Josue Rojas hovers above the ground, gingerly balancing his stomach on a stool while holding his paintbrush in one hand, face towards the mural forming on the asphalt. He says it’s better than being on all fours.
“It’s particularly brutal work,” says Rojas. “I’m on my knees six to eight hours a day and, now that I’m in my mid-40s, it’s not that easy to bear.”
Rojas has spent the past week working between bursts of rain to create a street mural on 20th and Florida streets for the “Slow Streets, Fast Friends” project of the SF Parks Alliance nonprofit, which commissions murals on slow streets throughout the city.
The mural was finished this past weekend, and now adorns the block where Atlas Cafe, the Southern Exposure gallery, and Trick Dog sit.
Its painting was tough. Besides the long stretches of time on the ground, Rojas fought against the elements to produce a large, intricate mural that will eventually be driven on, walked over, and possibly repaved within the next eight to 10 months. But he says it’s worth it.
“Putting art directly on the street, that’s an exercise in the practice of letting go,” says Rojas. “I do it because I love the art and I love these streets, and I know that it will give people joy.”
The mural features a cornucopia of images of food, weaving together pasta plates, pizza, Asian takeaway boxes, and a large cup of coffee. At the center stands a food vendor holding a boombox in one hand and an ice-cream cart overflowing with flowers in another.
Rojas says the ice-cream seller honors one of the most underpaid and overlooked jobs in the neighborhood. The flowers he pushes in his cart represent the color, beauty, and — in Rojas’s words — poetry the seller imparts.
Rojas grew up only a couple blocks away from 20th Street, and witnessed firsthand how the Mission has changed; Rojas was evicted from the Mission some 20 years ago.
His mural recognizes that change — a fancy cocktail and a latte are featured prominently — while also paying homage to the cultural heritage of the Mission. Multicolored costume feathers surround the mural, a nod to Carnaval, a weekend in which 20th Street transforms into a boisterous party celebrating Latin American culture. An eagle feather also floats at the top, representing the nearby American Indian Cultural District.
Rojas is a longtime and prolific Mission muralist who debuted in 1995. He has painted all over the Mission, including a large, multistory mural of a hummingbird flying above colorful Victorian homes on Bryant Street and a mural on the walls of the Latino Task Force celebrating the San Francisco Giants game in Mexico, showcasing the Giants logo alongside a large quetzal bird and Carnaval performers.
“I’m doing something that’s very traditional, and I’m trying to evolve with the times,” says Rojas, who is 44. “I’m still young. I’m at the age when I can do this, and will do this, for as long as I can. I wouldn’t mind being in galleries, but my heart, at this moment, is with the streets.”
In addition to the 20th Street mural, the SF Parks Alliance has installed “slow street” murals on Lyon, Page and Hearst streets, and plans to expand into the Mission with the 20th Street mural and another on Minnesota, starting this week. The murals, beyond serving as beautification projects, are meant to slow drivers down.
Kyle Grochmal, with the community group 20th Street Neighbors, says the process has been arduous. While 11 slow streets have requested a street mural, only five have received one so far. Residents required a letter from their supervisor, a 30+ day approval from the Arts Commission, and then a final 30+ day approval from SFMTA for a permit to close the street.
During the Covid-19 pandemic, 20th Street was one of many temporary slow streets across the city, and became a permanent one in March 2023 with the help of local businesses like Flour + Water. The street has seen high traffic, despite signage indicating that it is a slow street. Grochmal hopes that the mural will draw attention to this fact.
In the meantime, Grochmal’s group has spearheaded efforts to improve the corridor, including by installing a bench at the 27-Bryant bus stop at 20th and Bryant streets, alongside potted plants and an early photo of Bryant Street. They have also advocated for traffic and safety improvements, including more speed humps, stop signs, and larger, more noticeable “slow street” signage.
Rojas, for his part, says mural work helps him connect to a neighborhood from which he has been displaced. He was evicted from the Mission in 1999 when he was in his late teens and studying art. According to Rojas, a developer knocked on the door of his family home and offered his family money to leave, or to be evicted. After earning an M.F.A. from Boston University College of Fine Arts, Rojas relocated to the Bayview, though he still identifies as a Mission artist.
Rojas says his mural making keeps an ancient art form alive while contributing to a decades-long history of Chicanx art in the Mission. He is also mentoring the neighborhood’s youth: Angel Velasquez, a 20-year-old young artist who got connected to Rojas after watching him paint a mural from a distance, now regularly assists Rojas in his work. Velasquez has painted alongside Rojas every day on the 20th Street mural.
“I couldn’t teach in a classroom setting,” says Rojas, who taught at Eastside Arts Alliance and San Francisco State University. “Now, I take on a new mentee every time I do a mural.”
“Keeping a brush in both of our hands,” adds Rojas, “that’s revolutionary.”
This story has been updated to note that the “Slow Streets, Fast Friends” murals are a project of the SF Parks Alliance.
Would be nice to figure out how to get SFMTA to make Shotwell’s Slow Streets more than merely advisory on the north end instead of primping up the “nicer” stretch of Shotwell to the south with a mural.
ALL slow streets are optional. Drivers are allowed on every single one.
Well, turning an arterial like Potrero into an obstacle course of lane shifts and mistimed traffic lights sure doesn’t help – drivers duck out and hustle down neighborhood streets to try their chances.
Naw, drivers zipped through our streets before the Potrero rework.
The problem is too many straight runs east to west. Anything that makes them turn or slow down is ideal. The slow street signs do that well enough, through drivers try to speed back up mid block.
Anything that makes bicyclists stop at red lights or stop signs is ideal. Oh right, this wasn’t about us vs them, RIP Rudick. Slow streets are a joke, not a solution for either cyclists or motorists in terms of actual citywide transportation safety. They were sold as pandemic protocol easements. These people are liars and that was never necessary even in the first place. It was always a ploy. That’s why even hardly-used “safe” streets are being kept on regardless of widespread opposition in situ from residents – they literally think by inconveniencing seniors, disabled, working class and average SF residents who rely on vehicles (where the glory that is MUNI and BART deficits do not reach, for example) that somehow they’ll save those failing, bloated institutions by increasing ridership slightly. This is their plan. We have other ideas for SF that don’t involve BS or wasting taxpayer dollars placating a yuppie minority “non-profit” dark money group trying to take over the city entirely.
So tired of the drivers-are-victims lament. No need to inject conspiracy theories into the debate.
Again, almost every single SF business whether mom and pop or corporate REQUIRES VEHICLE DELIVERY. You bicyclists pretending to be the victims all the time are truly insane. There have been single digit bicycle fatalities this year. That’s not the case for pedestrians. Project Zero has always been a joke, and at your incompetent expense as a supporter of lies.
Want getting more people run over? Best way, as you suggest, is adding more restrictions that irritate drivers. Most “effective” design: What I double-misdirects that take drivers away from where they need to go, not once, but twice. I see drivers regularly skip that kind of stuff, e.g. circumventing barriers by driving over the adjacent crosswalk. Or, follow it, and just gun it down the street and around the block.
I saw we make it harder and harder for driver to run me over, so slowing them down is one thing I can get behind. I do not care if you are irritated, it is not about you.
Again, it will never be harder for a driver to run you over, and inconveniencing all drivers will only increase the likelihood of that. It’s seriously not about you. If you want more fatalities and more pollution, support Prop K and the road closures that aren’t based on science but on butt-hurt cyclists lobbyists’ feelings, propagated by dark money from Billionaire developer PAC’s. Get real.
Mission Love
P/V
In the Richmond and Sunset these are completely unused road hazards at best, stealth redevelopment by Billionaire dark money interests at worst and most obvious.
But, nice mural. Props.
I LOVE that they shut the highway on the ocean! I just LOVE IT!
They actually haven’t. It will always be a road because of the sewer system, and Prop K’s brainwashed supporters have no idea what a money pit and waste of time they signed onto. Engardio will be recalled. Deal with it snowflakes. 54% of a citywide vote is no mandate. Reality and court costs are the real winners, yuppies.
Carpetbagger Engardio, is that you?
I love that the TRAFFIC on weekends this will cause will prevent you yuppies from getting ANYWHERE CLOSE to Ocean Beach for HOURS, and that every single bicycle fatality nearby will be rightly placed on your transplant SuperPAC shoulders.