Transcripts For SFGTV 20110725 : vimarsana.com

san francisco is home to a renowned civic art collection that includes a comic works iconic works by local and national artists integrated into our public buildings and six basis. the arts commission has struggled to take care of the priceless collection because of limited resources. in an effort to gather more funding for the maintenance of the collection, the art commission has joined forces with the san francisco art dealers association to establish art care, a new initiative that provides a way for the public to get involved. the director of public affairs recently met with the founder and liquor local gallery owner to check out the first art care project. many san franciscans are not aware that there is a civic art collection of numbers almost 4000 works of art. preserving the collection and maintaining it is something being addressed by a new program called art care. it is a way for citizens to participate in the preservation of the civic art collection. with me is the creator of the art care program. welcome. the reason we wanted to interview you is that the artist in question is peter volkas. why is he so important to the history of san francisco art? he is a very famous ceramic ist. knowing the limitations of clay, he got involved in bronze in around 1962. he was teaching at the university of california, berkeley. your gallery celebrated the 50th anniversary of continuous operation. you are a pioneer in introducing the work and representing him. i have represented him since 1966. i was not in business until 1961. he made a big deal out of working in clay. the things he was doing was something never seen before. it is a large scale bronze. it has been sitting here of the hall of justice since 1971. talk about what happens to the work of art out of the elements. the arts commission commissioned the piece. they did not set aside money for repair. it has slowly changed color. it was black. it has been restored. it has been restored to the original patina. there was no damage done to its. i do not think there were any holes made in it. they have been working on it for six or eight weeks. it is practically ready to go. i am very excited to see it done. over the course of the arts in richmond program, we have added almost 800 works of art into the public space. maintaining that is not something that the bond funds allow us to do. this is why you came up with the idea of art care. i hope we get the community going and get people who really like to be involved. we will give them a chance to be involved. if you are interested in art, this is a marvelous way to get involved. there is work all over the city where every year ago. there is artwork all over the city wherever you go. my idea was to get people in the neighborhood to take care of the pieces and let the art commission have the money for the bigger pieces. i was talking to the former president of the arts commission yesterday. the 2% ordnance is something he helped to champion. it is all over california and other states now. we really were the forerunners. it is a wonderful thing to bring the community into this now. people have seen art being put into the community. this has not been touched by any graffiti. it just faded over time. it is so open here. there is nobody watching this. i think that is a plus