BETTER HOMES & GARDENS TODAY

A Public Art Project by Christopher Statton and Megan Wilson

Better Homes & Gardens Today is a public art project by Megan Wilson and Christopher Statton  developed to:
1) Heighten awareness around “home” and the realities of homelessness;
2) Cultivate a dialog within communities and amongst disparate groups about housing instability; and
3) To raise money to benefit the Gubbio Project, the Coalition On Homelessness, and At The Crossroads,  organizations working to address homelessness in San Francisco.  

ALL PROCEEDS - 100% - FROM THE SALES OF BETTER HOMES & GARDENS TODAY'S LIMITED EDITION SIGNS WILL BE EQUALLY DIVIDED BETWEEN THE THREE PARTNER ORGANIZATIONS - THE GUBBIO PROJECT, THE COALITION ON HOMELESSNESS, AND AT THE CROSSROADS.

Throughout the project Wilson and Statton will host free events to educate audiences on:

1.  The realities of being homeless;

2.  What the culture and climate of homelessness is like in San Francisco; and

3.  What is truly needed to address this crisis - funding and policy change.

Please see the Events Page to learn about upcoming, as well as previous events . 

As part of the project Statton and Wilson have been introduced to and reached out to some of the Bay Area's tech corporations and their employees, including Twitter, Facebook, Zendesk, Yammer, Google, Google Ventures, Dropbox, and Salesforce to invite them to attend the project's events. The invitation was extended to these corporations, who are relatively new to the area, to provide them with the opportunity to learn about, contribute to, and support a community that is in great need and that they are now working / living among and having a significant impact on.

Statton and Wilson are available to personally install any single purchases of 100 signs ($10,000) or more at individual residences or corporate offices.

The goal of the Better Homes & Gardens Today is to introduce people to these critical organizations that are working to address the needs of those who are struggling to survive and need support, as well as help to provide insight to the causes, which are systemic and far more complex than most people are aware.

All people, especially those who are living on the streets or have mental health or substance abuse issues, are worthy of respect, dignity, and loving kindness.

Megan Wilson's original project Better Homes and Gardens for which she hand-painted 250 signs and distributed them to residents living on the streets and those in danger of eviction to place in their carts or windows as a sign of solidarity during a period in which evictions were skyrocketing in San Francisco, is featured in San Francisco Museum of Modern Art 75 Years of Looking Forward,  edited by Janet Bishop, Corey Keller, and Sarah Roberts.  Footage of Better Homes and Gardens edited together by Christopher Statton is also included in the  Oakland Museum's exhibition Fertile Ground  in collaboration with SFMoMA.

Christopher Statton has been an organizer with Clarion Alley Mural Project since 2012 and was one of the collaborators on "The Wall of Shame and Solutions". Statton is the former Executive Director of San Francisco’s Roxie Theater (2010 – 2013). In 2013 he was awarded the Marlon Riggs Award by the San Francisco Film Critics Circle for “his significant contribution to San Francisco’s film community through the Roxie over the past four years.” In 2013 Statton was also awarded a Certificate of Honor by SF Supervisor David Campos for his “important and tireless work with the Roxie.” Statton was a founding member of the Sidewalk Sideshow, a project of the Marin Interfaith Council, which produced music shows with San Rafael’s street and homeless community. In addition, he is actively involved with the Gubbio Project in the Tenderloin as well as an Advisory Board member of the Tom Steel Clinic, which provides medical services for the HIV positive community in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Megan Wilson received her BFA from the University of Oregon and an MFA from the  San Francisco Art Institute. Her work has been exhibited at the Oakland Museum, the  Museum of Craft and Folk Art (S.F.), Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Southern Exposure, Intersection for the Arts, Montalvo Art Center, The Luggage Store, the San Francisco Arts Commission, Tinlark Gallery in Los Angeles (CA), Sun Valley Center for the Arts (ID),  thirtyninehotel (Honolulu, HI), Green Papaya (Manila), Print It! (Barcelona), and LIP (Yogyakarta). She has created public projects in the San Francisco Bay Area, Tokyo Japan, Yogykarta & Bali Indonesia, Jaipur India, and Manila Philippines. Wilson is a recipient of grant awards from the Gunk Foundation, Artadia, the Asian Cultural Council, the Ford Foundation, the San Francisco Foundation, the Zellerbach Family Foundation, and the San Francisco Art Commission. Wilson's work is included in FRESH 1: Cutting Edge Illustrations in 3D and FRESH 2: Cutting Edge Illustrations in Public edited by Slanted; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art 75 Years of Looking Forward, edited by Janet Bishop, Corey Keller, Sarah Roberts; Street Art San Francisco Mission Muralismo, edited by Annice Jacoby; Mural Art: Murals on Huge Public Surfaces Around the World by Kirakoss Losifidis; Illustration: Play - Craving for the Extraordinary, published by Victionary; Sama-sama/Together: An International Exchange Project Between Yogyakarta and San Francisco, published by Jam Karet; and The Gallery at Villa Montalvo: Selected Exhibitions from 1996-2000, edited by Theres Rohan. Wilson's work is featured in the book Street Messages by Nicholas Ganz that will be published in April 2015 by Dokument Press.