>> welcome to "culturewire." today we are at recology. they are celebrate 20 years of one of the most incredibly unique artist residency programs. we are here to learn more from one of the resident artists. welcome to the show, deborah. tell us how this program began 20 years ago. >> the program began 20 years ago. our founder was an environmentalist and an activist and an artist in the 1970's. she started these street sweeping campaigns in the city. she started with kids.

they had an exhibition at city hall. city officials heard about her efforts and they invited her to this facility. we thought it would coincide with our efforts to get folks to recycle, it is a great educational tool. since then, we have had 95 professional artists come through. >> how has the program changed 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." ♪

>> for those of us on the board, i know many of us have young ben

was in the city. i know a ton of my friends have left the city. one thing that the strike me as we have a ton of data, but it is a different places. this year, we will call for those constituents to come together to understand the issue better and, going forward, enacting policies to extend that period . of all the places i have been, this is my favorite. i am a born and raised san franciscan. more important, i represent district 2. i grew up in the marina district close to the palace of fine arts. my parents still live in the same set of plants that i live in. i went to grammar school here. i went to st. ignatius here. i am a proud wild cat. i went to college at loyola- marymount university in los

angeles. i had a scholarship to play baseball. i remember coming down here to christie field, when my dad was in the military, seeing how the beaches have transformed into but we have today. you cannot beat the views, of course. it just holds summoning memories and i can come here with our kids, our family. i ended up going to ireland to get a master's degree at the university college of dublin. i went back to the states and went to law school at university of pennsylvania. then i came back, and choosing to live in san francisco was natural to me. when you are a child, you do not realize what you had until you leave home. i had the opportunity to live in los angeles, abroad in ireland, and there is no place like home, when you are from san francisco. i have been a corporate attorney

at palo -- in palo alto. i became an >> i worked in the finance industry about 5 1/2 years. in the summer of 2009 i joined a venture capital firm with two other partners. >> we are all excited about the americas cup here in district two but one thing if you think about it everyone knows what fleet week is like here in the marina. this is fleet week on steroids. think about fort mason, these will be the most brings taken places to watch the americas cup. what we're working on and working to continue to work on and want your input on, how do we make it a positive experience for the people that live here. >> i'm happily married and my life and -- wife and i live around laurel village. we have two children, five around they. we are proud parents and now just excited to be here on the board. i think i'm in the middle. i'm a moderate person.

fiscal fiscally conservative and that is the way i intend to practice what i preach here. in terms of getting into politics, i think for me it was really that reasons. first being from here, i think that was part of my own motivation, feeling a sense of roots in san francisco. also raising our children here. i think we went through as a young family the discussion and dialogue that many young families go through. should we move to the suburbs? away decided to stick around and we are very happy we did. once you stick around i think it was a turning point to say we are here for good. what can we do to make this place better? there were a lot of lessons to be learned in running a race in san francisco. a few that stick out, money does matter. raising money. that is a simple, somewhat unfortunate fact if you want to be candidate. most importantly, one thing i drew out of it is hard work and

utter determination is the thing that will, i think, allow to succeed more than anything else. i came from the private sector and looking at honestly answering the question did i have something different to offer that i thought would be valuable it san francisco right now and i think a hrrpbl part of our -- large part of problems are financial and with my background i think i can add a lot of value and that is why i decided to bet in the race. >> it means there might be some small profit if you run it correctly but not always. that is something we really need to keep in mind in our city government. from my point of view is that. we have to figure out what is it lake -- like to be a business person in the city and what we can do to not only have full restaurants and bars but making sure it is worth it to continue to open successful places that make our community that much better. >> we have a huge unemployment

rate in san francisco. it is about 9.6%. the fact that we have not done much about that in city hall i think has it change. that certainly is something i will be focused on in the beginning here in city hall. putting people back to work. it is an individual issue but it is a family issue and we've a lot of families still struggling and i think people have lost sight of that. hopefully we will be getting out of the recession soon but we need to do a lot to accelerate getting out of that recession, making sure families are back at work and children are provided for. to me that is my biggest priority. i think that we do lose a lot of sight in the past district supervisors lost sight of the fact that we do represent san francisco as a whole and we need to make sure in city hall we are enacting policies, laws and legislation that move the city forward as a whole. these are the neighborhoods i grew up in, so for me it is fun to be in them to really understand what is going on and

be able it fundamentals some of the thinking and some of the people that are making decisions. >> right here we played football. flag football right here every year. we hung out right in the gym. directors looked after us. parents used to check in but not only one parent, they checked on all the kids. that is what is great about this district, the community. the family base of everything. >> exactly. and look how you turned out. you are doing ok. >> doing all right. two local city guys. >> there you go.

>> to address these concerns, i have made a series of amendments to the resolution that capture the spirit of the policy but would allow continued conversation with the task force and other stakeholders about how we do metering. i believe strongly that the city needs to start developing toes to help create affordable housing. in our housing element alone, we

talk about building a 60% affordable, but we are currently not doing that. it is important to start the discussion about creating tools of measuring our affordable housing and creating tools to enforce that. i grew up in new york city, one to my parents who had immigrated here to the u.s. actually, i started really becoming active in working with the community when i was in high school. came out to california for college, went to stanford. i was always politically involved. when i was a college student, i worked on the initiative to get rid of affirmative action in our public government system. currently, we have 3 legislative items that are pending. the first is going to be coming to a final vote on tuesday, our mid-market uptown tenderloin task exemption legislati