Brian Barneclo's Caltrain Mural

My contract job in Silicon Valley ended last week, just in time for the opening of San Francisco's Social Season, which will allow me to give faithful readers more cultural and political fixes. (The San Francisco Opera's 9/11 is coming, I promise.)



One of the joys of the last week of the contract job was taking Caltrain every morning, and watching Brian Barneclo's huge mural along the tracks near the downtown Caltrain station evolve.



Aidan Vaziri wrote an informative article about the piece at SFGate a couple of weeks ago (click here) with the following quote from the artist: ""It's all about this wall," he said. "It's just so perfect. In my mind I think, why wouldn't it have a mural?"

The article also mentions: "It took three years of negotiations with the city's Redevelopment Agency and the Mission Bay Community Advisory Committee to secure permission from the wall's owner at the Crescent Cove apartments and then Caltrain, whose property the piece faces. Barneclo said he was determined to see the project through."



Barneclo is an authentic outsider artist, who doesn't go through commissioning committees whether they be from the Art Commission or Burning Man or any other institution. "It's all about this wall." I admire him enormously and am thrilled that San Francisco Caltrain passengers are soon going to be dreaming of this mural as they sleepily pass by.

Barneclo's Systems Mural Endures

One of the joys of Caltrain, the old-fashioned Peninsula public train system, involves slowly passing by the curved, 600-foot-long Systems mural when leaving or entering San Francisco's 4th and Townsend terminal.



The wildly ambitious mural was painted less than two years ago by Brian Barneclo, and I was curious how it would age in the elements.



The short answer is fabulously.



Barneclo's mixture of whimsy and serious commentary, along with his restrained color scheme...



...is a provoking reflection for its hordes of commuting workers who are cogs in a larger capitalist system.



Most of them hardly notice the mural as the train goes by, wrapped up in their own mobile devices and lives, but Barneclo's gift to San Francisco always manages to brighten my mood.

CalTrain Commute to Super Evil Megacorp

For the last nine months, I have had a permanent, full-time job in Silicon Valley that requires a two-hour commute each way involving two Muni buses, a modified bullet Caltrain, and a shuttle van from San Carlos to Redwood Shores.

The San Francisco Muni portion is a perpetual nightmare with mentally ill people acting out in front of horrified captive audiences, but I have fallen in love with Caltrain.

Unlike Muni, the predominantly cute, smart young commuters on Caltrain have usually taken a shower, and are a remarkably diverse mix of characters from many countries.

An incidental pleasure is passing the massive Systems by my favorite living muralist, Brian Barneclo while being rocked back and forth and groggily waking up on the old-fashioned Long Island Railway style train ride.

At the San Mateo station, there is a computer games startup with the all-time great company name of Super Evil Megacorp.

I recently pointed out the sign to a seat companion, a very expensively dressed female lawyer, and she smiled, "At least they're owning it."

Next to Super Evil Megacorp, yet another Brian Barneclo mural has recently arisen, and it's a colorful beauty.

Every Peninsula town with a Caltrain station should commission Barneclo for their very own mural. The series would be a wonder.

Red Door Coffee Opening with Brian Barneclo

The four corners at the intersection of First and Howard Streets in downtown San Francisco each have their own coffee shops after the opening of Red Door Coffee in a new location on Friday.



There is a Specialty's Bakery outlet on one corner, a Noah's Bagel on another, and a Peet's Coffee and Tea across the street, but they are all corporate chains, and it doesn't say "Four Barrel Coffee, WiFi and hip cafe digs" on a Google Map as it does for Red Door Coffee..



During the Pineapple Express downpour on Friday afternoon, they held a lively opening party with free coffee, beer and wine, food, and live music.



I was invited to the event by my favorite artist in San Francisco, Brian Barneclo above, who had been commissioned to paint a mural for the kitchen.



In comparison with some of Barneclo's monumental murals around town, such as System near the 4th & King caltrain station or his Food Chain mural in the Mission, the Red Coffee piece is a relative miniature.

Brian Barneclo's Food Chain Mural

A huge new mural is going up in San Francisco this month...



...on a 200 foot by 25 foot white wall on Shotwell Street between 14th and 15th Streets and Folsom and South Van Ness.



The wall is to the right of a brutal, industrial-style parking lot...



...that fronts a large discount supermarket.



The artist is a young Indiana transplant named Brian Barneclo...



...and he's a wonderful painter.



In addition, he may be one of the fastest and most prolific artists I've ever witnessed.



At an earlier, stunt-like group show at the Tenderloin's Shooting Gallery, a batch of painters were invited to create a painting in one day with onlookers watching their progress, with a party following the art creation later that night.



I stopped by the gallery at about noon, and saw a couple of dozen people working laboriously upon their various canvases, most of them with only sketched-in outlines.



When I asked where Brian was, they pointed out an area with a large, completed, accomplished painting and said, "He went off somewhere for lunch."



Partly because of his speed, Barneclo is an ideal muralist. To check out his other work, particularly the great Bay Guardian mural he completed on Potrero Hill, click here for his website.



Brian and his assistant Justin ("he's the best!")...



...started work on the mural this Monday, so what you're seeing is four days into their labors.



To get to the "Food Chain Mural" website, click here. It has an address where you can donate money to help pay for the thing, since Brian is essentially doing this huge piece for free.



Or even better, just stop by and watch the muralists at work, and slip them some cash directly.



Part of what is so exciting about this mural is that it's not a derivative, watered-down version of the great Mexican muralists (Rivera, Siquieros, Orozco, O'Gorman) like so many other murals in the Mission.



Brian has his own style...



...and it's extraordinary.

I Sing The Caltrain Electric

After many years of construction, weekend shutdowns, and political maneuvering, the Caltrain system servicing the Peninsula has finally been electrified.

To celebrate the accomplishment, free rides were offered to the public at all stations last weekend from San Francisco to Gilroy.

According to Philip Rohrbough: "This model is called KISS. I love the German language, and this acronym is a classic: Komfortabler Innovativer Spurtstarker S-Bahn-Zug. They were built by Stadler, a Swiss company, in Salt Lake City."

I miss the old-fashioned funk of the previous carbon-burning trains, but won't miss the slowness and bumpiness and constant breakdowns.

Brian Barneclo's 2011 System mural near the San Francisco station is still impressive, even covered in graffiti.

One thing that hasn't changed are the many passengers immersed in their virtual worlds...

...while ignoring natural wonders like the Brisbane Lagoon.

There was an afternoon celebration near the station in downtown San Mateo, with politicians making speeches...

...to huge crowds looking for giveaways at various booths.

At least it was heartening to see Brian Barneclo's mural from 2017 has fared better at its San Mateo location.