Monday, September 12, 2011

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.

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