Support the HSAC Community and the Art of Screen Printing

Dear Friend,

On behalf of the Haight Street Art Center’s Board of Directors and staff, thank you so much for your support this year. You, our donors and patrons, are who make it possible for us to fulfill our mission to educate, inspire, and foster positive cultural change.
 
As 2021 comes to a close, the Center looks back on a productive, creative, and wide-ranging year, one that featured exciting community events and enriching educational programs along with cutting-edge exhibitions that deepened our ongoing exploration of the rich history of San Francisco poster art. 
 
Like all cultural organizations, we are especially grateful to have been able to provide our programming despite the repercussions of the pandemic. That work continues, and we have an ambitious and exciting roster of exhibitions and events planned for 2022 that will raise awareness, spark interest, and cultivate understanding of San Francisco’s powerful countercultural history, legacy, and deep roots in the cause of social justice.

HSAC’s Impact at a Glance: 

Developing Safe Outdoor Exhibitions

When the pandemic forced us all to close our doors, we responded by developing the Haight Street Art Center Garden Gallery, a safe outdoor space for the community to continue to enjoy our exhibitions. The Garden Gallery is home to our social justice shows and serves as a forum for advocacy, promoting social and cultural diversity in the arts.

Providing Enrichment

The arts connect us on many levels, and we are proud to have launched our community elder program, which delivered art supplies to isolated elders in the Chinese American community and curating an exhibition of their work in our Garden Gallery during Lunar New Year. Featuring beautiful messages, screen-printed posters and remarkable artwork, the exhibition supported the campaign to stop hate against Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders. In keeping with our mission to share our work widely, we brought the exhibition to neighborhoods throughout San Francisco with our innovative Haight Street Art Center Artmobile. The free posters we gave out not only helped spread the word and make friends but also made a nod to the historic tradition of free posters that was a feature of the Haight-Ashbury movement in the Sixties.

Honoring Legends

The Art Center hosted a pair of exhibitions this year that paid tribute to icons of poster art. In the spring, the Center mounted an ambitious career retrospective of legendary Big Five poster artist Stanley Mouse, featuring seminal images and masterpieces along with little-known and never-exhibited paintings. Our fall show introduced the far-reaching and formative impact of Tea Lautrec Litho, the print shop whose work made the San Francisco poster renaissance of the 1960s possible. That tradition was also on display during the summer, when the Art Center staged a month-long pop-up show called Furthur Magic, featuring 1960s psychedelic poster art and photography in Golden Gate Park’s Hall of Flowers. In the democratic spirit of that movement, in October we provided a live demonstration of the art of screen-printing at the Outside Lands festival, featuring Marq Spusta.

Delivering Arts Education

Art Center educators led a poster-making workshop at Willie Brown Middle School, where students could express their thoughts on social justice issues that impact their daily lives. The Art Center later hosted the SF Skate Club in its Print Studio, partnering with renowned poster artists Jeremy Fish, Mike Giant and Morning Breath, who led a hands-on program in design and screen-printing.

Building Community

In June we opened a moving and powerful community-driven exhibition, Queer Visions, focusing on the unique power and historic range of queer art and experience, showcased by historic queer spaces such as the STUD tavern, the power of printmaking through the Queer Ancestors Project, the photography of long-forgotten iconic bars, along with eloquent and moving stories about coming out and finding chosen family. In July, we printed the work of pioneering Black Panther artist Emory Douglass, to help the St. John Coltrane Church raise funds for their vital community efforts.

Connecting Generations

In solidarity with indigenous elder and youth artists, we hosted a program focused on sharing the stories and traditions that influence and continue to speak to the activism around indigenous issues. We hosted a live screen-printing demonstration where we engaged passers-by in ceremonial performances and provided posters to raise awareness on Indigenous Peoples Day. Artworks on display now at the Center honor the power and enduring significance of this vital project.

We accomplished so much this year, and with your help, we will continue to provide educational programs that serve local communities and amplify their voices in 2022. Please consider making a tax-deductible donation today.

Your gift will also allow us to fulfill our mission to honor San Francisco’s rich history of poster art, building on that democratic and crusading vision of public art that supports our communities and heritage. With your help, we can ensure that those ideals remain a source of pride and vitality, offering everyone, including youth and elders, the benefits of arts programming.

With your donation, the Haight Street Art Center will continue to provide thoughtful, engaging activities and exhibitions that build community, bridge divides, and educate and empower through art. Your gift will inspire young artists to follow their passion and express their visions, enable elders to record their wisdom and share their experience, and empower our neighbors to participate and take action to express their hopes and dreams of a more just, inclusive, and democratic community.
 
Here’s wishing you and yours a happy and healthy holiday season and new year.  We can’t thank you enough for your support of the Haight Street Art Center.
 
Warmest Regards,

Kelly Harris

Executive Director, Haight Street Art Center
kelly@haightstreetart.org