>> when stephen de staebler died, he was working on one of the biggest shows of his career, matter and spirit. it is a retrospective look at

the many faces and faces of the life of an innovative artist from the california clay movement. stephen de staebler's developed in an area dominated by abstract expression. even his peers saw his form. >> he was able to find a middle ground in which he balanced the ideas of human figuration and representation with abstraction and found it even more meaningful to negotiate that duality. >> another challenge was to create art from a meeting that was typically viewed as kraft material. his transforming moment was an accident in the studio. an oversized vertical sculpture began to collapse under its own weight and spread onto the floor.

he sought a new tradition before him, landscape sculpture. >> you feel this extended human form underneath the surface of the earth struggling to emerge. eventually, it does. it articulates his idea that the earth is like flesh, and the archaeology and geology in the earth are like the bones, the structure of the earth. this tied in with his idea of mother earth, with the sense that we are all tied to nature and the earth. >> a half dozen bay area museums and private collectors loan the massive sculptures to the museum for its matter and spirit retrospective. but the most unusual contributions came from stephen himself. a wall of autobiographical masks and hence from the early decades of his private study. >> he had one of the most beautiful studios i have ever been in.

when you walk in, your first impression is of these monumental figures that you see in the exhibition, but if you went into the back corner of his studio, there was a series of shells with these diminutive figures. he told me, these are the heart of my studio. these little, and held intimate study is that he referred to as his sketchbook. a painter might make drawings. stephen de staebler made miniature sculptures. >> during the 1970's, he was inspired by the monuments of egypt. he assembled a large rocks of clay into figures that resembled the ancient kings and queens. he credited a weathered appearance by rubbing glazes' into the clay while still wet. the misfires from his killed were brought in his backyard in his berkeley home. he called it his boneyard. in the last year of his life, he dug up the artifacts from his

own history, and the bones were rearranged, in the were slimmer figures with wings. >> even if you knew nothing about his life or career, you sensed there was an artist dealing with this fundamental issue of life and death, the cake, netting back together, and you feel there is an attempt to deal with mortality and immortality. there is a seeking of spiritual meaning in an existential stage. >> during his 50-year career, stephen de staebler worked to form and out of the clay of the ground and give it a breath of life. matter and spirit gathers the many expressions of his meditations. and gives the viewer and insight into the artist's life. learn more about the retrospective on line at

>> is this working? all right. let me start by thanking everyone for coming out today. as everyone knows, there are several city agencies, several community groups, and i will get to the city family and leadership who is out here today. every chinese new year, all the departments all get together, and we all work very hard in making sure that the chinatown area is clean, free from

graffiti. that the merchants are allocated -- educated about our ordinances. this year, we're going to do something special and a little bit different. we have been working with the merchants association, the chinese chamber of commerce and many associations here to come up with a great idea to make walking much easier but also to make buying merchandise and enjoying chinatown much easier. hopefully also allowing the bus to run smoothly while these activities are going on. without further delay, i would like to introduce our mayor, who is no stranger to chinatown and who is really spearheading this idea. thank you. [applause] mayor lee: let's see if everybody can occupy the parking space. exactly what we want to do is make sure people use the sidewalks as much as possible.

first of all, how the new year, everyone. i know that as we celebrate the traditional new year, as soon as i finish with one new year, i get ready for the next year, because chinese new year is also a huge celebration not over chat -- not only over chinatown, but all over the city. the city really makes a lot of money with a lot of tourists that come in. the department of public works has already started -- you are already cleaning up the big gate down there and the graffiti. one of the things that is part of the tradition -- and it is already happening in my own house -- as i have to clean up my hard, clean my kitchen, my bedroom, my living room before

chinese new year comes. that is the same thing with literally every chinese family, every chinese-owned business, but also beyond that, i think this culture is spreading that a lot of non-asian families are doing the same thing. whether it is our friends at north beach or people here in chinatown. in talking with the merchants all over china town, chinese chamber, the stockton street merchants, the chinatown merchants association -- we wanted to capture a little bit more improvement this year on pedestrian safety. there was an idea that was created and talked about for several weeks where it began by a few years ago when i was public works director, that we expanded some of the sidewalks for the benefit of pedestrian safety. we worked very closely with the traffic division of mta. we worked with our health

department. we worked with chinatown neighborhood groups and the businesses to expand those sidewalks, and it has actually become quite a positive thing. then, we had sunday streets this past year in the summer where we literally took over grant ave. that became a very positive thing. in fact, we started the first ping-pong tournament in chinatown as a result. more and more, there has been an interest that more of the sidewalks and potentially maybe even a strip of the parking area be taken over with more pedestrian and shared with merchants in the area, so we began this collaboration through the mayor's office with the collaboration of all of the chinatown merchants groups, the chamber of commerce, the merchants association. the stockton street merchants in particular, who are standing behind me. as well as the family

association. then, certainly with supervisor david chiu and his staff, in thinking what we could do to enhance the time when it is most busy. we determined with the participation of our police department, our health department, our traffic division, and all the other agencies associated with our city administrator's office. the acting administrator is here to for dissipate as well. the 10 days before chinese new year is really the most impactual. we have a lot of families here not only eating, but buying the kinds of things that they need to do to get ready. in collaboration with all the agencies, and in particular our public safety agencies, we felt we wanted to try something out. what we have determined is that

from sacramento street through to broadway, and i believe there's a couple of blocks on broadway as well -- on a grant as well that we also determined were very impacted. that we would take an opportunity to announce and develop a pilot program where the parking spaces would then be occupied by a shared use of both pedestrians and merchants, and to see if we could do that in a safe way that we would allow ourselves to enhance it. quite candidly in my observation that i know is shared by some or others -- if we did not occupy it with that, it would be occupied by cars and a lot of delivery trucks all day long and maybe all night long. instead, to maybe enhance this. we decided that we would enhance the ability to have pedestrians years that more and to have the merchants use that more, bring

out more of the merchandise that will be sold their and still have the sidewalks to welcome in families. to have a safe pathway for all of them and keep everybody within the safety zone. we are going to do that as a pilot program this year. again, i really want to thank everybody working together because it is all the neighborhood agencies working under the leadership of public works, working with our police department and their foot patrols are out here, and they see what happens every day. we do not want anybody to get into the streets at all. right, commander and captain? it is their safety that is really the preeminent thing that we want to do. while we try to enhance the family experience in chinatown and welcome in a little bit more business and have that positive experience. it works or it we need to tweak

it, we will do more of the. we will work with everybody to enhance it. i think this is worth trying. i think it is time we do this, and it will begin this saturday. i think it is a welcoming thing for everybody that will increase the participation and i think increase the businesses. while the tourist business has increased this last year in the city, certain pockets of our city have not experienced as much as other pockets of the city. so this is yet another way we can do it. i know north beach has some special needs. we can pay attention to that in the very near future. there are other pockets, but this is part of what i wanted e merchant quarters, hear what they had to say, respond in a positive way and experience and experiment with ideas that

innovate with our emergence to try to enhance their ability to make a little bit more, and also help with the cultural scene. this year is the year of the dragon. eat you know anything about the dragon, you know that the dragon is kind of like the big leader of all of the zodiac animals. they are fearless. they have the big dragon breath. you know, the fire breath. they are not fearful of hast things. they want to just flows through some new ideas, and i think that is what we wanted to boldly this year, kind of use the spirit of the dragon to say, cassette and let's do some new ideas. let's be bold about it." let's do something that enhances the cultural theme of chinatown as well. we decided to do this. we believe we have the support of all of the residents. there preeminent thing was that pedestrian safety be the number one thing, so we have done that. we have reflected in it.

i want to thank this very balanced approach that vw has had with everybody's cooperation. all of the inspectors would be here. we will have some additional monitors to make sure that the safety is preeminent, but at the same time, to gauge the participation of everybody. i do believe what everybody's help, this will be a positive thing. particularly, i want to thank the merchants. they were bold enough to say, "let's try something a little different. supervisor is responsible for what happens in this district, so we engaged him early. i want to thank him for helping to support this but also helping to lead it as well. we will be working closely with him as he gives feedback on the experience. supervisor chiu: thank you, mr. mayor. happy new year. have a chinese new year two weeks ahead of time.

one of the most amazing aspect of, i think, one of the most special holidays that we celebrate in san francisco is the chinese new year rally brings books together. i want to thank everyone who is part of making this great announcement possible. our city agencies who are here, the mta, our san francisco police department, dpw, our city administrator. also, i have to thank our mayor. he first spoke to me about this in, i think, our first meeting right after the election. we both wanted to move forward on ideas that would help revitalize not just our merchant corridors and job creation, but make sure that chinatown remains the very special capital of the chinese-american community that it is. i think the announcement is also very special because we're talking about how we use our streets in a way that bill communities. san francisco in recent years has been on the forefront of taking back our streets for our families, our children, our seniors. just like sunday streets, i

think what we are experimenting with with this pilot project will be in that direction. we are also talking about making the chinese new year experienced more authentic. more what we expect chinese new year's to be celebrated throughout the world. i want to thank everyone here from the chinese merchant associations, attorneys chambers, our family associations, our non-profit associations. this is what san francisco should be about, coming together to celebrate san francisco. again, congratulations. happy new year. [applause] >> as you heard the mayor and supervisor chiu say, it is always coming together. one of the key partners in making sure the project is successful is sfmta. i will have them come and give you a few tips on what to look for. [laughter]

>> on behalf of all my colleagues at the sfmta we are pleased to be partnering with all the other city agencies as well as the community to bring forth this pilot. in addition to enhancing the pedestrian experience, we have done quite a bit on stockton street, including the pedestrian scramble signals recently. in addition to enhancing the experience through this pilot, one of our primary goals is to make sure that the traffic and transit continue to operate satisfactorily throughout this corridor. for that to happen, we will need everyone's cooperation. i think the best tool is compliance and cooperation. i am sure that will be the case. i am really looking forward to this pilot being impactful, the official, and ultimately

successful. thank you. [applause] >> another partner to make sure that while you are shopping at tsa is -- that while you're shopping you are safe is the finest police department. >> i had not prepared to come up, but i can tell you we're just delighted at the notion of wider sidewalks. it is good for fitness and good for safety. the captain and i walked up here, and i moved one double parked car along the way and let the bus through the intersection, at a said we should take the bus up, and we realized it was faster to walk. one thing we did also was we cut into the street a lot because of all the credit sidewalks. wider sidewalks are good, and we are most happy working with the issue of deliveries early and late, so not during the day. this is going to be good for traffic, good for business, and good for pedestrians. the richmond station where i was

several years ago -- i thought something like this, and i was told everywhere was too complicated, forget about it. so i commend you guys. i am sort speechless, and that does not happen to me often. [applause] >> as the mayor said, this idea was being worked on over the last few weeks, and it took quite a number of meetings. it took quite a bit of organizing. some agreements were being made. exactly how this was going to work. one of the neighborhood groups we worked with, so we will have them say a few words. >> i am the presiding president of chinese consolidated delivery association, ladies and

gentlemen, on behalf of chinatown labour association and merchants on stockton street, we want to thank you. mayor lee, president of the board of supervisors, david chiu, dtw director, director, and commissioner, for all the support for making the chinese traditional sidewalk merchandise displayed a pilot program, a reality nine days before the chinese new year. starting from january 14 to january 22, from 10 a.m. to 6:00 p.m.. we all know that the sidewalk is only 9.5 feet wide.