In this Faces & Places, we’ll hear from Renee of the recently completed Burnside Mural (one of our Community Partners!) Read on to hear the story behind this colorful & community-driven project!
The blank wall was a pretty obvious canvas, and I thought: why don’t we create a mural?
I contacted the Glen Park Association and prepared a presentation around my idea. In all honesty, I was quite ignorant of the process, but they said, ‘Renee. That’s a really nice idea.’
When folks asked me about my vision, I said, ‘Glen Park has an incredible history. I want to give tribute to the Gum Tree Girls.’ One of the neighbors asked if I knew that one of the Gum Tree Girls still lives in the house next to the wall. That just about stopped us in our tracks! It was a real goosebump moment.
Next, we needed to figure out who was going to be the muralist. Someone sent me a picture of a mural from Twin Walls Murals Company, and their work really stood out. There was something different about it – the use of lighting, the detail, the pallet.
For the design, we surveyed the community. We asked them, ‘what 3 words best describe Glen Park?’ People said lots of incredibly warm, wonderful things about the neighborhood. Many of them described it as cozy, homey, a gem, a village. It was extraordinary.
“I live in Glen Park and walk a lot. During one of my walks during the dark days of the pandemic, I came across a big green monster of a wall – and the wall spoke.”
We gave that information to Twin Walls and did one intensive walk with a local historian. They ended up producing the most gorgeous design – beyond our imagination. At the top of the mural are the Gum Tree Girls, and along the sides are iconic images from Glen Park history, from Mission Zoo to its very beginnings with the Yelamu.
Today, I see groups of kids and teachers stop at the wall daily before heading into Glen Canyon. The whole process has just been incredibly fulfilling.
Since becoming an independent Community Partner, SF Parks Alliance has been super supportive and helpful overall. Our Area Manager has been great and incredibly responsive.
The other big part of this project is a tiled stairway. The artists, Eileen and Collete, also worked on the Hidden Garden and Lincoln Parks Steps. They are two of the most extraordinary, widely recognized mosaic artists in the world.
My advice for others? Just do it. There are problems in SF, absolutely, but you have to do something. It requires patience – things don’t get done overnight. But we should learn to enjoy the process. You meet absolutely remarkable people and there are endless, incredible surprises along the way.
I have countless ones that I could talk about, as recently as a few days ago when I met the children of the Gum Tree Girls. To see them in front of the walls was very powerful. One of their daughters said to me: ‘Renee, my mom died young and the grandchildren never knew her, but because of this mural, they always will.’”