Sunday Walk: Mission District murals

Muralist Patricia Rose leads a Precita Eyes tour in San Francisco's Mission District.

California is awash in murals, and it's sometimes easy to take for granted the vision and labor that go into this most democratic of art forms. Precita Eyes, an organization of muralists based in San Francisco's Mission District, are keen to help people see public art in a new and deeper way.

Working artists lead several Mission District mural tours each weekend, and you don't need a reservation. A 90-minute "Mission Trail Mural Walk" leaves each Saturday at 11 a.m. from Cafe Venice at 3325 24th Street, just steps from the 24th Street-Mission BART station. Another hour-and-a-half walk focusing on Precita Park leaves at 11 a.m. Sunday from the Precita Eyes Mural Arts and Visitor Center (2981 24th Street, a 10-minute walk from BART).

If you want more context with your murals, check out the"Classic Mission Mural Walk," offered at 1:30 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. These two-hour, 15-minute tours begin with a slide show and brief talk in an art-filled workroom at Precita Eyes' Visitor Center. You'll learn about  the history of murals, from the Cave of Altamira and the Sistine Chapel in Europe to the three murals that Mexican artist Diego Rivera completed in San Francisco to the work of modern-day Mission District muralists.

After this background session, the tour proceeds to Balmy Alley, where nearly every square foot is covered in about 40 murals that date from 1972 to the present. Tour guides then lead their groups to several other neighborhood murals within a short, leisurely walk. At the session I attended in August, muralist Patricia Rose pointed out several of her own works and shared stories of many others, including several projects done with local schoolchildren. "We are serving our community as artists," she said. "It really doesn't get better than that."

Details of Balmy Alley murals

With hundreds of Mission District murals to view, you'll never take the same tour twice. See the Precita Eyes website for more tour information, and check out the center's calendar of special events, including the annual Gala, "35 Years of Changing Lives Through Community Murals," on September 22, 2012.