Join us for a feast of culinary and visual delights! Live oysters from Tomales Bay Oyster Company will be served at this special opening night reception. Social distance and safety protocols will be enforced.
Saturday, February 27th beginning at dusk ~5pm PST Outside of 2501 Bryant Street, San Francisco, rain or shine
Join us as we consider pinhole cameras inside oyster shells, native oyster restoration at the Presidio and oyster farming and feasting in Tomales Bay.
Healthy oyster reefs are a proven way to effectively reduce water pollution and improve the marine environment. While other bivalves also possess the ingenious ability to clean water while flushing out pollutants as they feed, none are simultaneous symbols of feasting, as is the oyster.
Gwendolyn Meyer
Participating artists and scientists:
Oyster reef panels designed by architecture faculty MARGARET IKEDA & EVAN JONES at California College of the Arts (CCA) provided by JONATHON YOUNG, wildlife ecologist at the Presidio
Oyster shell pinhole cameras by DAVID JANESKO
Two-channel video installation “Consider the Oyster” about Drake’s Bay Oyster company by CHRIS KALLMYER
Video “Heard Above” filmed at Quartermaster Reach by TAYLOR GRIFFITH
Photos from “Oyster Culture” a beautiful book about the rich intersection between oyster farming and culinary culture in the unique region of West Marin by GWENDOLYN MEYER
Natural Discourse, curated by Shirley Alexandra Watts, is again collaborating with Levy Art + Architecture to consider this wondrous bi-valve in a street-front exhibit that will be visible from the street where anyone can view it, 24 hours a day for 8 weeks (best viewed at dusk) at 2501 BRYANT STREET, SAN FRANCISCO.
A Storefront Art Exhibit Opens February 27, 2021, 6 pm to 9 pm outside 2501 Bryant St, Rain or Shine
Join us as we consider pinhole cameras inside oyster shells, native oyster restoration at the Presidio and oyster farming and feasting in Tomales Bay. Participating artists and scientists: Taylor Griffith, David Janesko, Margaret Ikeda and Evan Jones, Chris Kallmyer, Gwendolyn Meyer and Jonathan Young.
David Janesko’s poetic series Forest/Oyster was the initial inspiration for the exhibit. Delicate images of the forest surrounding the Willapa Bay in Oregon are imprinted on the inside of the shells. Jonathon Young, wildlife ecologist at the Presidio, provided us with concrete oyster reef balls and computer-designed oyster panels by architecture faculty Margaret Ikeda and Evan Jones of Architectural Ecologies Lab. These objects are part of a native oyster restoration project at the new Quartermaster Reach tidal wetland at the Presidio. Taylor Griffith’s Heard Above, a 19 minute video was filmed at Quartermaster Reach and will be projected every weekend from dusk to 9 pm. From ecology to oyster farming and culinary delights, Chris Kallmyer will be showing Consider the Oyster a 2 channel video about the last year of the Drake’s Bay Oyster company and a series of Gwendolyn Meyer’s photos from her beautiful book Oyster Culture.
Healthy oyster reefs are a proven way to effectively reduce water pollution and improve the marine environment. While other bivalves also possess the ingenious ability to clean water while flushing out pollutants as they feed, none are simultaneous symbols of feasting, as is the oyster.
Gwendolyn Meyer
Natural Discourse is collaborating with Levy Art + Architecture to consider this wondrous bi-valve.
Natural Discourse is an ongoing series of symposia, publications and site-specific art installations that explores the connections between art, culture, science and site. Founded in 2012 by Shirley Alexandra Watts, a landscape artist, architect and contractor with extensive experience curating, managing and installing public art exhibitions. Projects include the University of California Botanical Garden at Berkeley, Los Angeles County Arboretum and Botanic Garden, and Sagehen Creek Field Station. Natural Discourse has been awarded grants from Los Angeles County Arts Commission, the Pasadena Art Alliance and the National Endowment for the Arts. naturaldiscourse.org
Levy Art & Architecture is an interdisciplinary studio that functions at the intersection of architecture, environmentalism and art. A full-service design firm founded by Ross Levy with specialties in sustainability and construction, it is also an experimental art space. Exhibits typically concern larger issues from social to environmental. The architecture and art mutually inform one another.
Together, these two teams have been working on a series of environmentally-focused art productions in galleries in and around California.
Following the recent reestablishment of seven acres of tidal marshland connected to San Francisco Bay, natural habitat is recreated, and native species — particularly oysters — are able to return to their homes.
Forest/Oyster #22 David Janesko 2015
Working in conjunction with the Presidio Trust and Natural Discourse, Levy Art + Architecture is proud to announce our upcoming art exhibit, “Consider the Oyster: Art, Science & Culture.”
Join us as we consider forests as viewed through oyster shell pinhole cameras, native oyster restoration at the Presidio and oyster farming and feasting in Tomales Bay. Participating artists and scientists: Margaret Ikeda and Evan Jones, Taylor Griffith, David Janesko, Gwendolyn Meyer and Jonathan Young, and Chris Kallmyer.
The art and gallery will be visible from the street where anyone can view it, 24 hours a day, beginning Saturday, February 27that Levy Art + Architecture 2401 Bryant St, San Francisco.
In December 2020, the Presidio Trust unveiled to visitors seven acres of re-established tidal marshland and a new pedestrian trail near San Francisco Bay.
The site is known as Quartermaster Reach, named for the U.S. Army’s Quartermaster Corps, which operated in the area when the Presidio was a military post. The project transforms a formerly paved construction site under the “Presidio Parkway” approach to the Golden Gate Bridge into a beautiful new wetland ecosystem. Creeks now flow above ground along the Presidio’s largest watershed known as Tennessee Hollow to San Francisco Bay through Crissy Marsh, improving the biodiversity of the Presidio. The shallow tidal estuary is the natural habitat for oysters that were once prolific in the San Francisco Bay.
Quartermaster Reach is a huge milestone in the 20-year effort of the Presidio Trust, the Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy, and the National Park Service to restore the park’s largest watershed. The site will allow visitors to enjoy an intimate experience of nature just minutes from downtown.
A high-tech home for the oysters: resin-cast substrates
Featured Art: Oyster Habitats Designed by Architecture Faculty Margaret Ikeda & Evan Jones at California College of the Arts (CCA)
Another area where art + architecture meet with environmentalism are the parametric 3-dimensional oyster substrates designed and fabricated in the Architectural Ecologies Lab at CCA. These are designed to provide a habitat for oyster growth at the newly-opened Quartermaster Reach.
Featured Art: Oyster Shell Pinhole Cameras by David Janesko
David’s pinhole cameras are constructed from nature, in order to photograph nature. He turned Pacific Oyster shells into pinhole cameras that captured images of their forest surroundings. Read more about the project as featured on Smithsonian Magazine. See more photos of these incredible oysters-turned-photograph on David’s website.
Featured Art: Consider the Oyster by Chris Kallmyer
A two-channel video documenting place, culture, and a window into oyster farming in West Marin. It is based off of three basic facts:
Oysters reflect the place in which they are made. This recording documents the process of farming oysters with field recordings and two-channel video.
Oysters are equally, a grounded and celestial food: flavored by the tides, created by the rotation of the sun and moon. They put us in touch with our own position in relation to movement of our planet. Two drones are sounded to represent the sun and the moon, proportional to their gravitational pull on the tidal waters.
Oysters are bivalves, and so is a pump organ. Chris performs on a pump organ throughout the piece as a musical analogue for our beloved oyster.
About the Partnership for the Presidio
The Partnership for the Presidio works to sustain the Presidio’s natural beauty, preserve its history, maintain its funding, and create inspiring national park experiences for visitors. Two federal agencies manage the Presidio jointly: the Presidio Trust and the National Park Service, with support from their non-profit partner, the Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy. Together, the partnership has transformed one of America’s most storied military posts into the centerpiece of one of the most visited places in the national park system.
Art + Discourse
We have a long and extremely productive working relationship with Natural Discourse, teaming up to work on a series of environmentally-focused art productions in our galleries and around California.
Natural Discourse is an ongoing series of symposia, publications and site-specific art installations that explore the connections between art, culture, science and site. It is curated by Shirley Alexandra Watts.
Levy Art + Architectureis an interdisciplinary studio that functions at the intersection of architecture, environmentalism and art. A full-service design firm, with specialties in sustainability and construction, it is also an experimental art space. Exhibits typically concern larger social and environmental issues. The architecture and art mutually inform one another.
Three Designers Modernize a Landmark Flat with European Sensibility and Meaning
Joe, Joe Joe Joe… ever concerned, ever considered, ever conditional. I’ve known Joe for some time now; we do some of the same sports and our children grew up together (or, in parallel) in the universe of San Francisco adolescence. Joe is very successful and very involved.
He was single — more on that later — works downtown and was renting a small house in the shadow of a large high-rise on Russian Hill. He kept wanting to buy, and I’d looked at things with him over the years, but his radius was small. Really small. About an eighth of a mile, right at the top of the hill.
Finally, we went to look at a large unit in a small building. It was spacious but formal, featuring several connected parlor rooms with up-close Bay Bridge and Downtown views. It was a bit “tired and old” in its aesthetics. Although the views were outstanding, the doors and windows could not be changed. They were a more traditional version of a punched opening with traditional trim and casings. The ceilings were high, which is great, but the spaces felt somewhat interior.
Our approach was to remove as many divisions as possible and to rearrange the sequence of experiences to take better advantage of the outlooks and to better suit the program for our client. We opened and integrated the living spaces to create a long, connected set of experiences of the view. We likened this new, very large, space to a Palazzo: the type of redeveloped art gallery you see in European cities in a repurposed historic structure. The doors casings, walls and ceilings at the perimeter are all preserved, but “whited out,” creating a “gallery backdrop” for a much more contemporary interior.
Joe is no longer single as he used to be. Enter his & hers designers: Cindy Bayon and Eche Martinez. Working together, Eche, Cindy and I — Los Tres Amigos — crafted stand-alone moments in the white box environment, redefining the now wall-less volume with architectural, functional and artistic objects. Cindy and I started the hard surfaces work with space-defining features like the floating dining room ceiling with collapsible chainmail walls. The master bath was enlarged, made into a grand spa — an exercise in exquisite materiality with Alcatraz views. The master suite was fitted out with an integrated headboard, lighting, and large walk-in, making it more of a private refuge.
Each installation reflects an aspect of the clients’ lives: the back lit, white gloss panels that line the entryway represent snow and skiing, wood paneling at the headboard is for nature and farming, and the materialized master bath for sophistication and travel.
Art is the thing that binds this all together. Working from the lighting into the soft surfaces and art, Eche made the spaces livable and understandable. The entire home is now inhabited, by people and by objects. The furnishings and works of art create the balance and fullness that this open environment needs.
Our work is a process and processes take time and perspective. This team, formed over time and distance, brought real meaning to the project. This kind of meaning and integrity can only be built over time, with layers of vision blended to a seamless whole.
Architect: Levy Art + Architecture Contractor: Moroso Construction Interior Designers: Cindy Bayon & Eche Martinez Photographer: Christopher Stark
Featured in Modern Luxury Magazine: “Sky High”by Maile Pingel (Fall 2021)