over the years? how has the program -- what can the public has an artist engage with? >> for the most part, we worked with metal and wood, what you would expect from a program like ours. over the years, we tried to include artists and all types of mediums. conceptual artists, at installation, photographers, videographers. >> that has really expanded the program out. it is becoming so dynamic right now with your vision of interesting artists in gauging here. why would an artist when to come here? >> mainly, access to the materials. we also give them a lot of support. when they start, it is an empty studio. they go out to the public area and -- we call it the big store. they go out shopping, take the materials that, and get to work.

it is kind of like a reprieve, so they can really focus on their body of work. >> when you are talking about recology, do you have the only sculpture garden at the top? >> it is based on work that was done many years ago in new york. it is the only kind of structured, artist program. weit is beautiful. a lot of the plants you see were pulled out of the garbage, and we use our compost to transplant them. the pathway is lined with rubble from the earthquake from the freeways we tour about 5000 people a year to our facility, adults and children. we talk about recycling and conservation. they can meet the artists. >> fantastic.

let's go meet some of your current artists. here we are with lauren. can you tell us how long have been here so far and what you're working on? >> we started our residency on june 1, so we came into the studio then and spent most of the first couple weeks just digging around in the trash. i am continuing my body of work, kind of making these hand- embroidered objects from our day-to-day life. >> can you describe some of the things you have been making here? this is amazing. >> i think i started a lot of my work about the qualities of light is in the weight. i have been thinking a lot about things floating through the air. it is also very windy down here. there is a piece of sheet music up there that i have embroidered third. there is a pamphlet about hearing dea -- nearing death.

this is a dead rabbit. this is what i am working on now. this is a greeting card that i found, making it embroidered. it is for a very special friend. >> while we were looking at this, i glanced down and this is amazing, and it is on top of a book, it is ridiculous and amazing. >> i am interested in the serendipity of these still life compositions. when he got to the garbage and to see the arrangement of objects that is completely spontaneous. it is probably one of the least thought of compositions. people are getting rid of this stuff. it holds no real value to them, because they're disposing of it. >> we're here in another recology studio with abel. what attracted you to apply for this special program? >> who would not want to come to

the dump? but is the first question. for me, being in a situation that you're not comfortable in has always been the best. >> what materials were you immediately attracted to when you started and so what was available here? >> there are a lot of books. that is one of the thing that hits me the most. books are good for understanding, language, and art in general. also being a graphic designer, going straight to the magazines and seeing all this printed material being discarded has also been part of my work. of course, always wood or any kind of plastic form or anything like that. >> job mr. some of the pieces you have made while you have been here. -- taught me through some of the pieces you have made while you have been here. >> the first thing that attracted me to this was the printed surface. it was actually a poster. it was a silk screen watercolor, about 8 feet long. in terms of the flatwork, i work

with a lot of cloddish. so being able to cut into it come at into it, removed parts, it is part of the process of negotiating the final form. >> how do you jump from the two dimensional work that you create to the three-dimensional? maybe going back from the 3f to 2d. >> everything is in the process of becoming. things are never said or settled. the sculptures are being made while i am doing the collages, and vice versa. it becomes a part of something else. there's always this figuring out of where things belong or where they could parapets something else. at the end goal is to possibly see one of these collage plans be built out and create a structure that reflects back into the flat work. >> thank you so much for allowing "culturewire" to visit

this amazing facility and to learn more about the artists in residence program. is there anything you like our viewers to know? >> we have art exhibitions every four months, and a win by the public to come out. everybody is welcome to come out. we have food. sometimes we have gains and bands. it is great time. from june to september, we accept applications from bay area artists. we encouraged artists from all mediums to apply. we want as many artists from the bay area out here so they can have the same experience. >> how many artists to do your host here? >> 6 artist a year, and we receive about 108 applications. very competitive. >> but everyone should be encouraged to apply. thank you again for hosting us. >> thank you for including us in "culturewire." ♪

>> i am the director of visual arts programming at intersection for the arts. intersection for the arts is based in san francisco and has always been an organization that looks at larger social political issues through the lens of practice, and we are here today at our exhibition of "chico and chang." the original inspiration was drawn from a restaurant chain in new york city. half of their menu is -- what struck me was the graphic

pictures and a man in a hat on a rig truck carrying take that time is containers and in the black sea to representation of a mexican guy wearing a sombrero and caring a somali horn. it struck me that these two large, very subversive complex cultures could be boiled down to such simple representations. chico and chang primarily looks at four topic areas. one of the man was is whose stories are being told and how. one of the artisans in the show has created an amazing body of work working with young adults calling themselves the dreamers. another piece of the exhibition talks about whose stories of exhibition are actually being told. one artist created a magnificent sculpture that sits right in the center of the exhibition.

>> these pieces are the physical manifestation of a narrative of a child in memory. an important family friend give us a dining table, very important, and we are excited about it. my little brother and i were 11, 14. we were realizing that they were kind of hand prints everywhere on the bottom where no one would really see, and it became this kind of a weakening of what child labor is. it was almost like an exercise to show a stranger that feeling we had at that moment. >> the second thing the exhibition covers is how the allocation is defined, a great example on the theme, sculpture called mexicali culture.

another bay area artist who has done residencies in china and also to what, mexico. where immigrant communities really helped define how businesses look of a business' sign age and interior decoration, her sculptural piece kind of mismatches the two communities together, creating this wonderful, fantastical future look at what the present is today. first topic is where we can see where the two communities are intersecting and where they start colliding. teresa fernandez did a sculptural installation, utilizing the ubiquitous blue, white, and read patterns of a rayon bag that many communities used to transport laundry and laundromats to buy groceries and such. she created a little installation kind of mucking up the interior of a household, covering up as many objects that

are familiar to the i and the fabric. fourth area of investigation that the exhibition looks at is the larger concerns of the asian and latin communities intersecting with popular cultur one best example -- when he's exemplified is what you see when you enter into the culture. >> this piece refers to restaurants in tijuana. when you are driving, to speak chinese and you read chinese characters. you see these signs. i was trying to play with the idea of what you see and the direction you read. when you start mixing these different groups of people,

different cultures, i like the idea. you can comment on somebody else's culture or someone else's understanding about culture. >> one of the hopes we have for visitors is that they go away taking a better understanding with the broadest and the breadth of issues impacting both the asian and latin communities here in california and how they spell out into the larger fabric of the communities we live and work in.

>> good afternoon and thank you very much for being here this afternoon. i am general manager of the san francisco public utilities commission. i want to thank you for allowing us to be here to talk about the energy retrofit programs they have been allowing us to do. it was a really simple goal. it was federal stimulus money, and the goal was to do something long term that was good and the other goal was to make sure we spend the money quickly and got jobs we were creating. what is great is we accomplished both. we wanted to celebrate that today. the city already provides about 100% clean natural gas -- not natural gas. back that up. the city provides greenhouse gas free, 100% renewable energy. what is different is we're saying now that we provide that energy, we should always still be conserving, all we still be looking at energy efficiency

opportunities, and that is what we're doing. this is one of 10 sites in the city including other cultural centers, health centers, where we took this money and really changed the behavior of what is happening in those buildings. we are here to celebrate that work. we had $3 million of this money from the stimulus funds. we are updating fluorescent let's -- lance and replacing them with modern efficient versions. we are updating the outside air economizers, as we call them, which is a nice way of bringing the frog inside buildings and cooling it down. we spend this money on time, which is difficult to do for some places in the united states, but the goal was to spend a certain amount of money by this last june. we have already spent 80%. we are completely on target to spend all the money by next august, which is the requirement of the program. we have also created jobs.

we have over 12,000 labor hours. it is a wonderful success. we have been doing a lot of energy efficiency programs peer this extra money allowed us to step up and do even more of those, so we are pleased about that. in the last 10 years, in total, the puc has saved a total 40,000 megawatt hours per year, enough to power 5000 homes. it is a wonderful program. it is really pretty simple. we are reducing greenhouse gas emissions, saving the city money, and improving the performance of facilities like this, so what could be better than that? thank you for joining us in that today. i would like to introduce our mayor to save a few words. [applause] mayor lee: thank you. thank you for your stewardship of this program but also the whole pc. we appreciate your mindset, your

attitude to go forward and really help our city in all of this energy use. i also want to welcome you to the arts commission. we are here at our mission cultural center, and it is one of the buildings the city owns, but amongst the 10 buildings the city owns, you should see the diversity of where these buildings are. community health centers, other cultural centers pierre the arts and is very enthusiastic about this center because it houses so much. after november 8, i can do the salsa. a? but thank you. there are so many people that visit the center every single day, and they, along with our arts commission, art lovers, just get to appreciate the cultural historic art that is presented here, both in its

visual and performing, but it is functional buildings like this that i want to really express my thanks to the department of energy and dr. kelly is here today as the acting assistant secretary to verify, if you will, our city's appropriate use of this money. and, of course, supervisor campos is here today. he and i have been on many walks throughout our community. not only for public safety issues but also, i think, for both of us, it is just the pure enjoyment of being in our neighborhoods. we love to see our buildings updated as they are. there is an update on the boilers, the furnace, the air economizers, as they say. we do not really have air- conditioning in our great city. we have air economizes to freshen the air. to the lighting fixtures

where if the rams are not being used, why are we wasting energy in that respect? our health centers, our community centers, 10 of them, and the smart thing cpuc did with this energy efficiency team, they did the auditing, so they knew what the base line was and how we would measure the improvement, and i want to talk about them. they have been doing this not just from went and that money came in. barbara hail -- hale, others, you are part of that energy efficient team, and i want to express my thanks for working with the rest of the city and the building owners and everyone working together, because it is with those audits, and then wit and a great mind, to bring down what could have been in large single contract, we broke it down to represent opportunities,

something the supervisors and i have been working on, and that resulted in 76 bay area workers getting jobs. that is that we use our federal money not in it -- not only in a responsible way, the money we were rewarded, but we use it even more responsibly. we kick up the standard by engaging the people who use the building in their habits and their culture and using it. it can be improved, and then we use our ability to contract out, and the puc contract in the 42 suggest this could be done by many more people involved, and guess what? we have that many more people who are trained to this kind of building improvement, so you look at all of that, and you say it got started with president obama, to stimulate. it was not to do everything.

it was to stimulate the economy, and we took that word "stimulate" in a very specific way, and we stimulated our neighborhoods and our art and our culture, and we stimulated our job ability. that is what this whole program was about, and i think is another example of how san francisco does it not only the right way but even a better way, so thank you very much for everyone coming here to celebrate. [applause] >> thank you, mayor. next, we want to introduce the acting undersecretary. thank you very much. from the department of energy. >> assistant secretary tree you have to keep your washington vocabulary correct. that's right. anyway, thank you. thank you, mayor, and thanks to the cultural center for inviting us. it is a wonderful opportunity to

see how san francisco has been created in the way it has been able to use its recovery act money. the recovery act, of course, as the mayor said, was designed to stimulate economic growth, and clean energy, of course, is a key part of that, and the things you are doing here are a wonderful example. altogether with the recovery act, we put something like $12 billion into upgrades. more than 2300 grants to cities and counties around the country, and that includes 306 grants to the state of california, for a total over $700 million, and that money has been put to very, very good use. one of the things we tried to do was create flexibility so that they could design and the most effective way to use it in their local communities, and the way that san francisco has chosen to do this is an example of when

you let people be creative. it is a marvelous example of what can be done, but nationwide, we are very proud with what we have been able to do. we are creeping up on having to retrofit many homes, saving the average homeowner $400 per home, and that is per year. for a total savings to the homeowners of about $200 billion. we have also in the process created over 24,000 jobs. they are offered jobs with continuity. people have picked up skills that will be very important to them. our goal was to get 1 million homes retrofitted with the recovery that. there are 125 million homes left out there, so we are not going to be running out of work. we have also upgraded commercial building space and put in 156

megawatts. this is all under this recovery act. this has been a very significant clean energy investment for the whole country, and it is important to the whole national energy economy and achieving our environmental goals, because buildings alone are 40% of all u.s. energy and a certain percentage of all u.s. electricity, and the irony is you have a very fine and sophisticated energy generating industry, providing 70% of their energy into structures that are not sophisticated in the way they use the energy, so the good news is there is a huge amount of opportunity to do this. the other theme is that in addition to being able to provide a cost-effective way to meet our energy and other goals,

it is a very strong driver of economic growth, and for clean energy, it is central to the economic future, and there are at least two reasons for that. when you are just achieving productivity, you are putting money in the hands of home numbers because there electric in utility bills are there. you make government buildings and commercial buildings more productive. companies can be spending that money on other things. the second thing you can do is that the industries associated with clean energy themselves are major economic drivers. energy is a $1 trillion industry, and nationwide, it is about four or four -- or five times that big. investments like the ones we have seen in the recovery act make me real confident that

america is going to be at the head of the world clean energy revolution, not only leaving in technology but also leading in business growth and job creation, and what has happened right here in san francisco is an example. it was imaginative and intelligent and the way it designed and used to the energy, but it was also very creative in the way it managed the project and was able to draw the best technical support from utilities and also create a contract in an environment that allowed you to hire people locally, so i am here from the department to congratulate you. thanks to the mayor and to san francisco. [applause] >> thank you, mr. kelly. it is amazing what an lined leadership can do, so we appreciate that. aside from the mayor who is

here, there is our supervisor in this area, supervisor campos. [applause] >> thank you, everyone. my name is david campos, from district 9, and i think i represent the best in san francisco, not to take anything awayhe mayor will not be able to confirm that. i want to recognize jenny and her staff and the board members who are here for the tremendous work they do with the center. the center is a very special institution. it really is an integral part of the life of this neighborhood, and i think it makes sense as we are making these kinds of investments and retrofitting these kinds of buildings that we focus on these kinds of cultural centers, and i want to thank the general manager and his staff for the tremendous work they have done to make that happen.

it makes a lot of sense. not only is it the impact of the actual retrofitting of the building, but because the centers are a gathering place for so many of us in our community, it does not just stimulate the economy, but it stimulates the mind and the way people think about energy efficiency, and you have a multi-cultural but multi generational congregation of people, so it is the elderly, the young people, who are not only looking at art but who are going to have, i think, a better understanding of why energy efficiency is so important, in terms of being good stewards of the environment, and the arts commission, you can see the connection between the arts and energy efficiency and technology, and so, it is a very exciting opportunity. you are, dr. kelly, here in one

of the most vibrant neighborhoods in san francisco, and the mission is a neighborhood who attracts people who are very creative, very innovative. i know you were walking around our neighborhood. you can see the amazing art that happens, and that energy transcends beyond art. we have a lot of people who are starting businesses in the mission. we have a neighborhood that notwithstanding the tough economy is thriving, and that is because of the energy and innovation of the people who come to the neighborhood. i want to thank the mayor for being part of this investment because it is an investment that will go beyond the actual money that is spent. it is an investment that is going to have its roots for a long time to come, and what i would like to say is that the mission welcomes that kind of investment, so i encourage our federal government. i encourage room 200 and the mayor's office, puc, and other

agencies to come to the mission, continued to come back to the mission, because this is a place to get things done, and innovation is happening every day on our streets, and you do not often hear the confidence. there are things that happen, and you pick up "chronicle," and you read about bad things that are happening in places like the mission, but these are great things that are happening, and i again want to thank jenny and the others because this is what makes this happen. again, thank you to all of the members of the city staff, whether it is puc, the arts commission, the environment, all of you for making that happen, and i look forward to the future. thank you. [applause] >> and the arts commission has some new ideas about what we can