 Hi, it's a great pleasure to be here and share the work not only that I contributed to but represents hundreds of artists in San Francisco and many many different writers the work was conceived in a rather cinematic approach So that you can ramble through it the way you ramble through a street Carlos Santana wrote the introduction you have writers like Guillermo Gomez Pena and Francisco our con Jaime Cortes and many many others included in it and today I will read you a little excerpt from the introduction at That I wrote called with and without permission The best way to view the murals of the mission is through the cracked window of the Mexican bus that regularly tours the neighborhood Inspired by the festively decorated buses in Mexico often named for girlfriends or romantic landscapes Our bus is called El volado the flirt God is my co-pilot is painted alongside and slogans making fun of the conditions of the roads in The rear Cove of the bus the South American mural is Carlos Cordova has painted a scene of never forgotten home Saturated with nostalgia for relaxation palm trees and beaches at sunset The windshield wipers keep rhythm with the music Our guide asks Cornelius the driver if it's okay to whisper directions in his ear Yes, he replies as he steers sharply. I like women whispering in my ear the New York Times calls the Mission District Eclectic eccentric Electric millions of international visitors come to the Mission District for a very different look at this country Maybe San Francisco's reputation for speculation innovation and bohemian pursuits Reinvents itself each generation as the oldest section of the city the mission neighborhood has attracted The aloni conquistadores and missionaries as well as the Irish Asian Caribbean and Latino settlers Artists and alternative thinkers are part of the diaspora from the drier parts of the American landscape Like the low east side of New York or the left Bank of Paris The mission is a cafe society that scoffs at excess Complains about money drinks the elixir of art and action and provides its own poetry and myth-making Part of the spectacular appeal of the neighborhood is its outdoor gallery Which reveals a rich creative life and provocative attitudes The mission has the highest concentration of mural making in the country There are hundreds of murals in a quadrant of 30 blocks a figure many scholars believe approaches that of any city in the world The Mexican mural movement WPA painting traditions civil rights and United Farm Workers movement influenced the mission murals From this rich historical legacy the mission mural movement or muralismo is an unabashed contemporary style that exerts International influence the artists who paint new life onto drab surfaces do more than choose a surface to mark muralismo is a political community aesthetic that changes the way everything looks and everyone sees mango and jalapeño sweet and scorching themes of art and revolution Flourish with the tricks of magic realism murals mix the impossible and the ordinary in a monumental tableau and Mission muralists claim a territory of pictorial anarchy rich with social and spiritual upheaval They practice with anecdotes malleable folk idioms and fears mission muralism Collectively chronicles a fractured narrative Belonging in theory to the people schooled and unschooled huddled together on the common turf refried and Decorated every tacharilla is an elaborately decorated place with murals The companion the fire of the salsa the roast of the carnitas the sense memory of the mission You can't separate mission muralismo from what feeds it what it hungers for what it remembers and what it dreams The mission has been San Francisco's nerve center since it was the end of the Camino Real No one is afraid to mix art and politics in the mission They are la vida clenched fists volcanoes cactus mothers and children low riders Popaka tepoto warriors carrying women calendar art murphing into manifestos and memorials the mission district is a cultural laboratory for call for public art home to a host of Radical organizations the Symbianese Liberation Army help Patty Hurst in a Victorian house by Procedo Park The myth the history of the mission has a lot to do with the waves of radicals who came here to escaped Failed revolutions elsewhere says Chris Carlson historian a center for activism the mission continues to Vigilantly support a long-running show of art Provocateurs I have a lot more to read but I'm going to stop there because I've run out of time And I don't want to miss the opportunity to tell you that for the next year The D young will be sponsoring on first Fridays starting November 6th a Series based on mission muralismo. It will include all kinds of fantastic art music talks film Objections and on November 6 many of the hundreds of artists will be there to sign the book. So please join us