In this Episode of Art is Awesome, Host Emily Wilson spends time with San Francisco Photographic Artist & Landscape Architect Ron Saunders.
Welcome to Art is Awesome, the show where we talk with an artist or art worker with a connection to the San Francisco Bay Area.
Today, Emily chats with Ron Saunders, a landscape architect and artist in San Francisco. She visited Ron at his studio at the Minnesota Street Project, and he talked about becoming a landscape architect, why he likes public art projects, and starting a group for Black artists.
About Artist Ron Saunders:
Ron Moultrie Saunders, a co-founding member of the 3.9 Art Collective, is a photographic artist and landscape architect. Originally from Jamaica, Queens, New York, he currently lives in the Bayview neighborhood of San Francisco. He creates photograms: photographs that are made without the use of a camera. His art work is in the San Francisco Arts Commission Civic Art Collection for projects he completed for the San Francisco Library, Linda Brooks-Burton Bayview Branch, Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital, Laguna Honda Hospital and, Public Utilities Commission New Headquarters in San Francisco. He was commissioned to create works for VM Ware, Inc. in Palo Alto, CA and Dallas, TX and, for The San Francisco Travel Association (formerly SF Convention and Visitors Bureau) new offices. His art has been exhibited throughout the US including “The Secret Life of Plants”, solo shows (San Francisco International Airport and CordenPotts Gallery, San Francisco, CA), and group shows "Echoes of Bauhaus Photography Cast Long Shadows" at Ruth's Table, San Francisco, California (2020),“Self:Scape” at Middlesex County College, New Jersey(2012), “Exposed: Today’s Photography/Yesterday’s Technology” (San Jose Institute of Contemporary Art), “Measure of Time”(Oakland Museum of California at City Center). His work is published in several books including “Self Exposure: The Male Nude Self-Portrait” and “From Art to Landscape”. Recently he completed an artist-in-residence at STAR (Shipyard Trust for the Arts) in the Hunter’s Point Shipyard in San Francisco. His studio is located at Minnesota Street Project Studio in the Dogpatch area of San Francisco.
Visit Ron's Website: www.RonMSaunders.com
Follow Ron on Social Media: @RonMSaunders on Instagram
For more on the Black Space Residency, CLICK HERE
For more on the Three Point Nine Art Collective, CLICK HERE
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About Podcast Host Emily Wilson:
Emily a writer in San Francisco, with work in outlets including Hyperallergic, Artforum, 48 Hills, the Daily Beast, California Magazine, Latino USA, and Women’s Media Center. She often writes about the arts. For years, she taught adults getting their high school diplomas at City College of San Francisco.
Follow Emily on Instagram: @PureEWil
Follow Art Is Awesome on Instagram: @ArtIsAwesome_Podcast
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CREDITS:
Art Is Awesome is Hosted, Created & Executive Produced by Emily Wilson.
Theme Music "Loopster" Courtesy of Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
The Podcast is Co-Produced, Developed & Edited by Charlene Goto of @GoToProductions.
For more info, visit Go-ToProductions.com
[00:00:00] Artist Ron Saunders: [00:00:00] He is like, where are all the black artists? And I said, we're here, we're just scattered. And he said, well, we should start an organization. And I said, okay. So that's how it was born. So in 2010 we formed and in 2011 we had our first show.
Host Emily Wilson: [00:00:19] That was Artist Ron Saunders. Talking about co-founding a group for black artists in San Francisco.
Welcome to Art is Awesome. The show where we talk with an artist, our art worker, with a connection to the San Francisco Bay Area. I'm your host, Emily Wilson. As a writer in San Francisco covering the arts, I see so many hardworking artists. Doing interesting work here in the Bay Area and I wanted people to know about them, so I came up with Art is Awesome.
Today we'll be [00:01:00] talking with Ron Saunders, a landscape architect and artist in San Francisco. I visited Saunders at his studio at the Minnesota Street Project, and he talked about becoming a landscape architect, why he likes public art projects, and starting a group for Black artists in San Francisco.
Saunders grew up in Jamaica, Queens in New York. He came to San Francisco to be a landscape architect, and he began creating photograms, or photographs made without a camera. He says he hit on that method when working with a group of kids in Marin City back in the late nineties.
Artist Ron Saunders: [00:01:42] It was a summer environmental art program that I got invited to participate in and we wanted to introduce them to photography, and I figured the best way to do that was to. Take them in the dark room and do something really simple so they can get used to using the [00:02:00] papers, the chemicals, the clocks, the enlarger.
And so I had them do photograms. So basically they placed their head, their hands, their keys, their combs, you know, anything they had on their body or that they brought with them or, or their body themselves onto the paper and just get used to using the equipment and the chemicals. And I realized while I was teaching them that this was a really perfect way for me to investigate my own story.
Host Emily Wilson: [00:02:32] The method was what Saunders was looking for, raw and simple.
Artist Ron Saunders: [00:02:37] So I started, you know, just by placing my hands and my head on paper. Um, but that wasn't enough. So then I decided to find material that would also talk about the internal expression of my life. And that included the physiology, the structure of the body, and, and different elements that talked about the African diaspora.
So water is a huge part of. The work that I do. Because that really speaks to not only my body, but it also speaks to other people since we're 75% water. So it becomes a bridge that, you know, people can cross and bring themselves to it. Um, so that's how I got started. You know, basically looking at how could I tell myself, tell a story about myself and do it in a truthful, honest, and direct way.
Host Emily Wilson: [00:03:35] Growing up, Saunders did art projects with his grandma and loved to draw, but in middle school, his teachers told his mother art was distracting him from his schoolwork. He wasn't allowed to do it for a while. That changed in high school.
Artist Ron Saunders: [00:03:51] When I got to high school, I decided I'm going to do anything that's creative. So I took a drawing class, I took shop, I took computer language and computer language sounds. like it's compatible, but basically you're learning a program, I learned Fortran, and so you take Fortran and you're going to make imagery. So they wanted us to do something that would keep us interested, so we learned how to program the computer to make art
Host Emily Wilson: [00:04:22] As a high school student. Saunders got togo to New York's Cooper Union for an architecture program. He decided that's what he would be and he thought his family would accept it since it was a professional job.
Artist Ron Saunders: [00:04:35] I entered college thinking I was going to be an architect.
And in my junior year of college I discovered landscape architecture. I'd always still been interested in art and when you're taking these classes, you're learning how to draw. You're talking about observing the world, you're looking at buildings, landscape and how people interact with these environments.
Host Emily Wilson: [00:04:58] Saunders went on to the University of Pennsylvania and studied landscape architecture. He moved to San Francisco for work and took a photography class at the De Young Museum, but he's mostly self-taught. He met the artist William Rhodes at an open studio program, and they started the 3.9 Art Collective for black artists in San Francisco.
Artist Ron Saunders: [00:05:20] I met him at the Bayview Opera House and he's like, where are all the black artists? And I said, we're here, we're just scattered. And he said, well, we should start an organization. And I said, okay. So that's how it was born. So in 2010 we formed and in 2011 we had our first show. And there were five co-founders.
Originally, the largest the group became was 20. And then every year since then, we've done at least one show somewhere. We also try to educate people about 3.9 Art Collective.
Host Emily Wilson: [00:05:57] Around that same time, Saunders got interested in doing public art when he won a commission to do a piece for the San Francisco Public Library In his neighborhood, Bayview, the photograms he did, explored the history of the neighborhood.
Artist Ron Saunders: [00:06:12] They used water, uh, which also referenced not just our bodies and the crossing of the Atlantic, called Middle Passage, but it also, represented the bay. Um, so. I always do a lot of research around my projects to learn as much as I can about any neighborhood that my project's going to be in. And I learned a lot, um, by digging through the history books and I.
The work was produced as large scale panels that are five feet tall by 16 feet long, and it was in an outdoor courtyard and we had a great big opening and I watched how people responded to it. And that's when I realized that I have to do more public art because it brings [00:07:00] art into communities of people that will not go to galleries and will not go to museums because they're intimidated by it.
It's a world they don't know about.
Host Emily Wilson: [00:07:08] Saunders works out of a studio in the Minnesota Street Project in San Francisco. He's on the advisory board of a program there, black Space Residency.
Artist Ron Saunders: [00:07:19] Once a month, every month throughout the year, we've had collectives, we've had performers, we've had writers. And what's been interesting about the program is that it started during the pandemic.
So we started in January of 2020. And what was nice about it, it infused new energy into the space and people were really excited about it. People being the artist in the building because they got to meet new artists. They got to see people in different processes. So it energized, it energized us, and it also gave us a sense of hope.
[00:08:00] Host Emily Wilson: This is the part of the show called Three Questions where I end every conversation with three questions to learn a little about the artist, starting with what is your work routine.
Artist Ron Saunders: [00:08:15] Well, my schedule is a little unpredictable. I do have a set time when I get up in the morning, I have certain rituals that I go through, uh, where I basically take care of myself in the morning. I meditate every morning, um, and I greet the world. I do not turn my cell phone on until 10:00 AM So it's like a gentle way to get into the world. Um, and then sometimes I come to the studio. Sometimes I'm working from home. It really depends on the project.
Host Emily Wilson: [00:08:54] What is the most creatively inspiring place in the Bay Area for you?
Artist Ron Saunders: [00:08:59] For me, it has to be the outdoors. In fact, I went to the headlands yesterday for an open house and just being out. There's just, just a sense of. Connection that you feel to the land. Um, and also you could see the ocean. Um, and there's just something rejuvenating and energizing and inspiring about being in nature.
So that's where I, I get my inspiration from.
Host Emily Wilson: [00:09:26] And when did you know that you were an artist?
Artist Ron Saunders: [00:09:29] I knew I was going be an artist when I was very young because I used to draw all the time. And I also would do projects with my grandmother. She taught me how to make plants with little beads, and I made these little sculptural roses.
Um, and so ever since I was a young child, I knew that I was going to be an artist. I didn't know what direction was going to go in, and it's gone in several, which has been good.
Host Emily Wilson: [00:10:08] And that's it for this week's episode of Art is Awesome. Thanks again to our guest artist and landscape architect, Ron Sanders. He was recently chosen as a Yerba Buena Center for the Arts 100 Honoree. You can get more information and link to his work in our show notes. Please subscribe and rate us wherever you find your podcast media.
In our next episode, we'll have a conversation with Taravat Tolepasand, an artist who teaches at Portland State University's School of Art and Design. Her work explores being an Iranian American and looks at cultural taboos. It's been exhibited nationally and internationally, and she has a show at San Francisco's YBCA through July 23rd.
[00:11:00] Bed Music: [00:11:00]
Host Emily Wilson: [00:11:10] Art is Awesome is a biweekly podcast dropping every other Tuesday. It was created and hosted by me, Emily Wilson. It is produced and edited by Charlene Gotto of Gotto Productions. Our theme music is provided by Kevin McLeod with a Compec music. Be sure to follow us on social media our visit, our website Till next time. [00:12:00]