The Sky A Sea As Well

To celebrate Fort Mason Center for Arts & Culture’s first 50 years as the nonprofit steward of one of San Francisco’s most beloved places—a historic waterfront campus in the Golden Gate National Recreation Area—we’ve commissioned San Francisco artist Leah Rosenberg to reimagine our military architecture with her exuberant color palette. Rosenberg uses vibrant color and patterns, including patterns found in nature, to transform buildings and public spaces.

For her large-scale mural suite, The Sky A Sea As Well, Rosenberg adorns the Bay-facing, north facades of our three landmark piers with images drawn from “day shapes”: three-dimensional geometric forms (usually balls, cones, cylinders, or diamonds) that communicate a ship’s mobility status. Substituting the standard black for vibrant color, Rosenberg crafts a new system of symbols to address the Bay—perhaps to new arrivals just now approaching San Francisco, or to those longing to return to it.

This new work riffs on an earlier celebration in our campus history. Fort Mason, as the San Francisco Port of Embarkation for the US Army, greeted soldiers returning from the Korean War with an exuberant stars-and-stripes makeover of its piers. Paired with the Fort Mason band, a coffee and donut service, and Elsi Norwood singing “My Hero,” the utilitarian military transport buildings were transformed through color, music, and hospitality.