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About 25,000 LED lights were turned on last week as part of an impressive light sculpture on the western span of the Bay Bridge.
“The Bay Lights,” an $8 million privately funded project created by artist Leo Villareal, will wow visitors near the bridge for at least the next two years, the artist and other dignitaries said before the 9 p.m. lighting ceremony.
Mayor Ed Lee said an estimated 50 million people in San Francisco and the North and East Bay will eventually see the lights, which cannot be viewed from cars on the bridge but will glitter in abstract patterns for about seven hours each night.
Villareal said the public nature of the lights, installed on the Bay Bridge’s vertical cables, was what attracted him to the project, which was inspired by the bridge’s 75th anniversary and took more than two years to plan, install and test.
“This piece is incredibly accessible, you don’t have to buy a ticket, you don’t have to go into a building, it’s there and available,” he
said, calling it a “digital campfire that people can be around and enjoy.”
Indeed, restaurants along San Francisco’s waterfront were booked up well before Tuesday night by people wanting a front-row seat for the
lighting ceremony.
“We have had to turn down hundreds of people,” said Duane Stinson, general manager at Sinbad’s Seafood Restaurant directly adjacent to the Ferry
Building on The Embarcadero.
“There’s been tons of people asking about it,” he said.
Lee said “The Bay Lights” will serve as “a beacon for our arts community” and will complement other large events on the waterfront, including the America’s Cup sailing race starting later this year.
The mayor said he thinks the light sculpture may be so popular that people will want to keep it beyond the two years for which it has permits from state officials.
“People, including myself, will want this to be ongoing,” he said.
Ben Davis, chairman of Illuminate the Arts, the group overseeing the project, said even if the lights remain past the current two-year plan,
they would likely have to come down when Caltrans does its repainting and scheduled maintenance of the bridge cables in five years.
“It’s on a living, working bridge and that bridge needs to be maintained,” Davis said. “It’s going to have to come down and another solution will have to be found or it will be an ephemeral work like it was designed to be.”
The project is still seeking about $2 million in funding, which Davis said he was confident will be raised.
“This is an amazing, forward-moving project that has momentum, and the love is just starting to mount for it,” he said.
Illuminate the Arts would have to foot the bill for any gap in the funding, he said.
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This is an innovative example of Civic Art and was first inspired by a small LED lighting art exhibit at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View and the Giants World Series win in 2010. We also have a strong Pleasanton connection to the project as several members of the lighting manufacturer’s team assigned to this project have stayed overnight at my Downtown Pleasanton home (and also the Stoneridge apartments when I was living there) while working on the Bay Lights project. If you play trivia at Redcoats on Wednesday nights, then you have probably seen them playing with us on our Townies and Transplants trivia team.
I am sharing this story because I know we have lots of stories like this in Pleasanton and it would be fun to figure out a way to share them with each other. In fact, I was at Sephora at the Stoneridge Mall yesterday and heard about how someone from Pleasanton was there a few weeks ago to get some new makeup ideas for attending the Grammy Awards Ceremony.
Pleasanton has an amazing connection to exciting events happening in the world and I hope we can come together to share these stories and be positive.
I posted some pictures from last night’s party on my twitter and campaign facebook page:
https://twitter.com/siamliv/status/309389130876456960/photo/1
http://www.facebook.com/vote4olivia
Also, here is a link to a YouTube video for a lighting show on top of the Empire State Building – this shows the color changing capabilities of the same lighting manufacturer that created the white lights currently on the Bay Bridge: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P76nxTxxdOI
looks like a waste of money…thank you for sharing…not my priority
It frosts my behind to no end to see such a squandering of taxpayer money (supplements for the arts and humanities). Unless our taxes go to defending our freedoms, with emphaissis on freedoms, then its a big waste and only makes the government all that more powerful. How about a tax rebate instead of this extravagent waste?
That’s exactly my point! Why have government fund arts and humanities with taxpayer money when all artists have to do is get $8 million in privat funding? All artists could be millionaires if they paid more attention to fund raising out in the private sector. Instead, their pampered wards of the state. I want my rebate!
Nice try, Lib, but that wasn’t your point, at all — and you got schooled by Ms. Vintage Hills Elementary. When you complain about every trivial (to you) thing, you end up sacrificing your own credibility, and just become a scold. Better to keep your powder dry, to use an ancient, Defense-based expression that might resonate with you.
As to all those ‘artist millionaires if they’d only try,’ there are hundreds of starving artists among the readership, all of whom want you to become their agent, and willing to give you 10%.
Nice post Vincent
When you get clear about what you’re trying to say, Vincent, let us know. Until then, you’re welcome to bask in the nonsense your spouting. If there are ‘hundreds of starving artists among the readership,’ in my humble estimation they deserve to starve until either consumers show a willingness to purchase there art or some wealthy patrons allow them access to there wealth. In the law of the capitalist marketplace, in case you didn’t know, demand dictates. If artist wannabees want to starve, that’s okay by me. Just don’t ask me to pay taxes to “supplament” the poor “artists” who aren’t good enough to convince people to purchase there “art”. IMHO most artists would be better off in a technology program where they can be useful to a corporation.
I’ll let Libertarian speak for himself. But I don’t like the name calling one bit. And instead of engaging him, you skurt the issue.
Does anyone want to deny that artist’s are pulling a scam on the American taxpayers? We need artists about as much as we need comix book readers. Neither contributes anything of value. People are free to read comix books all they want. That’s freedom which is the American way. But don’t make all the hard workers fork over their earnings for the sake of some lay about artist who wants to fingerpaint a mural or hang lights from a bridge. Where are our values going? This is why we’re falling behind China and India.
Calling Ms. Vintage Hills Elementary: would you pleeze send some student over to Country Fair to read the article to Wake-up? Like Lib, s/he doesn’t understand the part about private funding of the light show she refers-to on the bridge, either.
Now, I’ll bet my left ear that she’ll have advice for those donors and how they could better spend their money, but a basic understanding of the facts would be an upgrade.
Wow! “Neither contributes anything of value.” Could Wake Up have been more ignorant? We need artists, authors, entrepreneurs and everything in between, including comic book readers. I don’t have the least bit of artistic talent but surely appreciate those who do. The privately funded light sculpture on the bridge shows the sheer creative genius and technological brilliance of the talented people involved. It’s beautiful. It’s appreciated. My thanks to everyone who contributed to it and especially to those who created it.
A group of us visited the Asian Art Museum last night for the Terracotta Warrior exhibit and had dinner at Sinbads specifically to see the lights on the Bridge. It was quite entertaining and somewhat spectacular. Although it may not be helping East Bay revenues, I’m sure it is providing a boom to the SF downtown economy!
Awfully heavy hand by the Moderator of this board — reminds of an exchange from a favorite movie:
Henry Drummond: Radio! God, this is going to break down a lot of walls.
Radio Announcer: You’re not supposed to say “God” on the radio!
Henry Drummond: Why the hell not?
Radio Announcer: You’re not supposed to say “Hell”, either.
Henry Drummond: This is going to be a barren source of amusement!
Indeed.
From the article: “. . . an $8 million privately funded project”