Tag: murals

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Historic metal mural from San Francisco’s artistic heyday finds permanent home

Over 10 years after CELLspace closed, the huge metal mural from the art warehouse’s facade is celebrated with a gallery at The Midway

By Allie Skalnik, for MissionLocal (Aug. 26, 2025)

When an artists’ warehouse in the Mission closed its doors for the last time in 2012, almost everything was accounted for.

The artists who had made the space at 18th and Bryant streets their safe haven since 1996 hauled out their supplies, equipment and art pieces. All that was left at the end of their slow goodbye was a massive metal installation: A set of eight 10-foot-tall panels covering the facade of the warehouse. 

Stitched together photo of the Metal Mural with the Stencilada exhibit, c. 2010 (photo: Jane Verma)

Jane Verma, one of the creators of the piece, calls it a “metal mural.” She said it was important to her that it didn’t gather dust in a storage container because of what it represented.

“Because it was on the facade, it was a signal to anyone walking by that there was something interesting going on here,” said Verma. The metal mural on the former CELLspace building facade. Photo courtesy of Jane Verma.

That warehouse at 2050 Bryant St. was called CELLspace (the prefix stood for Collectively Explorative Learning Labs), and it embodied a dream that’s been dying in San Francisco, said CELLspace co-founder Jonathan Youtt.

CELLspace, he said, was “an open call to anyone and everyone that wanted to come together to create a spot where all arts could exist under one roof.” 

In its heyday, the warehouse was a place of boundless creativity. Former CELLspace artists speak of the building reverently. The front entrance led into a gallery before opening up into a 4,000-square-foot main hall. High ceilings and a main stage for performances made it like a “cathedral” for Youtt. 

In this grand warehouse, anything could be brought to fruition. More than 50 artists paid a monthly fee of around $75 for unlimited access to glassblowing, sewing machines, metalworking, a wood shop and an audio-visual studio.

Nestled amid studio spaces and machinery was a community kitchen, and a few CELLspace employees rented space to live in the warehouse, in a small loft soundproofed against the din of the active makerspace.

But rather than a siloed artist community, CELLspace was intricately embedded in the community. The warehouse hosted everything from an after-school program to raves. It served as neutral ground between rival Mission gangs, and hosted weekly roller-skating and B-boy/B-girl events.

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CELLspace PopUp : Metal Mural Opening

CELLspace PopUp : Metal Mural Opening

Friday, August 22, 2025
6:30 to 9:30pm
Exhibit up until September 10
The Midway Gallery
900 Marin St, San Francisco, CA 94124-1217

A little bit of 2050 Bryant Street takes over The Midway Gallery. Join CELLspace artists in celebrating the works, visions, ideas, and futures of a time not so long ago when creativity mattered more than paying rent. After ten years in transition, the Metal Mural from CELL’s facade lives on at The Midway, just like the spirit of all the people that stepped into that hallowed warehouse. In case you forget: “Safety breaks if you got ’em, DIY forever, and arrrrrrrrgh! for all the memories.”

Opening night at The Midway Gallery. (most Photos by Maya Melenchuk – www.mayuchka.com)

Metal Mural artists

Aharon Bourland
Hikari Yoshihara
Tony Verma
Jane Wason Verma
Tom Phillips
Zulu Hurd
Jessica Eberlin

Mural artists

Scott Williams (RIP)
Joel Bergner @joelartista
Leroy Bermudez (Latinism) with TWICK ICP
Icy & Sot (Saman Oskouei and Sasan Oskouei) @icyandsot
Peat EYEZ Wollaeger @eyez
Hugh D’Andrade @hughillustration
Regan Ha-Ha Tamanui @regantamanui
Russell Howze @stencil_archive
Cy Wagoner
John Koleszar @koleszar
DIA

Also Showing

Todd Berman @theartdontstop
Bob Burnside
Richard Bluecloud Castaneda (RIP)
Eran Dayan and Roland Blandy @reunioncreative
Jon Fischer @feather2pixels
Charles Gadeken @charlesgadeken
Michael Kushner
James Sellier (RIP)
spie one

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CELLspace Metal Mural Gets Rehomed

Metal Mural Gets Relocated from Mission Local on Vimeo.

As the fate of CELLspace became more clear in early 2014, I knew that I’d have to deal with the murals I’d been facilitating on the building’s facade. The masonite and wood panels were easy enough to take down and store. I had worked directly with the artists so had been in contact with most of them about the fate of their art. One mural went to the Bike Kitchen (they funded its creation). Jet Martinez didn’t want his and didn’t want it to be saved. Many of the artists were OK possibly selling the panels, with some funds going to my Stencil Archive project. Swoon had no desire to save her art and was sad to know the art space was going away.

While in process, the Bryant St. panels came down a bit too early after a tagger painted throw-ups on about three of the panels in July of 2014. I found out later (one of the tagged artists knew the guy) that this person was shit-faced drunk and didn’t even remember destroying three murals. Two of the murals were significant pieces, one being SPIE’s “All our Relations” from 1996.

Alarmed at the vandalism, I got volunteers to quickly take down the panels I had spent months trying to save and rehome. I caught flack from the folks still in the building and had a very terse conversation with the management there about making the space vulnerable and unattractive. Well, it is a warehouse and you can easily redo the windows with your own plywood. As the months advanced, Vau de Vere had many other issues to deal with in the space, and eventually were asked to leave by the developers who planned to build the largest condo building in the Mission.

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Saving Art from the Condo Boom

Various Works: 2050 Bryant, CELLspace
SF Weekly, Know Your Street Art by Jonathan Curiel

Icy & Sot, with Regan “Ha Ha” Tamanui (Photo in situ; panel taken down prior to destruction of CELLspace.)

On a wall just inside the building formerly known as CELLspace, an artwork delivers a defiant message: “NOT for Sale!” But the message is a lie – the building, whose exterior walls once featured some of the best street art in San Francisco, was sold and is slated for development. Last summer, two volunteers – artist Russell Howze and art editor Annice Jacoby – took down much of the outside art and put it in storage for temporary safekeeping. What’s left on the walls are stickers, tagging, and remnants of art – including faces of Native American men, a monkey with a sign imagining a battle between two well-known street artists (“Hektad vs. Banksy”), and an impressive work by muralist Joel Bergner. Even in its current state, 2050 Bryant’s art potpourri inspires passers-by to take photographs for posterity.

But what about the art that was taken down? Howze, whose own CELLspace work is among the preserved art, and Jacoby are trying to find a patron who will buy the works and display them again. The art includes Bergner’s De Frontera a Frontera, a lyrical, red-splashed work about haves and have-nots in the Dominican Republic, and Icy and Sot’s collaboration with Regan “Ha Ha” Tamanui, Super Hero with Portraits, which has a caped boy standing alongside a gallery of orange-tinged smiling faces.

Though two art collectors outside of San Francisco have expressed interest in buying the works, Jacoby – the former director of performing arts public events at UC Santa Cruz, and the editor of the book Street Art San Francisco: Mission Muralismo – says that, “Ideally, they would remain in San Francisco. They’re part of San Francisco’s fabric. We’re seeking a place where the art will be appreciated, maintained, and available to the public on a long-term basis.”

CELLspace existed from 1996 to 2012, when the art center attracted a roving band of upcoming and veteran artists from San Francisco and around the world. The space is now rented out for parties, yoga classes, art instruction, and the like. CELLspace’s demise hit a lot of people hard. By preserving the work that people once took for granted, Jacoby and Howze are trying to keep the center’s exterior – and its spirit of “anything goes” – alive, even when the red brick building completely disappears as a place of artistic pilgrimage. Jonathan Curiel

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Eight-Panel Metal Mural Needs a New Home

Eight-Panel Metal Mural Needs a New Home

By Andrea Valencia, for Mission Loc@l

Stencilada freshly installed (2009)

CELLspace moved from its warehouse on Bryant Street in 2012 leaving behind a mural like no other in the Mission: a large metal structure that spans elegantly across the building’s front windows. It now needs to find a new owner.

Some half-dozen local artists carefully planned and built the copper and steel mural in 2008.

“There was an old facade here, and we wanted it to be different and nicer -unified, – said Jane Verma, one of the artists who added the spiky steel, grass-like element to the mural that was built in the warehouse space.
“There used to be ugly and unwelcoming screens here,” said Russell Howze, an artist and CELLspace volunteer for many years who organized the first art show meant to be displayed with the mural.

When the volunteer-run art collective CELLspace left the building almost three years ago, Inner Mission took up its legacy, but it is now being pushed out by the new development coming to the block bordered by Bryant and Florida between 18th and 19th Streets.

With the inevitable new development, the metal mural will have to be relocated by May.

Howze, the author of Stencil Nation, has been rescuing  the murals left behind in Cellspace that were still in good shape. With the help of Annice Jacoby, the editor of Street Art San Francisco: Mission Muralismo, he has managed to find buyers for some of them.

As for the metal mural, Verma is firm about wanting to “keep it in San Francisco. We’d like it to continue to be seen by the public, not on someone’s yard,” she said.

“The developer is interested in art,” Verma said, but the mural might not relate to use project.

Howze said that “this one is the hardest one to save, but the worthiest one.”

It’s not just one big piece of metal, but eight intricate panels. Aharon Bourland designed a bold graffiti pattern in red copper that runs throughout the panels. The copper patina gives the rusty mural a rainbow-like effect.

Tony Verma and Hikari Yoshihara worked on the dripping circles and stones that appear to build in size.  The fabrication of the mural took about a year, during which time Tom Phillips and Corey Best, CELLspace volunteers,  helped.

Each one of the eight panels is 10 feet tall and about 3 to 4 feet wide. The central panel designed for the main entrance, which still holds the words CELLspace, is wider. There is also a narrower panel designed for a side door. Removable plywood planters were added on each of the panels.

“I’m impressed the mural stayed for as long as it did,” said Verma. The only missing part in the mural so far is the L in CELLspace.

Howze said the idea of breaking the mural into pieces and handing them out as mementos was discussed among volunteers, but Verma and Howze prefer to keep it one piece.

Unique to this mural’s structure is the space designed underneath each main panel – space designed to be a street art gallery.

“It was meant to have artwork underneath,” said Howze, who launched the first art show with the opening of the metal mural in March 2008. “We had an opening with an art show, Stencilada,” he said.

Today, stencils can still be seen throughout the metal mural. Next door, panels of murals have been taken down and put in storage because tagging took over the artwork on the warehouse walls, said Howze.

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Swiss TV RTS Un takes my tour

Had a great time for a few hours with this journalist and her crew. I chose CELLspace to give a tour and film the shots. Good to see some final clips of murals that have already been taken down before the wrecking ball takes the rest. On and off camera, I spoke of my reservations with the share economy. Called it a euphemism as well as a warning about how one sees work and the ways that the share economy’s work ethic leaks into personal and private time. I also spoke on how AirBNB does NOT pay into the Hotel Tax Fund, which funds the arts here in San Francisco.

Watching this piece, with almost no French comprehension, feels fluffy. Maybe the butterfly and flower animations gave it away. Those are still beautiful shots of the art at CELLspace. And the journalist and crew were very nice, lefty Europeans.