For Leah Rosenberg, color is inseparable from seeing and the thoughts, memories, and emotions that come with experiencing and processing the world. Getting Better Everyday a Color reprises a project she made during a 2015 residency at San Francisco’s Irving Street Projects. Rosenberg began rolling expanses of color onto her mural in Schwab Hall early August 2021. As the artist has noted, the effect is a “continually changing monotone tableau” that takes on increased physicality over time. Before each new application of paint, Rosenberg masked off a three-inch wide stripe of the previous day’s color. Rosenberg removed the stripes of tape after applying the mural’s final and fiftieth layer on November 18. The completed mural is a record of its own making.

Embedded between the painted layers are messages of self-care compiled by Susan O’Malley, Rosenberg’s friend and collaborator who passed away in 2015 at the age of thirty-eight. Rosenberg infuses the minimalist form of her project with O’Malley’s calls to action, some of which she has amended to support a collective need for healing at this moment in time. Phrases such as “Breathe. Remember You Can Always Return to Your Breath” and “Paint Your Room the Color of the Ocean” are hidden between each layer of paint in the mural and are revealed through a color legend that reads like lines of a poem.

Fifty Songs for the Fifty Layers in Leah Rosenberg's Mural Commission

Notes on Getting Better Everyday a Color

For me, color is inseparable from seeing and the thoughts, memories, and emotions that come with experiencing and processing the world. I work often site-specifically across artistic media to explore the nuances of our engagement with, and sensory responses to color, place, and time.

No matter the project, the final work is the result of the process: meetings, prototypes, site visits, proofs, revisions, budgets, timelines, hard hats, insurance, sometimes scissor lifts. Ideas & palettes & sketches that require cleaning up and being organized into a cohesive packet (often w/ help from designer Lisa Mishima and no doubt Adobe tools are an essential ingredient) to reference in presentations and eventually in production. So I was excited when the Adobe creative team reached out back in 2022 as they prepared to open their new building in downtown San Jose.

This large-scale work at the entrance was one of 3 commissions visible from the outside. Vertical stripes reference the 18-story architecture of the building (from ground to sky) then begin to lean and break apart into bits of “confetti”; a celebration suspended in time. Read the other way (from sky to ground), these “confetti” bits could be “seeds” being planted and leading to the roots of the trees in the House de Souza installation on the bridge connecting the buildings (and the multi-patterned 156-ft long mural by Leo Bersamina around the corner).

At a glance, they might seem like simple stripes in a collection of colors, but I like to think of them as a dispersion of ideas; telling an abstracted story of the collaboration, community, multiplicity, and creativity, all that goes on inside the building (behind the scenes and on the screens) at Adobe, then offer them up to everyone who passes by as an oversized, upright, joyful welcome mat that compels one to believe that confetti could fall from above.

Video/photos by @kevinwinzelerphoto

Mounted on the wall above the check-in desk in Gate room G96, Everywhere, a Color, is 20 feet high by 27 feet wide and comprised of a patchwork of solid colored and patterned wood slats with accents of powder-coated aluminum, and acrylic mirror. Each material adds a specific textural, reflective, and dimensional quality to the piece. Patterned slats pieced in feature snippets of scenes from the Castro crosswalk to San Francisco Museum of Modern Art’s turret. Activity on the tarmac outside the terminal is reflected in pieces of mirrored plexi, which adds a cinematic element to the whole.

From the Golden Gate Bridge’s iconic International Orange color, to the Painted Ladies in the Western Edition, Everywhere a Color pays homage to San Francisco. Each strip in this colorful artwork corresponds to a landmark, moment, or object that is unique to our beloved city. In creating the artwork, I explored various neighborhoods sampling colors from her surroundings and asking residents what colors stood out to them. In doing so, the artwork becomes a new kind of map of the city that speaks to how color can help define a place and contribute to the importance of togetherness.

According to Director of Cultural Affairs Tom DeCaigny, “Known for her innovative and playful use of color, Leah Rosenberg has created an exuberant portrait of San Francisco that will have an instant impact on folks passing through the Gate room.”

With many thanks to the San Francisco Arts Commission (Zoe Taleporos, Justine Topfer, Jenn Doyle Crane), San Francisco International Airport, One Hat One Hand for fabrication, Atthowe Art Services for installation, Arianne Gelardin for proposal renderings and Ethan Kaplan Photography for documentation.

1064 Mission is located in Soma Pilipinas (San Francisco’s Filipino Cultural Heritage District), and is the largest supportive housing development in the City of San Francisco, with 256 permanent residence for both adults and seniors exiting chronic homelessness.

Mercy Housing California in partnership with Episcopal Community Services commissioned four Bay Area artists (Michael Arcega, Rosana Castrillo Diaz, Dave Young Kim and Leah Rosenberg) to create art for the public spaces of the building.

The colors of the Pasalubong Passage seating were inspired by plant life and traditional colors/flavors found in Filipino/Tagalog cultures (ie. muring kapé used to describe anything that is beige in color literally translates to “young coffee beans”.) The cubes and bench seating in the shape of boxes refer to the mapagbigay attitude of generosity and the tradition of pasalubong (welcome gifts) which are often sent in “Balikbayan boxes”. While these references are specific to the artwork’s historic location, they need not be known for these colors to create a welcoming environment for all to enjoy.

Public Art Advisor: Lynne Baer

Fabrication: One Hat One Hand

Landscaping: Miller Company Landscape Architects

Architects: HCLA

SLO(W) Rainbow, the San Luis Obispo Museum of Art’s 2023-24 mural, wraps around all four walls of the Museum’s building. Motivated by thoughts of hospitality and delight, it is intended to be approached from any direction—there is no set starting point—yet the orientation of each wall plays a role in the overall design. Colors, shapes, and patterns come together like pieces of a puzzle, a story of seasons, a map to wander, a patch-work portrait of this place, for this place. The Monterey Street side wall depicts the setting sun to the rising moon. Around the corner on Broad Street, the Nine Sisters parade their way to the Museum front entrance like a warm welcome. Other surprises moving clockwise: a playful nod to the Moon Tree, secret “rainbows” as architectural intervention, and a selection of local botanical wonders. Paying homage to the Museum’s architecture and its natural setting, SLO(W) Rainbow intends to ground people in the beauty of their surroundings, and strives to give visitors a chance to engage in their own process of sensitive, perceptive engagement, both inside and outside the Museum. On the creekside wall, patterns come together, like confetti or seeds being planted, reflecting on the importance of collaboration and community.

Color is everywhere and always. I used forty-one different colors in the SLO(W) Rainbow mural and many of them can be found in the places and spaces in and around SLO County.  They live in the waters, grow on the hillsides, and line the hiking trails; they can be viewed from the top of mountains or inside a cave, from a pier or down an alleyway. Some are living and some are built. Some are inside, others outdoors. Some of them you can smell, others you can eat. Some of them are here forever and some are ephemeral, only to return this time next year. A few are no longer, but I included them anyway, because their stories are part of the palette of this place. Even if you aren’t able to get to all these colorful spots around SLO, I’m certain that wherever you are, the color(s) will come to you, if you take the time to look closely.

SLO(w) Rainbow Playlist

Like A Multivitamin is a chromatic meandering.

Underpinned by notions of hospitality and delight, this installation located in the third-floor garden courtyard at Santa Clara Valley Medical Center uses a combination of color, natural light, and architecture to transform an existing outdoor space as a catalyst for connection and joy. I chose these colors for their healing properties and their connection to the surrounding landscape. Together, the palette can be considered a multivitamin: when encountered daily, it might make one feel better over time.

There is no beginning or end. Colors play off of one another; constantly in flux as the sun rises and sets, causing them to glow in the light and deepen in the shadows. It is important to me that the installation can be experienced both indoors and outdoors, from various vantage points. Gaze down from above, look up from below, walk around it, sit in its glow, meditate on a single color at a time, or take them all in at once.

Several colors in the installation are accompanied by an original haiku. Much like color, they offer a sense of a specific moment in time: a special event, a change of season, something that encourages one to pause, take notice and come to attention. This courtyard, once grey and now imbued with color, elicits emotions within us, helping to lift burden and stress, whether visiting once or returning daily.

Over one hundred languages are spoken by staff at Valley Medical Center. Experiences of the installation are bound to vary, but color is a universal language that welcomes multiple interpretations. I wanted to offer relief through a vibrant dose of color in a space where people are working, healing, and grieving: a multivitamin for their senses.

Ohana — Montage Health Foundation’s transformative mental health center for kids, teens and their families— officially opened to the public just before the holidays. The building was still under construction when I was there in July, painting stripes in a variety of forms for this meandering mural at the check-in area of the outpatient wing. The campus itself was designed to heal — with resources ranging from open garden space, to classes, activities, therapy, and support for families — with a focus on building mental fitness and planting seeds of hope.

The palette was conceived of in a workshop with the Ohana Youth Council in May 2023 when we narrowed the selection down to 20 colors. While there is a color legend that connects each color with a specific Monterey moment, it was also important to give the colors room to let them mean different things to different people with different needs over time. The palette that greets someone at the start of their stay, can become their own measure of mood, mindset and growth.

I’m so grateful to have been included in the collection of commissioned pieces for the opening of the building. Thank you to Montage Health Foundation's Consultants for Arts Initiatives Susan Krane and Elizabeth Denholm for including me in and facilitating this project and painting assistants Megan Goodwin and Natalia Corazza.

In San Francisco, turn-of-the-century townhouses line the city’s hilly streets; bridges web together the Bay, pronouncing the possibilities of modern engineering; and skyscrapers cast their long, geometric shadows on the bustling financial district. This built environment reflects the city’s storied history as one of California’s earliest urban, industrial, and commercial centers. But look beyond these markers of modernity and urban life and you find the true splendor of the city: its verdant landscapes, surrounded by expansive bodies of water, are filled with beautiful vibrant blooms and wildlife. Beneath steel bridges the Pacific splashes against shores dappled with pines and lush brush. Such bright green foliage frames the stone facades of the city’s iconic architecture. Along the streets, flowering bushes cascade over fences and window boxes, blades of grass grow in sidewalk cracks, and mosses make soft homes of hard stones.

Thriving in All Seasons brings inside the majesty of San Francisco’s outside. Grounded in Rosenberg’s meditations on meaning and delight, this towering mural spanning two stories, and comprised of hand-painted, printed, and mirrored Plexiglas panels, portrays a collection of moments from San Francisco’s natural world and presents them in concert with the indoor built environment. The installation interrupts the space of the stairway, highlighting the history, stories, colors, and patterns of the city’s thriving native flowers, plants, birds, sea life in the pattern, shapes, and palette of 18 colors—all of which Rosenberg selected from what she observed in and around San Francisco. These colors and shapes interact not only with each other, but also with the building’s modern architecture, the natural light coming in through its windows, and the cityscape outside its walls. With each movement of the sun throughout the day, the architecture’s shadows create zigzagged, striped, and angular patterns. These in turn are the basis for many patterns found in the paintings. Looking out the window from the stairwell, you can view the twin peaks and downtown San Francisco. The patterns you see out the window appear as cheerfully abstract forms throughout the panels. In these ways, the piece brings some of the vitality that makes San Francisco thrive to your day-to-day experience of an indoor space.

Rosenberg hopes that the vitality garnered through the interplay of these elements serves as a model and catalyst for viewers to connect with the city, with nature, and ultimately with each other. Now more than ever, there is an urgent need for generosity and attention in this world of ours. Pausing to notice, looking to, and learning about the native plant life in the region is one way to simultaneously step outside ourselves and reflect on our own experience of the world around us. In such moments of internal and external presence we may find a starting point for honoring the tradition of community reflected in this shared space. Whether we gather here with others or we use the space to take time to turn inward, we connect the community when we attend to the city’s natural colors, patterns, and shapes. In the spirit of generosity, the mural is literally imbued with love: Rosenberg has hidden 18 hearts in the wall. You will never find them all, but they are there as a lasting gift of care.

But the true gift, Rosenberg believes, is the discovery that the experiences of observing and connecting cultivated by this piece, in this space, continue when you find these colors in your day to day lives outside the building’s walls.

-Text by Grace Converse with input from the artist, 2020

I am wildly grateful to have had the chance to work with the powerhouse duo Dorothy and Kimberly of Lenehan Architectural Glass in fabricating this series of large IGU glass pieces, spanning floors 3-6 at a new residence One Piedmont in Oakland. The artwork showcases a spectrum of eight colors, masked painted stripes, airbrushing, sandblasting, and dichroic glass insets.

Art Consultant: Karen Eichler

This site-specific/stripe-specific wall painting at Sarasota Art Museum which opened officially to the public with a group exhibition: ‘Color. Theory. &B/W’ on Dec 14th. The stripes in ‘28 Colors (Sarasota, FI)’ welcome you into the lobby, lead you through the atrium and up the stairs to the second and then third floor. Along the way the stripes break apart, following cues from and highlighting moments in the architecture might otherwise be overlooked...nooks and bricks (the building was built in 1926 as the Sarasota High School.) The twenty eight colors were selected deliberately on a site visit and then paired down to try to give an authentic and fun portrait or map of the city (acknowledging its past & embracing the new) by way of a handwritten index in the front window that reads like hopeful field notes.

Local artist Leah Rosenberg’s site-specific installation, 18 Colors For Ghirardelli Square, invites visitors to take themselves on a multicolored meander through this famous San Francisco landmark. Using a palette of 18 hues; thoughtfully dispersed throughout the square in hand-painted murals, full-spectrum steps, banners, benches and signs, Rosenberg draws attention to aspects of the surrounding architecture and landscape that might otherwise go overlooked. The installation prompts participants to observe and connect to the world around them.

Ultimately, the experience of these colors is up to you. Listen for some, taste a few, allow the others to move you through the site. Perhaps, you notice the blue sailboat anchored in the Bay is brighter next to the deep blue water. As you sit on a bench with a lime green stripe, do you look up to catch the olive tree leaves turning silver in the sun? Or reflect on the purple banner that pairs perfectly with the jacaranda in bloom? In some areas the entire palette dances together in a chorus; elsewhere you will find colors performing their dynamic solos. Follow the stripes along corridors, around corners, up and down stairs as they angle and fall, break into bricks, and burst into pieces of confetti!

ABOUT GHIRARDELLI SQUARE

Originally built in the 1860s to house Ghirardelli Chocolate’s manufactory and headquarters, Ghirardelli Square reemerged in the 1960s as a culinary hub and retail destination featuring artist Ruth Asawa's "Andrea's Fountain" as the centerpiece.

Download interactive map here.

SPECIAL THANKS:

For every color there is someone to thank: Jamestown team; New Bohemia for painting the murals, bench, and blade signs; Stephanie Hunter for painting all the other colors you see sprinkled around; Lisa Mishima for map design; Airyka Rockefeller for photography; SFSU MFA class 2019 for joining in; Ehsan Darbandi.

Local Color, a multi-colored functional seating and lighting artwork designed by local artist Leah Rosenberg as part of Sites Unseen . Rosenberg’s project responds directly to feedback garnered from local residents, workers, and visitors who have communicated their desire for more seating and lighting in the neighborhood’s alleys. “Leah’s project reflects the many ways in which various forms of artistic practice can transform urban public spaces by responding to the needs of each place, which is an essential part of Sites Unseen’s mission,” said Jessica Shaefer, Sites Unseen Project Director.

Each of the 265 colors in this large striped walkway corresponded to a specific moment encountered while walking 265 streets covering the length ofManhattan -- from the uppermost part of the borough at West 220th Street down to Battery Park. From lavender mums at a corner bodega to the forest green scaffolding covering a building under construction, Manhattan Color Walk paid homage to all the colors that make New York City unique. This installation functioned as a new kind of map, showcasing the colors and diverse stories that bring the city to life, and encouraged visitors to consider how color can help define a place and contribute to our sense of togetherness. Installed at Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum, Arthur Ross Garden; commissioned by Color Factory NYC.

Manhattan Color Walk from Color Factory on Vimeo.

Video by Russ & Reyn, Art direction by Erin Jang & Leah Rosenberg

Site-specific color wall for the Pink Container Café at Entenwerder in Hamburg for Thomas-i-Punkt.

Birch, latex paint, plexiglass

Images All rights reserved.

Throughout the day, in the month of May, I took over the back workshop to create a series of paintings using that week's color pairing to guide my palette, Working with this limited palette, allowed me to refocus on the fundamentals of values, hues, composition, and pattern. At the end of the days I would put the finished pieces up to dry and begin preparing for the Color Bar in the small kitchen. At the end of the month all the pieces made over the course of the month we pieced together to create a mural at the front of the space to greet visitors.

Collecting colors around the Facebook campus and using the architectural layout as a guide to how stripes move from one wall to the next, turning corners, curving down the hallway, breaking apart into confetti pieces at the end wall, this sixteen color wall installation spans six walls in Building #57.  Thank you to Kristin Farr, Dana Martin, Drew Bennett, Carissa Potter, Dephne Boyce at the Analog Print lab and everyone in building 57 who helped keep spirits up by cheering us along.  A huge thank you to helpers Julia Goodman, Michael Hall, Michael Svendsen, Suzanne Husky, and Celia...reminding me that the process is a lot more fun when done in good company (and ample snacks!)

Site-specific wall installation at Pinhole Coffee in Bernal Heights, San Francisco.  Colors depicted in the wall can be found throughout the neighborhood:  the bike often parked out front of the grocery store, the purple door around the corner, the mailbox out front of the café, the sky on a particular Wednesday, etc.  

All photos by Joellen Depakakibo (owner of Pinhole Coffee)

Overtones, 40 colors latex and acrylic paint on glass, 2021

Overtones brings a palette of forty hues to create a full spectrum playlist of sorts. The hope is that these hand-painted marks will function manifold: part art, part meditation, part sheet music, part recipe, part record, part gift wrap? Maybe some colors remind you of flavors of your last meal, others flowers in bloom outside, or the light at sundown looking west. Maybe they match your outfit one day or invoke certain emotions the next, remind you of a song you heard on the radio on your drive here. Maybe, after awhile, you don’t even notice them. From tender pink to red hot and california poppy, from lemon twist to gold to spring leaf, from shimmering lime to hummingbird green to ultramarine and where summer blue meets violet meets exotic fuchsia. They become part of the place, folded into the fabric of your everyday. These colors can be as much about you as they are for you. Depending on where you are, in or out, coming or going, these hash marks of color can lead the way or follow your lead.

Commissioned by State Bird Provisions to create a colorful wall work incorporating their signature pegboard.  Speckled with custom hand-painted wood cutouts, the shapes and colors abstractly referenced ingredients, kitchen tools and service ware used in the restaurant.  Found at the back of the narrow dining room until 2017, when it was de-installed as apart of their revamp and replaced by a fresh paint sheet installation. 

Wylie Price developed a lighting and modular seating strategy for the existing restaurant,  building on the conceptual framework of the original design as a midcentury workshop.

2010 Public commission for Moffitt Café at UCSF Parnassus Hospital.

Acrylic paint on walls

The mural, created specifically for this site, acts as a kind of calendar: an exploration of space and of accumulated experiences, emotions, and memories expressed through color and form. 

Over the course of its making, I was thinking about making people who eat here happy, about nourishment, digestion, celebration and life.  I considered the way one might move through the café, selecting their desired meals and consuming them in a space that all people can share and maybe might even make the coffee taste better.