Adventure into the Land of Presidio Giants

Refreshed after sharing a pipe of kelp, Dea and I started out on our first adventure into the wilderness that surrounded us. There is so much to be explored in the Presidio of San Francisco, with its vast acres packed with national landmarks, artifacts, residents, office spaces, hiking trails, and of course, Sculpture. What good would a national park be without Sculpture?

The last time that I was here was just before the military settlement that seems to have come and gone; instead of sand dunes there are giant Cypress and Redwood trees that are the military’s legacy. It seems fitting then that any art meant to decorate this impressive landscape would have to be able to compete with the massive natural beauty where it was stationed. Our first discovery was not an easy one. Hiding in the hills of forest was a giant sculpture of tree trunks. As if a giant child had pulled up trees from the earth, removed the branches, and stacked them in a tight spire reaching towards the heavens. The mass of trees at the base slowly ascend and tighten seamlessly, the higher the eye travels the more the trees become one single entity, a jagged gnarled branch, against the empty blue sky.

The sculpture was created in 2008 by iconic human artist Andy Goldsworthy to integrate seamlessly into the landscape. As we came up the hill towards it, the sculpture peaked over the horizon, looking more like a mighty tree scarred by a lightning strike than like a man made piece of art. While it might be easy to dismiss this sculpture by the roadside, it is worthwhile to pull over and get out to actually view “Spire” close up.

Made from 35 cypress trees that have been perfectly entwined together, their massive trunks piled on top and between one another rising up 90 feet into the sky. In bare white wood patches can be seen tattoos in the travels of termites’ intricate comings and goings, making thoughtful attention brought to the fact that while this is a manmade sculpture, it is not permanent, and like its surroundings, will change as all things do. “Spire” both fits into its surroundings gracefully and at times sticks out like a sore thumb. It may be made of natural materials but there is a sense of design and intention to the piece that cannot be dismissed, its voice calling out for attention to the preservation of its world.

Having enjoyed our time in the forests we made our way back down towards the water and emerged at Chrissy Fields in the land of giant toys, made by Mark di Suvero. These massive creations litter the lawn in an offsite show sponsored by the SFMOMA, but unlike “Spire” Mark di Suvero’s work is only here until May 2014. Dea and I watched the sculptures in the overcast evening, absorbing the chill from the Pacific, its pillowed winds whipping our hair and pinking our cheeks. Tiny black birds with red tipped wings told us the stories of each piece, the many places that they have been exhibited around the world, and the impact that these steel constructions had had on the humans who observed their form and movement over the last five decades of the artist’s career. Di Suvero’s works each are individually impressive, not just in size and the difficulty of the medium, but in the organic way these works interact with and become reflections of their environment.

It had been a long luxurious day of art hunting, our wild sculptures are now still living in the Land of the Presidio Giants, and now satisfied with our discoveries; Dea and I slipped back into our fins and dove into the turbulent waters of the bay. Our tails detoured us at the most accommodating establishment that had Mermaid Service (water adjacent is so much more convenient), and then we swam to our separate ways, promising to meet soon, for more explorations of the surface, and the multitude of lost things calling out to us.