A beloved mural on the side of Belmar “La Gallinita” Meat Market in San Francisco’s Mission neighborhood was nearly painted over — until a dedicated team of community muralists and volunteers stepped in to save it.
Located at the corner of Harrison and 24th streets, “Leyenda Azteca” is a striking tribute to the tragic Aztec love story of Popocatépetl and Iztaccíhuatl. In the piece, the warrior Popoca holds the body of princess Izta, who died of a broken heart after believing Popoca died in battle. The legend goes that Popoca carried Izta’s body to the mountains, where he laid her to rest and stayed by her side to watch over her. Moved by the lovers’ devotion, the gods transformed them into two mountains: Iztaccíhuatl and Popocatépetl.
The mural, inspired by the work of the late Mexican artist Jesus Helguera, was originally painted by a Mission artist named Gustavo in the 1970s, during the neighborhood’s Chicano-led mural movement. “Gustavo was a real person who actually only had one arm, held a painter’s pallet with his teeth, and walked around barefoot,” said Yano Rivera, a cartoonist and self-proclaimed “Mural Doctor.” “I don’t know much about him, but the stories I’ve heard are colorful.”
The edges of the historic mural got damaged by overspray in May while workers were repainting the meat market’s building. “At one point, they almost decided to cover up the mural entirely,” said Rivera.
Though murals across San Francisco face ongoing risks of erasure — either accidentally, as part of new construction, or during renovations — in the Mission neighborhood, there is significant community resistance to painting over or destroying historic murals.
“What often happens is that a work of art gets threatened, and then people rally,” said Rivera. “And that creates sort of an opening in a conversation and an opportunity for a mural to be preserved.”
In this case, Salvador Vazquez, owner of the carnicería, partnered with Susan Cervantes from Precita Eyes Muralists to bring on muralist Kerra Hendrickson, who enlisted help from Rivera as a consultant and assembled a team of volunteers to restore and protect the mural. “This has been one of my favorite projects to lead,” Hendrickson said. “It’s been great to see so many people from different backgrounds come together [so far].”
Community-backed mural conservation
Mural conservation is an art hidden behind the vibrant discourse of mural painting in San Francisco. Compared to conservation projects heavily backed by city funding, restoring iconic murals on mom-and-pop shops like the “La Gallinita” carnicaría are often grassroots efforts.
For the restoration of ‘Leyenda Azteca,’ Vazquez paid just $1,000 for supplies. According to Rivera, a similar restoration project could have cost around $80,000 if done by professional art conservators — an estimate based on his experience.
“There is huge systemic bias in the field [of art conservation],” said Rivera, who learned how to restore and protect murals outside of the traditional, elite ranks of academic credentialing.
To challenge the authority of art conservation in San Francisco, Hendrickson, along with the Precita Eyes Muralists team, created a crash course curriculum for volunteers, most of whom arrive with no experience in mural restoration.
“They arrive like they’re in parachutes, saying, ‘Hello, I’m here, what will I be doing?,’” said Rivera. “I have the responsibility to orient them to understand what the rules are, what the packet of ethics, science, and art is.” As part of this work, Rivera incorporates virtual reality headsets to help the volunteers imagine themselves painting before they touch the real thing.
While volunteers work on the restorations, Cervantes, Hendrickson, and Rivera coach and give feedback on color matching, brush techniques, and specific restoration sites and tasks.
Grassroots mural restoration, explained
The first step is “a diagnostic,” said Rivera. “You have to look at the mural, the wall, the building attached, and ask yourself, ‘What are the causes of deterioration?’”
The “Leyenda Azteca” mural needed patches where the paint and wood flaked off due to the hollowness of the wall. “It has refrigerators right behind the wall. So there’s a network of moist air that was going through the slats of the building,” Rivera explained.
Resaturation
Resaturation is also key when it comes to a vintage mural like this one. A coating of the resin B-72 with ultraviolet absorbers enhances the weathered colors, making them more vibrant and aiding in color matching. “It’s like a mural sunscreen,” said Hendrickson. “We took spray cans and we sprayed this mural, and all the colors started coming through once you put this clear coat on because of how light refracts.”
Lead Encapsulation
Toxic lead-based paint was commonly used until a manufacturing ban in 1978, so making the outside of the building safe to fix it is also a necessary process.
Both Hendrickson and Rivera are certified for handling lead. They use a special product called Global Encasement that “takes the pieces that are falling off the wall that have lead in them, and it sticks them back to the wall and creates this coating over it. So if you actually go to the wall, it’s quite sticky,” said Hendrickson.
Painting
After all these steps, the mural is finally ready for paint. Precita Eyes has been producing their own paint for 40 years, mixing custom colors from acrylic pigments. Hendrickson mentioned how each time they mix a specific color, it “is a little bit different… it makes it fun for us,” although this can ”make restorations hard.”
Afterwards comes the varnish. The protective coating is very new in the mural world, keeping pieces fresh for longer. “We didn’t have the protective coating [last time],” said Cervantes. “But we’ll put a very special coating on this one.”
Restoration of the La Gallinita Market’s mural was completed this week. “I think the lovely thing with art conservation is, at the end of the project, you can sort of have quiet moments of reflection,” said Rivera. “And reflect on the tangible, physical work you’ve completed, right there in the real world.”
Correction: Kerra Hendrickson, not Yano Rivera, was the lead muralist in charge of the restoration effort. Hendrickson hired Rivera as a consultant.
