This past Saturday, a new mural was painted on the wall directly across from Blue Bottle and Dark Garden. Created by local artist Zio Ziegler, the entire piece of art, from blank slate to finished product, went up in just 6 hours.
This new mural was sponsored by the Hayes Valley Neighborhood Association's Art Culture and Entertainment (ACE) Committee. President Bill Bulkley worked with committee member Gareth Gooch to turn this often-tagged wall into an incredibly detailed stream-of-consciousness art piece.
Gareth is a local photographer who's documented street art in Europe and the United States. In the past few years, he helped bring Ben Eine to San Francisco to create two murals: "BRIGHTER FASTER" at Hayes & Octavia (now covered) and "GREAT ADVENTURE" at Octavia and Oak.
"Gareth is a big fan of Zio's work" Bill explained. "He had been talking to him about doing something in Hayes Valley when we had a wall. I approached the property manager who gained permission from the out-of-SF landlord after seeing images of Zio's work."
The artist, Zio Ziegler, flew back from Tokyo a few days ago to work on the project. Zio explained to Gareth that the piece is about change. "Without change, nothing new and good can happen," Gareth said. "The doorway with the hands cupped on each side represents the door to the future."
The entire mural, stretching across a large part of Linden Alley, was painted between 9:30am-3:30pm on Saturday. It was filmed by Vibrant Films (along with the works of another local artist, Jeremy Fish) and will be included in a three-part documentary series about the future of American cities.
Bill shared more about the process of how it was created. "Ziegler paints from the subconscious without pre-planning. His detailed line work and patterning is done completely with black spray paint responding to architectural features of the wall."
There's no title yet, but according to Gareth and Bill, one might be coming soon.
If you live in the neighborhood and own a wall that you'd give permission to paint, please reach out the ACE Committee at art {at} hayesvalleysf {dot} org. They want to install more murals throughout the neighborhood and need blank spaces to make it happen.
Head down to Linden and check out the mural when you get a chance. Let us know what you think once you do.
UPDATE (7:45pm): Zio Ziegler's mural was filmed by Vibrant Films, not PBS
