City’s ‘craziness’ rubs off on artwork
Love for S.F. by father, son is evident in vibrant colors
When George CramptonGlassanos walks through the Mission, he can easily point out the different ways he’s painted the city — like the cursive lettering on the glass window of a local bakery, or a mural honoring loved ones who have passed away. His brush has been everywhere, whether San Franciscans realize it or not, thanks to his work both as a housepainter and as a street artist.
Still, while CramptonGlassanos has already made his mark in the city’s streets, a show specifically set to exhibit his — and father George Crampton’s — art is long overdue, said Josué Rojas, the executive director of Acción Latina, a nonprofit serving the Latino community of San Francisco. That’s why Acción Latina, home to the Juan R. Fuentes Gallery, is proud to present the fatherson exhibit, “Livin’ for the City: A Father & Son Paint the Streets of San Francisco,” through Aug. 23.
“Livin’ for the City” is Crampton and CramptonGlassanos’ ode to San Francisco, where CramptonGlassanos was born and raised. The show, which opened June 29, is filled with their renditions of the ways they individually see the city through bold — sometimes neon — colors and surrealist elements. The intergenerational aspect in particular appealed to Acción Latina’s curators.
“When you see their work side by side, you can see it in the borders, the way they design certain things,” said Fátima Ramirez, Acción Latina’s cultural arts manager. “There’s a direct lineage there.”
What both CramptonGlassanos and Crampton have in common is their love for the city, which often finds itself the subject matter of both the father’s work and son’s art.
“I think it’s just the craziness of San Francisco,” CramptonGlassanos said. “We can’t help but be influenced by buildings and cranes and semitrucks, and things that move. So much is going on around us.”
CramptonGlassanos and Crampton also incorporated mixed media into their art show, bringing in signs from businesses and places that no longer exist.
“These are souvenirs of a San Francisco that was,” Ramirez said.
San Francisco has been rapidly changing since CramptonGlassanos’ father first moved to the city from Illinois in 1976 to attend the San Francisco Art Institute, and part of that change has been “scavenged, saved, salvaged, reclaimed” in “Livin’ for the City,” Rojas said.
Rojas sees CramptonGlassanos as an artist who has been preserving the community’s history, long before any exhibit to showcase his talents. He remembers a story of when CramptonGlassanos took it upon himself to repaint a Mission landmark — a Ben Davis work clothes company sign that carried special significance to bluecollar families of the Mission — after it had been graffitied last year. “He acted so fast,” Rojas recalled, believing if that CramptonGlassanos had not done otherwise, the sign would’ve been removed. “He really stayed true to it.”
CramptonGlassanos and his father’s admiration for the city emulates through their artwork at the Juan R. Fuentes Gallery.
“When you’ve been a longtime resident, or when you’re born and raised in a place, you’re sort of wired in,” CramptonGlassanos said. “There are a lot of people in other places, they choose to leave that and find something new and experience a new place, and I’ve always felt that this is where I want to be. This is where I belong.”
“We influenced can’t help by but be buildings and cranes and semitrucks, and things that move.” George CramptonGlassanos