This mural elevates arts education in San Francisco’s public schools and celebrates the outstanding arts educators who have inspired our young people in the classroom and beyond. The imagery include large-scale portraits of SFUSD arts educators from a variety of disciplines who have had a demonstrable impact on the youth of San Francisco. We solicited nominations from the SFUSD community, and these 6 educators were chosen using a criteria designed to highlight a number of different priorities. These priorities included the number of nominations received, the number of students who have been positively impacted by the individual, a representation of a diversity of artistic disciplines, and especially an eye toward arts educators who are — like the late Ruth Asawa — women of color or members of other marginalized groups who have substantially contributed to bringing arts education to underserved communities and students in the city. The featured educators are (in order from left to right in the design) Elvia Marta, Andi Wong, Monina Sen Cervone, Dr.John Calloway, Annette Ribeiro, and Tara Siegel.

In a nod to Asawa’s love of gardening, the mural includes a variety of flowers reminding us all to “give people their flowers while they’re still alive”. The types of flowers in the mural are a few of the ones found in Laguna Honda Hospital’s garden, as well as apple blossoms which symbolize teachers and teaching. The portraits and flowers float above a purplish night sky, which alludes to the timeless and awe-inspiring quality of outstanding teaching and the ability to inspire students to think and dream beyond pre-conceived limitations.

On the left side of the design there is lettering that says, “We are the music makers. We are the dreamers of dreams”. These are the first two lines of a poem called “Ode” that was written by the English poet Arthur O’Shaughnessy and first published in 1873. The poem celebrates and champions the role of the artist in society, and those lines in particular have been alluded to many times in recent popular culture.

On the bottom right of the design there is a rectangle with text that will include the names of the six educators pictured, a list of other educators who were nominated but are not pictured, other credits, and a QR code that will take viewers to this website with more information about the project.

~ Nico Berry, Muralist. © 2024