every time I’ve visited the Mission District, I’ve walked down Clarion Alley, spanning one block of the Mission between 17th and 18th and Mission and Valencia Streets. 

The work on this stretch is supported by the Clarion Alley Mural Project (CAMP), a Mission-based organization that champions public art through a social justice lens. Established in 1992, CAMP has since expanded to additional locations and projects, but their primary site is Clarion Alley. Each year, about six new murals are created in the alley, typically centering on social and political issues.

To hear CAMP’s story, I met with Megan Wilson, CAMP’s Co-Director and Steering Committee Member - Director of Development, who’s also a local artist herself. Megan and I met a few blocks away from Clarion Alley at Muddy Waters Coffee House— a no-nonsense spot that offers a welcome break from the $6 lattes up the street. 

“What I think is interesting and what is pertinent to who we are and where we are going is that we grew out of the community,” said Megan Wilson, a visual artist and activist and CAMP’s Co-Director and Steering Committee Member. “You know, being almost 30 years old, this neighborhood was very different. It was not gentrified as it is now.” 

Today, the space is a well-known San Francisco spot. No matter the time of day, I’m never alone in the alley, taking in the murals with tourists and locals alike.

But in the years since CAMP’s founding, the surrounding Mission District has been transformed by gentrification. Housing costs are on the rise, pushing families and business owners who’ve called the Mission District home for decades out of the neighborhood, replaced by those $6 latte sellers (and drinkers). 

Despite the latte jokes, I don’t take the subject of gentrification lightly. People’s livelihoods are at stake, and truth be told, I’d need a higher word count limit and years of preparation to capture my thoughts. So I do my best to support conscious policy and learn from those who know far more than I do— many of whom I had the opportunity to talk to for this piece.

Meanwhile, at its start, two of CAMP’s founders lived on Clarion Alley itself. Yet in recent years, Clarion Alley’s popularity has shifted in nature. 

The alley, Wilson said, is now considered, “one of the most ‘instagrammable’ spaces in San Francisco.” 

In some ways, the organization finds this attention frustrating, watching visitors take photos with the murals rather than taking in the messages of each piece. Hearing this, I felt a bit guilty (full disclosure, remember?), shaking my head at the times I’ve let my camera rather than my head lead me down the alley.

I was surprised, too— for some artists, this attention is covetable. But for CAMP, this is a matter of integrity. Rather than rejecting the attention, however, they found a way to remain true to their original mission.

“Now that we’re a destination and we are receiving so much attention as a space to visit, we’ve taken that and used it to who we are, which is about being by the community, from the community, for the community,” Wilson said. “So we’ve begun to focus in the past 10 years really on being much more of a voice for communities that are marginalized and disenfranchised. And that’s who we are now.”

Today, they use their newfound attention to give a jaded city a moment of relief. 

 “It is depressing in some ways. It’s a bummer,” Wilson said on the state of the Bay Area arts community. “And it was so much more – the energy around the spaces was just a lot more creative and interesting and exciting. It does feel a little bit like the air has been let out. On Clarion Alley, there’s so much always going on. For that space, being a public space that’s doing work that is so controversial and often very cutting edge, I think people welcome it.” 

With that phrase— “like the air has been let out”— I started to get it. The deflation of hope rather than the lack thereof. With that, I kept my search going, looking for more organizations responding to these issues. Though there are several at play, I had the opportunity to visit CounterPulse, an arts space devoted to emerging arts. Ahead of my visit, I spoke with Justin Ebrahemi, Counter Pulse’s Communications Director, about their work.

“CounterPulse aims to provide resources to emerging and experimental artists in the Bay Area, and build a more resilient artist community,” said Justin Ebrahemi, Counter Pulse’s Communications Director. 

With this perspective, CounterPulse feels as aware as they are realistic, responding to community needs with direct action. They offer workshops, classes, and shows to the local community.

 “We often partner with social justice coalitions, social service organizations, and others to build meaningful relationships that continue to strengthen San Francisco's arts ecology,” Ebrahemi said.

To experience these contributions firsthand, I stopped by CounterPulse’s Art & Tech Mixer. The free event, held in their space in the Tenderloin, invited the public to connect in an open forum over shared interests and ideas.

The event felt exactly like what I expected— open, accessible, and forward-thinking. Spending a couple of weeks focused on the pain points of the tech industry, the mixer offered a different take, taking the realities of modern-day San Francisco in stride.

“We hope to inspire people working in other sectors, people who don't necessarily see themselves as arts audiences or artists, to realize the impact of the arts.  Our programing often address social issues.  People come to CounterPulse and get inspired to take action. To build community with people they normally wouldn't intersect with. To build resilience.”

This idea— of community, of seeing the impact of the arts— is where I started and where each person I spoke with kept coming back to. But for many people, “art” is something to visit or to read about in the culture section. It’s not always an integral part of life.

With that realization, I went back to the neighborhood I’ve already spent a few sentences praising. I’d noticed murals by the Precita Eyes Muralists throughout the Mission District since I moved here. With a quick Google search, I found that Precita Eyes is a non-profit mural arts organization focused on beautifying urban environments.

Established in the Mission in 1977, the organization completes murals by request, creating work throughout the city and calling on inspiration from the neighborhoods around them. During the creation process, each collaborator has a voice.

Elaine Chu, the administrative director and a muralist at Precita Eyes, took the time for a phone call to answer a few of my questions. Elaine began her work with the organization as a teenager, remaining devoted into her adult life.

Today, Precita Eyes remains committed to youth groups, inviting young people to contribute to murals and learn more about the process.

“We’re giving them the skills and an outlet to express themselves,” Chu said. “And that’s a tool for social change when they’re able to learn that they can do something positive for the community and to create something that reflects them and their community as well as beautify the neighborhood.” 

But the equalizing quality of Precita Eyes goes beyond the creation process, too.

“There is this love of public street art and also how accessible it is to everyone,” Chu said. “You know, it’s free— anyone can walk by and enjoy the mural that was created. Especially if it’s by people that are from the community.”

Back to that word — community. But despite the accessibility of public art in San Francisco, few people I know feel connected to the artist-activist community, particularly the SF transplants among us. But perhaps that’s our problem, not theirs. In this, I won’t go so far as to say I’ve found a silver lining. Grey, at best. But it was a start.

It’s not that these communities aren’t there. It’s that we aren’t paying enough attention. No matter how distant we feel from the artist-activist community— whether we’re embedded in the community or only beneficiaries— we all owe our artists.

This is not to say that we can’t complain or even that we can’t have hope. But what we need is a brand of hope grounded in realism.

In reality, the difficulties pressing down on the Bay Area stem from systematic and cyclical issues. The effects of these issues are as real as their roots, affecting marginalized groups most pointedly.

The weight of these struggles deserve our attention— all of our attention, if we are fortunate enough to give it. But in the everyday conversations, we can continue to complain, or we can support those who are trying to support us— in a fundamentally practical way.

Some days, squeezed outside of the bounds of the 9-to-5, all we can do is listen. But if we want to give future residents the same liberty, we can’t just acknowledge our artist-activists (or even write an article on them for a magazine).

These communities are doing what they can— to teach, to lead, to fight back. No matter what form our actions take or which cause we feel most attached to, we should be, too. These communities are there (believe me, I emailed most of them). And to those of you who are already with them, thank you. We owe you one— or several.

This article originally appeared in the print edition of BobCut Magazine, Issue 9.