About the artist:

Johanna Poethig is an internationally exhibited visual, public, and performance artist. Over the years, she has collaborated with many different artists, professionals, communities, and cultural groups. The work you see here is specifically from a mural project in the Tenderloin District of San Francisco, CA. You can contact Poethig at jpoethig@mindspring.com.

______________________________________________________________________

New Mural in SF

Poethig and Wofford, mugging and working on new mural in San Francisco’s Tenderloin. Expect more progress posts as the project continues over weeks to come.

_________________________________________________________________

Week 4: Tenderloin Heights

Civic Center Post Office Mural: Street Art/ Mural Performance Painting/ Social Theater

It’s either “Tenderloin Heights” or “Tondo (famous slum in Manila) in the Tenderloin”.  Our scaffolding is periodically inhabited.  There are sleeping things stuffed in the tree next to the second level.  I call it the “Garden Level” .  We look over the top planks gingerly every work day hoping for no surprises. What’s worse, a tag or some human dung. Hmmmmm.  Hard to say.

The police are not around this week.  People are corralled into this neighborhood.  Arrests seem very arbitrary. There is no space in California prisons and clearly not enough mental health services.  An anti Drug War demonstration came down the street last Friday.  The police were all around that.  There was also a bomb scare at the Federal building 2 blocks down so it crowded up on our block that day. A little too cozy. A blind man knocked over a blue jar of paint and it splatted on to the sidewalk.