Art Professor Munakata donates 'heart' to SF hospital fundraiser

• December 6, 2011 11:00am

A fanciful, painted heart by Grace Munakata, professor of art, is among 14 commissioned for the seventh annual  San Francisco “Heroes & Hearts” fundraiser in February. To date, the seven-year-old fundraiser has brought in close to $7 million for the San Francisco General Hospital Foundation. 

The title of Munakata’s entry, "The Island, Only Animals and Nachure Girls Come and Go," comes from a child's drawing by Anu Lingappa, who is now 18.

“The sculptural nature of the heart led to lots of changes from the flat image since the heart has sides and curves,” said Munakata of the 17-inch wide, “table top” base made from fiberglass that she painted with Golden Acrylics.

The fundraiser was launched with 130 artists adorning five-foot tall, 400-pound hearts situated throughout The City. They stayed on display for several months before some were sold or auctioned - much on a par with Chicago's "Cows on Parade."

Today, the art project is part of the Heroes & Hearts Luncheon, an annual fundraiser held in Union Square with upward of 700 attendees celebrating artistic expression, honoring local heroes and benefitting SFGHF. All proceeds from the sale or auction of the hearts (The hearts are auctioned or sold during the February luncheon with all proceeds benefitting SFGHF and its efforts to fund projects that provide care at San Francisco General Hospital and Trauma Center.

The goal of this project is to become a unique hybrid of fund-raising, compassionate community involvement, and a positive nurturing of artistic expression. 

Munakata's introduction to painting occurred at the kitchen table, where a small group of men, including her father, practiced Japanese brush painting. She earned a B.A. in studied studio in 1980 and a MFA in 1983 from the University of California, Davis.

She has work in private and corporate collections, including the Bank of America, Hyatt Regency, Thom Weisel, Manuel Neri, Nancy and Paul Pelosi, the Richard Nelson Fine Arts Collection at UCD and the Crocker Art Museum in Sacramento. 

Her paintings and collages contain varying degrees of abstraction, pattern and imagery. She draws inspiration from literature, visual art, her tangled garden, memory, and events. A bird might be referenced by a graph of its song or a recognizable image; a flat shape may assume a cartoon-like presence or resemble a leaf. The perspectives of childhood and growing into an adult are continually present. What's nearby and very distant can coexist, just as stars in a constellation appear close together but can be far removed in actual time and distance.

Information on "Heroes & Hearts" is at: http://www.sfghfoundation.net/hh/

DD