Art + Water addresses the crisis of affordable artist workspace in San Francisco, fosters the careers of local artists, and creates a dynamic new exhibition space destination and cultural hub that enhances a rich and exciting Embarcadero Waterfront Pathway and re-energizes Downtown San Francisco. This will be accomplished under a Pier 29 sublease with The Community Arts Stabilization Trust (CAST).
Our vision for Art + Water offers an unprecedented opportunity to activate a dormant part of the waterfront and anchor Downtown San Francisco with a dynamic, groundbreaking, and inclusive space for the arts.
THIS SPACE FEATURES:
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World-class art exhibitions that will bring tens of thousands of visitors to the Embarcadero.
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Much-needed working space for artists.
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Much-needed exhibition space for working artists and other San Francisco visual artists, who have few spaces to show and sell their work.
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A very flexible, convertible space for short-term events.
WHAT IS ART + WATER?
ARTIST RESIDENCIES +
FREE STUDIO SPACE
With our studios, Art + Water hopes to address two problems. One is that studio space in San Francisco is prohibitively high, and this has forced out countless visual artists. Art + Water will provide free studio space to dozens of working artists. And these established artists will together address the second problem: the insanely high cost of art school. At the moment, one year of art school costs $100,000, which is absurd.
So at Art + Water, we’ll provide free space for 20 emerging artists, of all ages, to learn from our 10 established artists. Together, these 30 artists will share their knowledge, and we believe our emerging artists will receive the most rigorous art education in the U.S. All for free. Check out the Art + Water Instagram for updates on on how to apply.
MAJOR ART EXHIBITION SPACE
Art + Water’s exhibition program will take advantage of an expansive 20,000 square foot exhibition space. Its ceiling height, 20 feet and more, and multiple galleries offer potential for immersive experiences and intimate exhibit displays.
The exhibit program will feature artists and makers across a broad spectrum of culture to underline Art + Water’s belief that important creativity exists within and well beyond the confines of the traditional fine arts.
Artists with a mastery of skills and artistic techniques will be highlighted, as well as artists who offer new ways of understanding what art can be. By bringing the widest range of artistic ideas in proximity to an art skills-based school, Art + Water will be a unique space where ideas and technique come together to unlock imagination and powerful artistic possibilities.
OUR INAUGURAL EXHIBITION
FORCED PERSPECTIVE:
THE WORLD OF BOOTS RILEY
In his acclaimed films, writer-director Boots Riley has created a new kind of American surrealism, using practical effects and wildly innovative sets to present a vision of the Bay Area that’s at once recognizable and dystopian, both playful and bizarre. The World of Boots Riley will present sets, props, costumes and production designs from Sorry to Bother You, I’m a Virgo and his upcoming feature, I Love Boosters, allowing visitors to Art + Water to interact with, for example, a 20-foot ball of anxiety.
The exhibit will be fully immersive and accessible, welcoming visitors to learn how Riley, also known as the founder of the seminal hip-hop act The Coup, reinvented himself as one of the world’s most original and uncompromising filmmakers. Public talks and music by Riley and his team will be part of the run of the exhibition.
Maira Kalman is one of the most beloved illustrators and writers in America today. Her colorful and quirky paintings appear in publications, theaters, and galleries throughout the country and abroad. Kalman’s pictures offer a vision of the world unapologetically full of humor, warmth, and charm, qualities increasingly essential in these times.
In collaboration with the artist, Art + Water presents A Wonderful Time: The Work of Maira Kalman, a one-of-a-kind immersive experience that celebrates Kalman’s unique artistry and style.
A WONDERFUL TIME:
THE WORK OF MAIRA KALMAN
EXHIBITIONS IN DEVELOPMENT
FOR KIDS + FAMILIES
EXHIBITIONS IN DEVELOPMENT
CLASSES FOR ALL AGES
At Art + Water we will have a wide open space where anyone—kids, K-12 groups, visiting adults, and even families who have just disembarked from the cruise ship dock next door—can come in and take free classes or simply sit and draw. There will be free demonstrations, group projects, and a wide array of events that will draw in classes from Bay Area schools.
Our hope is that kids on a field trip to the Exploratorium would spend the morning there, eat at the Ferry Building, and then spend the afternoon with Art + Water. Passersby on the Embarcadero, exhibition visitors, and families, too—we want to be another reason for people to visit the city and support local businesses.
FREE + REDUCED-RENT GALLERY SPACE
FOR LOCAL ARTISTS + ARTS ORGANIZATIONS
Art + Water will feature about 12,000 square feet of gallery space, open on the south side of Pier 29. This gallery space will be rentable to local arts organizations — from small galleries who have been priced out of the city, to nonprofits like our friends at Creativity Explored. Partner organizations like the Minnesota Street Project will be able to program gallery space with us, and artists can reserve space for individual shows and installations.
Because the gallery area will use moveable walls — much like at the art fairs at Fort Mason — visitors will experience a different array of local artists every time they come to Pier 29. To learn more about this aspect of Art + Water, please email Sherry Knutson at info@artpluswater.org. We want this to be a radically welcoming space where San Francisco’s visual artists can always find a home to show their work to the world.
FLOORPLAN
Rendering by WRNS STUDIO
San Francisco deserves a thriving arts scene. At Art + Water, tuition will always be free, and every gift supports artists, inspires the public, and revitalizes San Francisco.
“Fifteen years ago, I started envisioning a new way to teach drawing and painting by returning to the methods that worked for about 500 years. I believe so fervently in Art + Water, and I know it will revitalize the arts in San Francisco.”
— Dave Eggers, Author, Artist, and Co Founder of Art + Water
Your support today brings us closer to opening our doors in 2026. Every gift shapes the future of art making in this city and sustains the artists who will define it.
Major Gifts: Naming Opportunities
Supporters making gifts of $100,000 or more are invited to explore naming opportunities for key spaces and programs. Leave a lasting mark at Art + Water by contacting Rebecca Teague, Development Director, at rebecca@artpluswater.org
Founding Circle Gifts
Founding Circle supporters giving $20,000 and above bring Art + Water’s vision to life! Founding Circle members will be honored as essential partners and kept closely updated as the project unfolds.
Your gift today builds a free artist residency, a public atelier, and a cultural hub on San Francisco’s dazzling waterfront. Together, we can create a home for artists and an arts destination for all.
DONATE TODAY
TO ART + WATER
Heather Holt
Heather Holt is an Associate Director with ODC, a groundbreaking contemporary arts institution, which delivers its mission through a world class dance company, an innovative presenting theater and digital platform, and a dance school for movers of all ages and abilities. For decades, Holt has served as a passionate advocate for arts and artists in San Francisco, Bay Area, with deep experience in non-profit management, curating, fundraising, events and hospitality.
Jane Ganahl
Jane Ganahl is a Bay Area journalist, author, event producer, teacher, and animal activist. In 1999, she co-founded the Litquake literary festival, now the West Coast's largest, with Jack Boulware. During nearly four decades with Hearst newspapers, including the San Francisco Chronicle, she penned the popular Single Minded column. She authored the memoir Naked on the Page and edited the anthology Single Woman of a Certain Age.
Stephanie Fine Sasse
Stephanie Fine Sasse combines neuroscience, education, and design. With a Harvard background in neuroscience and psychology, she developed I Am a Scientist, reaching over a million students. She co-authored Science Not Silence (MIT Press) and organized the March for Science, mobilizing over a million worldwide. At The Plenary, Co., she builds immersive exhibitions and interactive salons integrating science, art, and community to inspire civic engagement.
Rob Saunders
Rob Saunders, a letter arts collector for over 40 years, founded The Letterform Archive to share his private collection with the public. Since opening in February 2015, the Archive offers hands-on access to a curated collection of over 100,000 items spanning lettering, typography, calligraphy, and graphic design across thousands of years of history. It has since welcomed over 20,000 guests from more than 30 countries.
Ingrid Rojas Contreras
Ingrid Rojas Contreras was born and raised in Bogotá, Colombia. Her memoir, The Man Who Could Move Clouds, was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, National Book Award, and National Book Critics Circle Award. Her debut novel, Fruit of the Drunken Tree, won the California Book Award silver medal in First Fiction. She is a Visiting Writer at Saint Mary's College and lives in California.
Bridget Quinn
Bridget Quinn is author of She Votes: How U.S. Women Won Suffrage, and What Happened Next (Amazon Best History 2020) and award-winning Broad Strokes: 15 Women Who Made Art and Made History (Amazon Best Art 2017, translated into four languages). NPR praised its "spunky attitudinal, SMART writing." Her current book is Portrait of a Woman: Art, Rivalry & Revolution in the Life of Adélaïde Labille-Guiard.
Rebecca Solnit
Writer, historian, and activist Rebecca Solnit is the author of more than twenty books on feminism, western and urban history, social change, hope, and catastrophe. Her acclaimed works include Men Explain Things to Me, Hope in the Dark, Orwell's Roses, and A Paradise Built in Hell. A product of California public education, she writes regularly for The Guardian, serves on the board of Oil Change International, and launched the climate project Not Too Late (nottoolateclimate.com).
Claudia Schmuckli
Claudia Schmuckli is Chief Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco. She has curated over 20 exhibitions and installations, including Lee Mingwei: Rituals of Care (2024), Kehinde Wiley: An Archaeology of Silence (2023), Judy Chicago: A Retrospective (2021), and Uncanny Valley: Being Human in the Age of AI (2020). She also curated Isaac Julien: I Dream a World, the artist's first US retrospective.
Meg Shiffler
Meg Shiffler is a Bay Area–based curator, writer, and arts leader. In 2025, she launched Cities of Glass, a ten-year independent curatorial initiative commissioning site-specific works worldwide. She is the inaugural Director of Artist Space Trust, the nation’s first Community Land Trust for artists. She has worked for the SF Arts Commission (SF), New Museum and Andrea Rosen Gallery (NYC) and co-founded Consolidated Works (Seattle).
Amanda Uhle
Amanda Uhle is Executive Director and Publisher of McSweeney's, The Believer, and Illustoria, an art and storytelling magazine for young readers. She co-founded The International Congress of Youth Voices with Dave Eggers and co-edits the I, Witness series. Previously, Uhle was executive director of 826michigan for over 11 years. Her writing appears in The Washington Post, Politico, and Newsweek. Her memoir, Destroy This House, is published by Simon & Schuster.
Kal Spelletich
For 25 years, Kal Spelletich has explored the human-machine interface, using technology to reconnect people with intense, real-life experiences. His interactive work requires participants to operate often dangerous machinery, probing boundaries between fear, control, and exhilaration. His work has been exhibited at San Francisco's De Young Museum, SFMOMA, Exploratorium, and Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, plus internationally. He is represented by Catharine Clark Gallery.
Tabitha Soren
After a career as a reporter, Soren studied art and photography at Stanford University. Her work has been published in The New York Times, Vanity Fair, The New Yorker, and various other magazines and journals. Soren’s work has been exhibited worldwide, and is in the permanent collections of the Getty Museum, Los Angeles, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, the High Museum of Art, Atlanta, and many more. She is the author of the books Surface Tension (RVB Books, Paris, 2021) and Fantasy Life (Aperture, 2017).
Ben Venom
Ben Venom holds an MFA from San Francisco Art Institute (2007). His work has been exhibited internationally at venues including the Levi Strauss Museum (Germany), the National Folk Museum of Korea, and the Taubman Museum of Art. He has been featured by NPR, CBS Sunday Morning, and Playboy. Recent residencies include MASS MoCA and the de Young Museum, and he is Studio Manager of The Space Program SF.
ART + WATER TEAM
CO-FOUNDER
JD Beltran
A native San Franciscan who grew up in the Richmond District, JD Beltran has been a creative infrastruralist and arts cheerleader who, for more than 20 years, has advanced groundbreaking solutions and organizational initiatives that address cultural, social, environmental, and economic challenges. She has served on the San Francisco Arts Commission for 16 years, serving as President for 8 them. An award-winning artist with works in museums and collections worldwide, filmmaker, designer, writer, journalist, educator, and master in the use of the serial comma, Beltran has served as a longtime faculty in art, film, design, and technology at the San Francisco Art Institute (her alma mater), CCA, SFSU, and Stanford.
CHIEF CURATOR &
CO-EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
René de Guzman
René de Guzman is a longtime Bay Area curator, artist, and arts consultant. He was one of the founding curators at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts as Visual Arts Curator and Director of Visual Arts, serving from 1993-2007, and subsequently served as the Senior Curator of Art and Director of Exhibition Strategy at the Oakland Museum of California from 2007-21, He also served as Deputy Director for Programs and Engagement at Headlands Center for the Arts, overseeing artist residencies and public programs. For over three decades, he has developed innovative and popular exhibitions for a wide public.
CO-FOUNDER
Dave Eggers
In 2002, author Nínive Calegari and artist Dave Eggers cofounded 826 Valencia, the beloved Mission District writing and tutoring center. Celebrating its twenty-third year in San Francisco, the center now has locations all over the city, with major hubs in the Mission, the Tenderloin, and Mission Bay. Eggers has also jump-started many other nonprofits, including ScholarMatch, dedicated to making college accessible to low-income students, and Voice of Witness, a series of books that illuminate human rights crises through oral history. He is also the founder of McSweeney's, the Mission-based publishing company. His drawings and paintings have been widely shown and are represented by Electric Works.
CO-DIRECTOR
Rebecca Teague
Rebecca Teague was born in Washington, DC, raised in Chicago, and has called the Bay Area home for nearly 30 years. An artist trained at the San Francisco Art Institute and the Academy of Art University, she brings a maker’s perspective to her leadership. Over the past 15 years she has built a career guiding arts organizations through growth, partnership building, development, and community engagement. Rebecca has supported and elevated artists across the region while helping shape spaces where creativity and public life meet. Her dual perspective as artist and organizational leader fuels her commitment to building strong, equitable cultural ecosystems and creating environments where artists and communities can thrive.
HEAD OF OPERATIONS
Gabriel Penfield
Gabriel Penfield served as the Lab Manager fabricator for Sculpture, Ceramics, and Art and Technology at the San Francisco Art Institute from 2007-20, and is the Founder and Lead Designer at Penfield Design Group. He has spearheaded installations for major exhibitions and managed capital improvement initiatives, and has two decades of experience in building and studio management, specializing in educational environments, art, and residential projects. His creative practice focuses on small run production tableware, specializing in formulating, creating, and testing all of the glazes and clays that are used in his production.
SCENOGRAPHER
Kristin Farr
Kristin Farr is an artist and has served as a curator, journalist and producer for KQED, Juxtapoz Magazine and Facebook’s original artist-in-residence program. She has created public art installations locally and internationally, and founded the Emmy-winning educational film series, KQED Art School. Her work is directed by color psychology and folk-art practices. She is intuitively connected to color due to her lifelong experience with synesthesia. Kristin has painted large-scale murals internationally and locally since 2014, and has made objects of all forms since childhood, mostly focused on painting, sculpture, and video art.
CO-DIRECTOR
Nicole Avril
Nicole has dedicated her career to revitalizing spaces and forging strategic public-private partnerships that drive economic and cultural renewal. Passionate about design, creative financing, and problem-solving, she thrives on turning complex challenges into lasting community impact. As Capital Partnerships Director with SF Rec Park, Nicole led the Geneva Powerhouse Art Center and India Basin Park Initiatives, an abandoned railway building and former boatyard, respectively, which both focus on creativity and equity as tools for the empowerment of historically marginalized communities. Nicole has also served as the Director of External Relations for UC Berkeley’s College of Environmental Design and had leadership roles on the boards of Headlands Center for the Arts and Southern Exposure.
HEAD OF FACULTY
Ana Teresa Fernández
Ana Teresa Fernández creates "Magical Non-fiction" through performance, video, photography, painting, and sculpture. Born in Tampico, Mexico, and based in San Francisco, she explores borders, identity, and climate through time-based actions and social gestures. Her work includes erasing the Tijuana-San Diego border by painting it sky blue while wearing a tango dress. Featured at major venues including the 2022 Armory Show, her work is held in collections at institutions like the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, Denver Art Museum, and Blanton Museum of Art.
CO-DIRECTOR
René de Guzman
René de Guzman is a longtime Bay Area curator, artist, and arts consultant. He was one of the founding curators at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts as Visual Arts Curator and Director of Visual Arts, serving from 1993-2007, and subsequently served as the Senior Curator of Art and Director of Exhibition Strategy at the Oakland Museum of California from 2007-21, He also served as Deputy Director for Programs and Engagement at Headlands Center for the Arts, overseeing artist residencies and public programs. For over three decades, he has developed innovative and popular exhibitions for a wide public.
CREATIVE DIRECTOR
Jennifer Morla
Jennifer Morla founded Morla Design in 1984, creating witty and elegant work spanning motion graphics, branding, retail environments, and textiles. She has received graphic design's highest honors: the AIGA Medal and Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian National Design Award. Her work appears in major museum collections including MOMA, LACMA, and the Smithsonian, with SFMOMA acquiring over 50 pieces. Notable clients include Levi Strauss, MTV, Apple, and Stanford University. She lectures internationally and taught senior level design at California College of the Arts for over 20 years.
CREATIVE TECHNOLOGIST
Ari Salomon
Ari Salomon is a San Francisco–based web designer who creates clean, intuitive WordPress sites for creative professionals, startups, and mission-driven organizations. With decades of experience, he builds websites that balance clarity, functionality, and long-term sustainability. His approach emphasizes responsive design, accessibility, and giving clients the tools to confidently manage their own content. Ari is known for translating complex needs into streamlined digital systems and thoughtful user experiences that grow with each project. He is also a fine-art photographer whose recent work explores loss, resilience, and transformation through a unique process of burning images into wood to create charcoal-based artworks.