\u201cWe\u2019re not artists,\u201d Bechtol said. \u201cWe make jeans.\u201d<\/p>\n
Daniel Pan, co-founder of 1AM, who was born and raised in San Francisco, said the jeans maker had a hands-off approach to the mural design. \u201cThat was the part that really surprised us,\u201d he said, noting it is atypical of grant funders.\u00a0<\/p>\n
![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/IMG_3747-1-480x640.jpg\")
Antoine Marnata of 1AM murals working on Beneath the Bay. Photo courtesy of Levi Strauss & Co.<\/p>\n
Pan and his business partner, Antoine Marnata, painted San Francisco history into the final design: The \u201cWelcome Home\u201d on the anchor is a nod to the many returning veterans whose entry point was on the waterfront, and a transit car represents the Embarcadero\u2019s history as one of the busiest rail lines in the world. <\/p>\n
Yet looming largest of all are the sea creatures \u2014 a giant crab and an affable seal, as well as the octopus.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you think of the Embarcadero, the animals kind of come first,\u201d Pan said. <\/p>\n
The mural\u2019s title echoes the 1955 horror film \u201cIt Came from Beneath the Sea,\u201d in which an oversized octopus wraps itself around the Golden Gate Bridge. The pier\u2019s empty wall provided an ideal space.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a no-brainer of a perfect location,\u201d said Arianna Cunha, senior analyst in the maintenance division for the Port of San Francisco. \u201cIt\u2019s a huge blank canvas across from Levi\u2019s.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
The company headquarters on Battery Street recently reopened<\/a> its denim museum as well as its Levi\u2019s Plaza store<\/a>, shuttered since 2020. <\/p>\n The mural on the bay also filled in a gap in the Port\u2019s art trail<\/a>, which celebrated the launch of 10 temporary sculptures along the waterfront in early November. (When it\u2019s finished, the Big Art Loop will include 100 large-scale sculptures).<\/p>\n The art initiative is part of a bigger plan to align with the mayor\u2019s economic recovery plan and bring people to the waterfront, Cunha said. The mayor, in turn, owes his wealth to his family ties<\/a> to the iconic blue jeans manufacturer.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n The fast-tracked appearance of public art is not without contention. <\/p>\n The arrival of large new pieces along the waterfront without oversight from the San Francisco Arts Commission has sparked controversy<\/a>, as have massive sculptures like Marco Cochrane\u2019s \u201cR-Evolution,\u201d which will continue to inhabit<\/a> prime real estate for at least another six months.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThe Port sees public art as a powerful tool to activate our waterfront,\u201d Cunha said in response to the disapproval. \u201cArt is always going to be criticized. The point is, people are going to be talking about it and coming to see it.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n When asked about critics who might contend that corporations shouldn\u2019t be funding public art, Bechtol pointed to the positive reception of the mural. <\/p>\n \u201cIf it can inspire others, citizens, corporations, community members, tourists alike, to be active and engaged in their communities, then we\u2019ve cemented our support in the right way,\u201d she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n Locals who stopped to take in the mural on a Tuesday afternoon gave it a thumbs-up. <\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a good location and nice colors,\u201d said Giselle M., who has been working in the neighborhood for 20 years and enjoyed seeing something up on what she had always remembered as a blank wall. \u201cIt adds to the general feel and character of San Francisco.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Passerby Mark Lim applauded the mural\u2019s connection to the city. \u201cIt\u2019s very San Francisco,\u201d he said. \u201cThe dungeness crab is very cool.\u201d <\/p>\n He also appreciated that the Transamerica Pyramid, and not the Salesforce Tower, was included in the design. \u201cAs a Bay Area native, I like that they\u2019re keeping it real,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n Pan said the experience of painting \u201cBeneath the Bay\u201d stood out not only for its size, but also for the extent of community engagement. Locals would come by daily to check on the progress, bringing the artists lunch and pretending to take part in the mural-making by holding paintbrushes.\u00a0<\/p>\n While the public was all in, the company kept its distance, despite its headquarters nearby, the artists said. <\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s great how hands-off everything is,\u201d Pan said. \u201cWe like it when we have less chefs in the kitchen.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Bright, bold and fanciful, a 4,000-square-foot mural has overtaken the historic bulkhead at San Francisco\u2019s Pier 19\u00bd, its…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":102847,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[21680,101,103,102,104,106,105],"class_list":["post-102846","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-francisco","tag-murals","tag-san-francisco","tag-san-francisco-headlines","tag-san-francisco-news","tag-sf","tag-sf-headlines","tag-sf-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102846","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=102846"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102846\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/102847"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=102846"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=102846"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=102846"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Room](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/jeans-906x640.jpg\")
The Vault Museum reopens with an exhibit of iconic jeans. Photo by Julie Zigoris<\/p>\n