Artist In Residence
Jo Hanson, Founder of Artist In Residence Program
Jo Hanson, Founder of the Artist In Residence Program
in her home on Buchanan Street in San Francisco.
Listen to a radio interview with Jo Hanson at ArtTalk by Richard Kamler.
The Artist In Residence Program at SF Recycling was established in 1990 at a time when recycling was new in San Francisco. Even before curbside recycling was implemented in San Francisco, the people of San Francisco were ahead of most of the nation in their recycling efforts. A great percentage of residents routinely saved their glass bottles, metal cans, and newspapers and took them to recycling centers on a regular basis.
In 1989 a new state law (AB939) required all jurisdictions in California to plan to divert from landfills at least 50% of their waste by the year 2000. Counties were required to have a "County Solid Waste Management Plan" to achieve this state-mandated goal. The Solid Waste Management Program (SWMP), a new city program within the Chief Administrators Office, was formed to develop and implement this plan. The first director of this program was the late Joe Johnson. Joe was an artist in his spare time.
Part of the County Plan was to design a program to educate people about recycling and resource conservation. The SWMP and Recology started developing a variety of educational components, including brochures about recycling, newspaper advertisements, classroom presentations, and tours of recycling plants. The components had different objectives: some explained how to use curbside recycling, and others encouraged source reduction or promoted general awareness about how recycling helps protect the environment. The Artist In Residence Program was proposed by local artist Jo Hanson and established by the company and is one of the most innovative educational efforts to inspire the public to recycle more and conserve resources. We credit Jo Hanson as the founder of the AIR Program.
Jo was a guiding force for the program since it began, and she served as a member of the program's advisory board from 1990 until she passed away in March 2007. In the 1980s, Jo Hanson was a pioneering spirit in both environmental and feminist activist art movements and a member of the San Francisco Arts Commission.
Hanson came to prominence early in the 1970s soon after she moved into a deteriorated but stately Victorian on Buchanan Street. Once she had resuscitated the house into a landmark, she tackled its windy litter-strewn sidewalk. Her personal act of sweeping one sidewalk grew into a celebrated public art practice and citywide anti-litter campaign. Her compiled volumes of urban detritus are recognized as an artistic political tour de force that raised community awareness as it chronicled rapidly changing demographics.
Not content to be a cloistered artist, Hanson organized city-wide street sweepings, children's anti-litter art campaigns for City Hall, and led a famous bus tour of San Francisco street dumping sites--all extensions of her conceptual real-life artworks. Hanson's community-inclusive strategies set precedents in public "ecoart", created models for younger artists, and gave poor neighborhoods visual access to City Hall.
As a vocal SF Arts Commissioner for six years, Hanson was known for championing the inclusion of deserving underrepresented women and artists of color in the City's art collections. She was the driving force behind saving Lucien Labaudt's murals at the Beach Chalet. She was instrumental in the Art Commission's restoring the Coit Tower murals and acquiring public art for San Francisco International Airport.
In the late 1980s Hanson suggested to Recology and the City of San Francisco that they develop an artist in residence program at the City dump, offering a studio and stipend for emerging and well-known artists to create artwork from the waste stream to raise public awareness. Nationally recognized and awarded, the AIR program has become hugely successful benefiting many artists and the San Francisco public. Each year more than 2,500 SF school children meet the current artist working in the company's studio, tour its sculpture garden, and visit the recycling facilities.
The Artist In Residence Program at SF Recycling was established in 1990 at a time when recycling was new in San Francisco. Even before curbside recycling was implemented in San Francisco, the people of San Francisco were ahead of most of the nation in their recycling efforts. A great percentage of residents routinely saved their glass bottles, metal cans, and newspapers and took them to recycling centers on a regular basis.
In 1989 a new state law (AB939) required all jurisdictions in California to plan to divert from landfills at least 50% of their waste by the year 2000. Counties were required to have a "County Solid Waste Management Plan" to achieve this state-mandated goal. The Solid Waste Management Program (SWMP), a new city program within the Chief Administrators Office, was formed to develop and implement this plan. The first director of this program was the late Joe Johnson. Joe was an artist in his spare time.
Part of the County Plan was to design a program to educate people about recycling and resource conservation. The SWMP and Recology started developing a variety of educational components, including brochures about recycling, newspaper advertisements, classroom presentations, and tours of recycling plants. The components had different objectives: some explained how to use curbside recycling, and others encouraged source reduction or promoted general awareness about how recycling helps protect the environment. The Artist In Residence Program was proposed by local artist Jo Hanson and established by the company and is one of the most innovative educational efforts to inspire the public to recycle more and conserve resources. We credit Jo Hanson as the founder of the AIR Program.
Jo was a guiding force for the program since it began, and she served as a member of the program's advisory board from 1990 until she passed away in March 2007. In the 1980s, Jo Hanson was a pioneering spirit in both environmental and feminist activist art movements and a member of the San Francisco Arts Commission.
Hanson came to prominence early in the 1970s soon after she moved into a deteriorated but stately Victorian on Buchanan Street. Once she had resuscitated the house into a landmark, she tackled its windy litter-strewn sidewalk. Her personal act of sweeping one sidewalk grew into a celebrated public art practice and citywide anti-litter campaign. Her compiled volumes of urban detritus are recognized as an artistic political tour de force that raised community awareness as it chronicled rapidly changing demographics.
Not content to be a cloistered artist, Hanson organized city-wide street sweepings, children's anti-litter art campaigns for City Hall, and led a famous bus tour of San Francisco street dumping sites--all extensions of her conceptual real-life artworks. Hanson's community-inclusive strategies set precedents in public "ecoart", created models for younger artists, and gave poor neighborhoods visual access to City Hall.
As a vocal SF Arts Commissioner for six years, Hanson was known for championing the inclusion of deserving underrepresented women and artists of color in the City's art collections. She was the driving force behind saving Lucien Labaudt's murals at the Beach Chalet. She was instrumental in the Art Commission's restoring the Coit Tower murals and acquiring public art for San Francisco International Airport.
In the late 1980s Hanson suggested to Recology and the City of San Francisco that they develop an artist in residence program at the City dump, offering a studio and stipend for emerging and well-known artists to create artwork from the waste stream to raise public awareness. Nationally recognized and awarded, the AIR program has become hugely successful benefiting many artists and the San Francisco public. Each year more than 2,500 SF school children meet the current artist working in the company's studio, tour its sculpture garden, and visit the recycling facilities.