Composite image illustrating the artists' concept for "Philosopher's Walk."

Two local artists, Peter Richards and Susan Schwartzenberg, have won the selection panel's recommendation to create the new SFPUC-funded permanent public art work for McLaren Park. Their concept, titled “Philosopher’s Walk,” proposes the integration of granite marker stones, signposts, and seating into the existing park trail system. Images and written reflections on park ecology, geography, history and surrounding neighborhoods would be reproduced on various project components. The proposal also calls for a downloadable map of the routes to be posted on several public websites.

Peter Richards, a long-term artist in residence at the Exploratorium, has created numerous outdoor landscaped installations and public sculptures.  In San Francisco, he collaborated with sculptor and stonemason George Gonzalez on “The Wave Organ” (1986), a wave-activated acoustic sculpture on a jetty in San Francisco Bay, near the Golden Gate Yacht Club.  Susan Schwartzenberg, a visual artist and photographer, is also director of media at the Exploratorium. Her San Francisco publication, Cento: A Market St. Journal, juxtaposed photographs and other graphics with urban history and contemporary narratives. She is currently working on a public art project for the Clara Shortridge Foltz Criminal Justice Center in downtown Los Angeles.
 
Richards and Schwartzenberg will start work on “Philosopher’s Walk” by collecting input from McLaren Park users and neighbors for the final selection of routes, imagery and writings. A community meeting will be scheduled early in 2008, after Arts Commission approval of the proposal. 

The panel’s recommendation will be presented to the San Francisco Arts Commission for final approval at the next regularly scheduled meeting on Monday, January 7, 3 p.m., at 25 Van Ness Avenue, lower level.

The future work—a joint project of the San Francisco Arts Commission and the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission (SFPUC)—is funded by the La Grande Replacement Tank project in combination with other local SFPUC water system projects. Funding is in accord with San Francisco’s public art ordinance.

For further information, please contact Michele Liapes, SFPUC Communications, (415) 554-3211, mliapes@sfwater.org, or Regina Almaguer, S.F. Arts Commission, (415) 252-3215, regina.almaguer@sfgov.org.