The main entrance at the Women’s Building is tagged with graffiti and cracks can be found on the mural wall. The restoration is scheduled to start this month. Photo Shane Menez

The Women’s Building has witnessed a surge of funding in July from SF Beautiful and Mayor Ed Lee totaling $60,000—nearly half of the total $130,000 sum needed to restore the giant MaestraPeace mural adorning its facade.

The conversation of refurbishing the mural began several years ago after wear-exacerbated peeling and graffiti artists who defaced the mural, said Tatjana Loh, development director of Women’s Building.

The “San Francisco Seven”—seven female artists who completed the mural 19 years ago—will use scaffolds to restore the vibrant reds and yellows and seal the painting, ensuring its longevity for future decades by using an acryloid lacquer to negate discoloring from aging and weather.

The iconic three-story building, located on 18th Street between Guerrero and Valencia streets, will also enjoy new window fixtures and concrete flatwork to properly frame the piece, which originally cost $43,000 to make in 1994.

“It’s out in the community where everyone can see it, and witness it, and interpret it in their own world, and in their own lives,” Loh said.

With images of artist Georgia O’Keefe and 1993 Nobel Laureate Rigoberta Menchú, among dozens of other Aztec and Chinese goddesses, the mural conjures introspection from the community with its sheer size—a total of 10,400 square feet.

The “San Francisco Seven” will be paid the same amount, if not less, than they were originally paid, said artist and Precita Eyes co-founder Susan Cervantes, who is coordinating with the other artists to begin the work. She didn’t want to disclose the exact amount they would be paid.

“They didn’t get paid enough in the first place,” Loh said, referring to the budget for the mural’s construction, which was only a third of the building’s restoration budget.

The mural is still relevant to the community, and its ethnic inclusiveness reflects the heterogeneous population that utilizes the building’s services, which include restraining order arrangements and immigrant rights. An estimated 20,000 women and their families enter the facility yearly.

“I think it’s been long overdue. If we had done it 10 years ago we could have saved a lot of the color,” Cervantes said.

Cervantes conceptualized a fantasy goddess in the piece that was met with controversy when the San Francisco Landmarks Advisory Board threatened to block municipal funding for the project due to the erotic nature of the goddess’ bare breast and spread legs, which served to “embody light and life-giving energy,” according to the artist.

Installing scaffolding, laying flatwork, replacing windows, paying the artists, supplying materials and sealing the piece—among other expenditures—will cost the center $123,000.

$7,000 will be used for creating a website, outreach and informing the public of the refurbishment, Loh said.

The artists are working against time—three can no longer climb the scaffolding that will line the building in late summer, and have to arrange a mutually suitable time.

Rain is also one of Loh’s concerns if time continues to slip.

The restoration is to start mid-August and end by mid-October.