When is a door not a door?

October 11, 2012

By Ilana DeBare

“When it’s a jar,” was the answer to that old joke.

But we have a new answer – when it’s a mural!

Over the past few weeks, Berkeley artist STEFEN has been busy creating a Bay Area Birds mural on the (formerly beige, formerly boring) door to the Golden Gate Bird Alliance office on San Pablo Avenue.

The mural features seven endangered species that have been the focus of Golden Gate Bird Alliance conservation campaigns.

As the project got underway, we were so excited that we decided to document STEFEN’s process and share it with you. So here’s a step-by-step view of the transformation:

door1 cropped — Starting the landscape — looking west across the Bay from the Albany Mud Flats

door - stefan — STEFEN adds the Golden Gate Bridge

door2 — The water and distant shores take shape

door - stefan, mark — GGBA Executive Director Mark Welther and STEFEN in mid-mural

door3 — The Albany bulb, more vegetation and some…. birds!

Missing birds — STEFEN leaves space for the birds – can you tell what they will be?

One of those we included is the California Clapper Rail, which shelters in the native marsh plans that our volunteers and Eco-Education students have planted at Martin Luther King Jr. Shoreline Park in Oakland.

Stefen and eagle — Stefen adds a Golden Eagle

We also included a Golden Eagle, one of the species that have been killed in large numbers by wind turbines at the Altamont Pass. Thanks to GGBA advocacy and legal action, the wind companies are starting to replace those turbines with new ones that are less dangerous to birds.

Finished door — The finished door! But wait… what's that in the upper lefthand corner?

STEFEN painted the same birds from the mural in flight, on pieces of wood that he attached to the hallway wall. So there is now a trail of birds leading down the hall to our office. Cleverly, the wood images can be detached when it is time to repaint the hall.

Wall birds — Line of birds leading to our office

plover — Can you identify this li'l fella?

Pretty cool, huh? If you’re in the neighborhood, come by our office at 2530 San Pablo Avenue (at Blake) to see it yourself! Our office hours are 1 to 5 pm on weekdays.

Or come by on Friday October 19 for our Open House and calendar launch party. From 1 to 5 pm, we’ll be celebrating the talented Bay Area wildlife photographers who donated their work for our beautiful 2013 Birds of the SF Bay Area wall calendar. Check out STEFEN’s work… enjoy snacks and beverages… shmooze with other Audubon members and our generous photographers… and pick up a calendar or two or three as holiday gifts.

Thank you to our landlord Walter Wright for funding and supporting this project! Thank you to Development Director Lisa Owens Viani for coming up with the idea and making it happen! And of course thank you to STEFEN for his precision, creativity and appreciation of birds. You can find more of his work at www.stefenart.com.