Studio 7MAR San Francisco

The studio I work in is a unique place in San Francisco.  For one thing, it’s almost a miracle that we have survived the current gold rush and avarice boom that has pushed out so many other creative spaces over the past five years.  Thankfully, our building management is committed to the arts and non-profits, so here we still are. In addition to being a working studio, our space is also a meeting place of the arts and artists from many disciplines. 

Richard Louis Perri, aka Luckey, has held the master lease on the studio for the past twenty-five years.  He is a San Francisco original, a one-of-a-kind brilliant artist who knows all the local merchants by name and never is seen in public without his trademark porkpie hat.   Here he is, holding court at the studio’s favorite lunch spot, Montesacro: 

Market Street Serenade

The mid-Market Street location of the studio has long been troubled. The population mix at our intersection includes desperate people broken by addiction, mental illness, and/or extreme economic poverty, as well as those who prey on them (e.g., the dealers), and those who make a living off of them (e.g., purveyors within the informal market that thrives just across the street). The neighborhood also includes just plain economically deprived folks who live in the local SROs, government employees, other artists, tech workers, and tourists who occasionally land on the wrong corner.

When we were moving the mural and posting the George Floyd portraits (see below), I noticed that many of the local residents voiced their appreciation of the artwork that enhanced an otherwise grim streetscape. So I decided to add another installation, which I hope will generate some smiles with its whimsy.

The photos below are fairly self-explanatory. My friend, Steph Dodaro, collaborated on this by providing the recording of “Santa Lucia” that you will hear the you click on the QR code. It’s by her grandfather, Lorenzo, who was an Italian through and through. As Steph describes him: My grandpa’s greatest joys were to feed people and to make them smile - he would enter a room and have everyone singing by the time he left it. He would have loved you and you would have loved him. That’s a bold declaration but it’s true”.

Mural Move and Restoration

In 2015, Luckey created a mural for the empty storefront of the old Merrill’s drugstore on Market Street in San Francisco. It measures about 50 feet in length and 10 feet in height. By 2021, it was in sorry shape—having been tagged many times, paint peeling, and covered with soot from the traffic on the street. In August, the old Merrill’s space was leased, so it was time to move and restore it. We completed the project over four weeks in August and September. It was gratifying to experience the public response, which was uniformly enthusiastic and appreciative—especially from people who live in the Mid-Market area, which has continued its decline and deterioration during the pandemic.

George Floyd Portraits

Shortly after George Floyd’s murder in 2020, Luckey proposed a portrait project in his memory. We created two 30 x 40 inch portraits over a weekend in June, 2020. They have been prominently posted on two sides of our building ever since. It has been gratifying to see how protective the community is of them. They have never been seriously tagged, but have been adorned with positive messages. One city worked told me that while he was cleaning graffiti off of the building near one of the portraits, he was warned not to harm it. One night recently someone did apparently try to remove one of them, and as I was refastening it the next day, a young woman approached and asked me not to remove it. When we moved the mural to the building (see above), we moved one of the portraits upstairs, so it now watches over the street from the second floor.

Daily Life at the Studio

Matiz Flamenco performs a "Garrotin" at the studio. Featuring Yuli Norrish dancing, Melina Berkov-Rojas singing, and Stephan Crawford on guitar. Posted on Alcatraz Radio on November 28, 2015