San Francisco, CA
Monica Magtoto’s utility boxes: a healing love for San Francisco
Guerrero Street is a bustling thoroughfare for people making their way through the Mission.
For artist Monica Magtoto it’s an ideal stretch of road to showcase her art.
Magtoto’s work is featured on ten sidewalk utility boxes, seven of which are on the corner of Guerrero, between 14th and 22nd streets. The boxes–usually painted dark green–are used by the city to house electrical equipment for regulating traffic.
“You get people who are crossing through the neighborhood to go more to the Mission side,” Magtoto said. “You get people who are crossing back over to go more towards the Dolores, Noe Valley, Castro side. So, for me, it’s the perfect location.”
Her other three boxes are on Dolores Street, on the corner of 14th and 15th Streets, and on Folsom, on the corner of 14th.
Magtoto is also a yoga instructor and an energy worker. In the latter capacity, she incorporates “reiki, curanderismo, somatic work and other energy work and spiritual modalities.” She painted each of her utility boxes black before layering on images such as hearts, butterflies, candles, suns, moons, flowers, and skulls in vibrant red, yellow, and white.
Each box has a unique design but all have a unifying theme: healing.
“Our city’s been through a lot, and for me, this set of paintings was a little bit of a love letter — like, ‘If I could heal the spirit of the city, this is where I would start,’” she said.
Magtoto is one of the artists selected for the “Paint the City” project backed by two San Francisco-based nonprofits, Paint the Void and the Civic Joy Fund.
The project’s first round includes 24 artists and 241 city utility boxes, 39 of them in the Mission.
Other Paint the City utility boxes in the Mission feature Jane Kang’s Korean-themed murals on Dolores and Church streets, native birds by Claudio Talavera-Ballón and various colorful illustrations, including renderings of city fixtures such as Sutro Tower and the Roxie Theater, by Shirley Lee.
Magtoto, a fourth-generation San Franciscan, said she draws inspiration from her multicultural background which includes Filipino, Mexican, Irish, and Cape Verdean family members, as well as from her connection to the city and its diverse community.
“Like a lot of people in San Francisco, my family was adjacent to the Catholic Church, but my mom was more like, ‘Get the basics and then develop your own way of being with nature and with spirit,’” she said.
As an energy healer, she said, she’s interested in the connection between the physical and the spiritual, and carries that over into her art.
“How we exist in our bodies and how we can attack things from both angles — that intersection is really important to me,” she said.
On one utility box, on the corner of Guerrero and 15th Streets, Magtoto painted a rendering of the Three of Swords tarot card, with white-outlined swords piercing a bright red heart.
“That card is about healing and about removing the swords one by one. So if you find yourself with those three swords in your heart, you can’t really move. Any way you move, it hurts, so you pull each out, one at a time, and deal with it,” she explained.
Magtoto appreciates the attention her boxes get from passers-by. People say, “‘Oh, I saw you painting on Guerrero!’ It’s not often I get to paint and just do my own thing, too. So having this be really authentically me and having people resonate with that and recognize [my work] has been a really high point for me.”
Best of all, perhaps, family members are delighted.
“My family getting to see my work and sending me photos that they’re taking in front of the boxes when doing errands or going out to dinner — that’s the dream, right?”
Santa Rosa prepares for next big earthquake
The Great 1906 earthquake devastated the Bay Area, destroying much of San Francisco and killing more than 3,000 people. The city marked the quakes 120th anniversary this weekend, but whats not as widely recognized is the damage to surrounding comunities like Santa Rosa.
SANTA ROSA, Calif. – While the Great 1906 Earthquake was a centerpiece of news around the world when its massive damage and fire destroyed much of San Francisco and took 3,000 lives, another far smaller, far less famous town, suffered massive damage almost forgotten by history.
Nearly forgotten
On this day 120 years ago, stunned people were digging for survivors two nights after the quake. Like a demon in the night, the Great 1906 Earthquake also came to Santa Rosa also bent on mass death and destruction.
Eric Stanley is the history curator and deputy director of the Museum of Sonoma County in Santa Rosa that supplied these pictures. “Santa Rosa, in particular, was devastated by the 1906 earthquake,” he said.
Survivors were shaken awake as whole buildings collapsed around them or on them. “A good portion, a really significant portion, of downtown Santa Rosa was completely destroyed,” said Stanley.
Many never woke up; crushed to death in their sleep. There were over a hundred people killed in the 1906 earthquake in Santa Rosa that only had 7,000 people in it at the time,” said the curator.
Active fault line
Sixty-three years later, in 1969, a time of budding, but far better science-based building codes, a double shaker nonetheless did significant damage and killed one person. “Even understanding all those things, you kind of at the earlier stage of that in the sixties,” said Stanley.
Today, four of Santa Rosa’s School buildings lie near or on the Rodgers Creek Earthquake Fault, capable of up to a 7.3 magnitude rupture. One is already closed with another due to close at the end of the school year for budgetary reasons.
That leaves two elementary schools, Hidden Valley, alongside the fault and Proctor, on the fault. The school board says both are seismically sound and safe to continue operating. “The two that are remaining open are both the ones that have the potential and the ability to grow because the entire site is not impacted by the fault line,” said Nick Caston, Santa Rosa City School Board president.
Staying prepared
In other words, things can and will eventually be moved around.
“What we’re gonna end up having to do is redesign the campus over the next several decades to have our fields and our parking in the front, which are totally acceptable to be over a fault line and actually move our academic builds and our student-serving buildings to the back,” said Caston.
Ultimately, the pictures and relics museums hold from natural disasters are given to those who come, a lesson and a warning. “Real people went through these experiences and we really do have to be aware of that and do our very best to prepare for those kinds of things,” said Stanley.
The 1933 Field Act requires earthquake-safe construction of schools, with evolving seismic codes as we learn more.
A California sea lion pup found last week on a San Francisco street corner is malnourished but “active and quite feisty,” The Marine Mammal Center said Monday.
The sea lion, believed to be about 10 months old, had apparently wandered into city’s Outer Sunset neighborhood and was discovered early Thursday morning, authorities said.
The pup was spotted near 48th and Irving Streets, one block from Ocean Beach and Sunset Dunes park. A trained responder from the Marine Mammal Center was joined by San Francisco park rangers and police officers to safely corral the pup, now named ‘Irving’, into a carrier crate.
Dubbed ‘Irving’ by his rescuers, Irving weighed in at 40 pounds and is considered malnourished, the Marine Mammal Center said.
“The sea lion is active and quite feisty which is a positive initial sign in terms of general behavior,” the center said in a news release on Monday.
During an exam by veterinarians, a series of blood samples were also taken to determine whether there’s any underlying ailment.
Irving is being tube fed a fish smoothie blend two times per day to boost hydration and weight; offers of whole herring will also begin shortly.
The quick actions by police, recreation and parks staff and Ocean Avenue Animal Hospital gave the young sea lion a second chance at life, said Lauren Campbell, animal husbandry manager at The Marine Mammal Center.
“As a roughly 10-month-old pup in his first year of learning how to forage on his own, this animal has a long road to recovery due to his severe malnutrition,” Campbell said. “We are hopeful that in the coming weeks with continued specialized care that this pup starts to make positive strides toward recovery and release.”
Irving will be held in the Center’s Intensive Quarantine Unit until clearing medical protocols, before likely being transferred this week to a traditional rehabilitation pool pen. A long-term prognosis and potential release timeline are not currently known.
After Sunday’s 3-0 loss to the Washington Nationals, the San Francisco Giants headed back to the West Coast. They’re going back to the Bay Area, too.
The Giants have a date with the Los Angeles Dodgers for a three-game series at Oracle Park starting Tuesday night.
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So, San Francisco probably wanted to get out of Washington, D.C., with a win. That didn’t happen at Nationals Park on Sunday afternoon.
Nationals reliever Andrew Alvarez, the third pitcher used by the team on Sunday, picked up the victory with 4 1/3 innings of work. Giants starter Robbie Ray absorbed the loss, falling to 2-3 this season.
Ray worked six innings, giving up seven hits, three runs (all earned), walking one, and striking out seven Nationals. If the Giants’ offense had found a way to tack on some runs, then Ray’s outing wouldn’t have looked so bad.
The Giants’ bats, though, had eight hits. The big number for Giants manager Tony Vitello to look at in the box score after this one was, well, pretty big. San Francisco left 10 runners on base on Sunday, going 0-for-11 with runners in scoring position. This indicates that San Francisco had plenty of opportunities to score some runs.
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They just didn’t get the job done.
Let’s go to the bottom of the fifth with the Giants and Nationals in a scoreless tie. With nobody out, the Nationals’ Keibert Ruiz connected for his third double this season. Nasim Nuñez scored to put Washington up 1-0.
With one out, Curtis Mead sent a Ray pitch over the left-field wall, a two-run blast that gave the Nationals a 3-0 lead.
San Francisco had a scoring threat in the top of the eighth inning. With runners at first and second base and nobody out, Casey Schmitt grounded into a double play. Matt Chapman, who was on second base, went to third. But the Giants were unable to bring him home.
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Rafael Devers and Drew Gilbert went 2-for-4 at the plate for the Giants, producing half of the Giants’ hits.
The Giants fall to 9-13 this season, sitting in fourth place in the National League West Division. The Nationals’ record goes to 10-12, good enough for third place in the National League East Division.
All eyes now turn toward Oracle on Tuesday night. It’ll be a chance for two longtime rivals to renew their rivalry.
Baseball fans know that the Giants-Dodgers matchups usually are must-see TV.
That’s probably going to be the case once again as Giants fans watch their team battle the Dodgers. Those lucky to have tickets to the three-game series at Oracle Park will show up in Giants colors, hoping to see Los Angeles head back to Southern California with either a series loss or a Giants’ sweep.
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Buckle up, Giants fans. It’s about to get rowdy at Oracle Park.
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