From artist to politician with the brush of many strokes

By Western Edition staff

San Francisco has had many artists who gained fame for socio-political stances.

Allen Ginsberg became a household name, due in part to of his popularity in the community of North Beach. Lawrence Ferlinghetti is an icon in San Francisco. Still, most of the artist/social activists have continued to express their political views through their work.
San Francisco artist Debra Walker is taking a different path. Walker has decided to run for public office in her district. Her goal: to become a San Francisco county supervisor.

When asked how does an artist make the leap from art to politics, Walker equates the process to painting.

“You have to step back and look, you open up and then you come back. I do my politics that way,” Walker said. “I engage that way; I gather information and try to put together enough information from enough sources that I think are relevant to an issue. Dialogue, get facts and figures and evaluate what is happening.”

Originally from Nebraska, Walker came to San Francisco from Southern California.

“I came here in 1981 to do my painting and I immediately knew that I needed to move here to paint. There was something magical about it for me that I really responded to. I just started to paint primarily urban landscapes and this is the city for that.”

Walker lives with a collective of artists who enter into a long-term lease that helps to defray their living expenses.

Evolving from artist to  politician
“I go out into the community to sketch, to do the beginnings of paintings. I return to finish them,” Walker said. “You are out there and you see things happen. It was at the time when Yerba Buena was being developed. Redevelopment was very active, you heard about the International Hotel, Western Addition and Japantown and all of the Fillmore.

“As an artist, I am always trying to figure out what I am seeing,” she continued. “I always try to capture what is happening around the backside of the building, down the alleys. It affects the atmosphere and the attitude of peace. The emotional affects the visual. You are always trying to figure out which part of what you are seeing causes you to have the emotional response. You pick stuff up that way. The fact of displacement, of people on the street, homeless.”

Walker said the social experiences that seemed to be the result of land use changes were entering into her work.

“Everything came in and all of a sudden … the fact that they wanted to tear down businesses and a hotel that housed 12 immigrant families, had a different feel to it,” Walker said recalling the changes in her own neighborhood. “Because of my being out there and knowing the neighborhood, it led me into land use. Then, I studied land use and I paid attention and figured out how things happened. It doesn’t just happen. Decisions occur that set things into motion that you don’t even know (about).”

Walker gave an example.

“This area used to have a lot of food processing, (Best Foods) a lot of blue collar, they’d have trains coming in delivering loads of oil to make into mayonnaise. Right up Harrison Street. KQED moved in. Seemed to be a positive, but the minute that happened Best Foods left. You need to have certain areas protected for certain types of business.”

She then began to connect the dots to the decisions. Her search for the answers eventually led to an appointment to the Building Inspection Commission for San Francisco.

“I get along well with my fellow commissioners, even though three of us are selected by the board of supervisors and four are appointed by the mayor. We have really worked together to change and to reform that department. It sounds like that is an easy task, but it really is difficult.“

Walker said the planning commission and department are where the discussions initially begin, but eventually the work gets to the Department of Building and Inspections. She is very much into adaptive reuse of buildings.

“In this economy, we need to really find places that we can implement adaptive reuse and accommodate the kinds of businesses that start here. There are lot of things that we are doing around redevelopment that is good.”

Citing the Mosaic Project as a good model, Walker said, “It’s an affordable housing project, but instead of being 100 percent affordable, there is about a quarter of the units that is market rate and the half of the rest is for sale and the other half is for rental.”

Walker said she believes city planners should negotiate better on behalf of constituents when it comes to developing city property.

“We do not come close to mitigating effectively for people here in San Francisco,” she said, attributing this to city officials working to accommodate developers to develop blighted neighborhoods.

Another aspect Walker said she appreciates is diversity and is concerned about the changing demographics in San Francisco. She said the availability of jobs and housing is critical to maintaining diversity and that it is the responsibility of city officials to take issues that affect diversity seriously.

“I feel if we lose diversity, then our gauges are wrong.”

The above Perspectives in no way endorses the campaign of Debra Walker.