.

The strange shapes lurching over the pollarded trees of Civic Center Plaza are not homeless shelters — they are an “environmental sculpture installation,” entitled The Upper Crust, by Patrick Dougherty. The eight-foot tall structures are made of  18,000 lbs. of willow saplings interwoven into the sycamore trees. No fastenings were used; instead, the saplings were bent and twisted through the branches.

The installation will run through November.

.

.

The sculpture in Philadelphia’s JFK Plaza (“Love Park”) is fair game though. Here’s a photo I took a few years ago.

.

More than one hundred examples of work by San Francisco artist Maxwell Loren Holyoke-Hirsch will be on sale at Tiny showcase at 7:30 EST, July 15. Via San Francisco Art & Design Lover.

.

Alton Kelley, one of the pioneers of the SF psychedelic graphic arts movement, has died. Kelley and his longtime collaborator Stanley Mouse helped to fashion a style that featured bold colors, play with figure-ground, allusions to art nouveau, and wildly subversive typography. Psychedelic artists like Kelley were forerunners of the more grunge-oriented illegibility movement in graphic design of the end of the twentieth century.

But, as in this poster for a tribute to Chet Helms — despite its brash colors — Kelley at times showed a tendency to restraint and even classical balance in composition. He was one of the people who defined an era in the city, and I’m sorry to see him go.

.

Victor Arnautoff studied at the California School of Fine Arts before going to Mexico, where he worked as an assistant to muralist Diego Rivera; his subsequent work shows a strong Rivera influence. He created several murals in the Bay Area during the 1930s. Above is City Alive, which is located at the base of Coit Tower. Arnautoff was influential in developing the art program for the San Francisco landmark. A close look at his contribution shows the Daily Worker and other leftist papers on the newsrack — but no Chronicle.

Arnautoff also did several paintings for the Roth Building in Palo Alto. Commissioned by a co-founder of the Palo Alto Medical Clinic, the paintings celebrate medical progress. “The Exam,” below is said to have caused traffic accidents when unveiled. Other locations of works by Arnautoff in the Bay Area include the chapel in the Presidio and the library of the San Francisco Art Institute. Arnautoff taught at Stanford University from 1939 until 1963 and then returned to Russia.

.

Source of images: landaz’s photostream and homeravenue.com.

.

Vicki Saulls does interesting ceramic sculpture. The image above is from the North Beach pool and clubhouse in San Francisco. The work was commissioned by the San Francisco Arts Commission.

I’d like to show you her beautiful California native plant ceramic tiles. But that image is running with a copyright notice, so I can’t. This is why I urge you to consider replacing copyright notices with creative commons licenses.

The image is from GypsyRock’s photostream. GypsyRock has been documenting San Francisco graffiti for some time, having amassed a photoset comprising 1110 photos.

What has always struck me about graffiti, throughout the world, is how essentially conservative it is. You might expect that such a transgressive medium would give birth to a chaotic range of expressioin, but in fact there are a few main styles that you see over and over again in different elaborations.

With such a large photoset, the graffiti depicted in GypsyRock’s images vary in quality, but some strikingly original and expressive examples are included.

Gallery 415, located at 49 Geary Street, features work by emerging and mid career Latin American artists. It’s great finally to see a gallery in the city devoted to this large, diverse, and creative region. I think Gallery 415 will be celebrating its first anniversary this weekend. It is currently displaying work by Claudio Roncoli of Argentina. Shown is Pata Negra, by Luis Luna Matiz of Colombia, from the gallery’s inaugural show a year ago.

I learned about this gallery from Namastenancy.

.