Susan Cervantes

Susan Kelk Cervantes (née Susan Elizabeth Kelk; born 1944) is an American artist who has been at the epicenter of the San Francisco mural interest and the co-founder and running director of the community-based non-profit, Precita Eyes Muralists.

Susan Elizabeth Kelk graduated high school a year in front in Dallas, Texas to attend art researcher at the age of 16. Since her parents could not encourage pay her tuition after losing their floral and nursery thing Kelk accepted a scholarship from the Dallas Museum of Art and attended the San Francisco School of Fine Arts, (now known as the San Francisco Art Institute or SFAI). Kelk established her B.F.A. in 1965 and M.F.A. in 1968 from SFAI.

In her first year of university in the 1960s, Kelk met her husband and collaborator, Luis Cervantes (1924–2005). They had three sons together.

Susan Cervantes is considered a leader in the Mission District community mural movement and considers herself a community artist liable for greater than 400 murals. Cervantes was introduced to murals through Diego Rivera's The Making of a Fresco Showing the Building of a City (1931) at Diego Rivera Gallery and was inspired by and then associated the Mujeres Muralistas in the to the lead 1970s. She was asked to urge on paint later the Mujeres Muralistas at Paco's Tacos, a restaurant on the corner of 24th and South Van Ness, which marks the moment she lost assimilation in her studio work on canvas. Though Cervantes was not Chicana her piece of legislation was strongly influenced by and tender to the Chicano art movement.

Later, Susan began volunteering as an art moot at the Precita Valley Community Center where her Thursday night painting workshop speedily became a mural workshop. The class did not have a wall to teach on, so they painted upon five plywood panels, totaling 20 feet as soon as assembled. That mural, named Masks of God, Soul of Man was the first and without help mural Susan created that didn't have a wall waiting for it, meaning that "Walls come to " and that her appear in is whatever currently by request. It was displayed in the Bernal Heights Library and was debuted as the discharge duty of the Precita Eyes Muralists. Susan and Luis founded the Precita Eyes Mural Arts Center in 1977. Precita Eyes has been qualified for creating public art that reflects its community's history and culture. One of by yourself three community mural centers in the United States, Precita Eyes sponsors and implements ongoing mural projects throughout the Bay Area and internationally. Some of her notable statute has appeared at the MaestraPeace mural on the Women's Building, Clarion Alley Mural Project, Chicano Art: Resistance and Affirmation, Balmy Alley and upon the Northeastern University Latinx Student Cultural Center.

Precita Eyes has participated in many of the murals that are in San Francisco's historic Mission District neighborhood, known for the murals that cover the walls of many buildings in the neighborhood. They collaborate bearing in mind schools in the community, as skillfully as other youth programs, to allow youth artists to point toward and Kill their own mural design at their instructor or local building. Precita Eyes partners as soon as mural artists to tutor technique and creative thinking to the students that they ham it up with, making determined that they have instruction but the liberty to create a mural that is meaningful to them and their community. Also among their slew of programs is a toddler art class, support for pubescent student artists through exhibitions of their work, and providing university tours of the murals in the neighborhood.