The West Wall
In 2007, the Walter and Elise Haas Fund inaugurated The West Wall Project to recognize and support some of the talented artists who have received Creative Work Fund grants. Every 18 months, an artist is commissioned to create an original work for display on the west wall of the Fund's offices at One Lombard Street in San Francisco. At the end of the display period, the Fund returns the artwork to the artist who contributes it in an appropriate form to a nonprofit organization of his or her choosing. The Fund's business is philanthropy, and this commissioning project emphasizes the idea of giving.
We Are Everything We Are Not
Artist: Walter Kitundu
Date: January 2012-June 2013
Walter Kitundu's West Wall project, We Are Everything We Are Not, is a kinetic sculpture in the form of a rowboat. When viewers interact with the piece, it responds with light patterns and sounds suggesting the movement of a boat through water.
No Vacancies
Artist: Sergio De La Torre
Date: April 2010-December 2011
Sergio de la Torre's West Wall commission, No Vacancies, was an installation featuring text and an accordion-format book containing photographs that portrayed the general locations of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids that had occurred in San Francisco in 2007-09.
The Cantilever Project
Artist: Anne Hamersky
Date: November 2008-April 2010
Photographer Anne Hamersky received the project's second commission. After meetings with Walter and Elise Haas Fund's program staff and executive director, she chose the theme of bridging-building relationships among people and organizations across differences in cultural background, neighborhood, age, and faith-which is an underlying purpose of many of the Fund's grants.
Helping Hands
Artist: Ellen Oppenheimer
Date: July 2007-October 2008
Fabric artist Ellen Oppenheimer was the project's first commission. A resident artist at Peralta Elementary School in Oakland when the Fund approached her, she decided to engage the school community in creating a quilt to display at the offices.Reach Institute for School Leadership
