Artist and photographer Christopher Dydyk spent 18 months creating “Proceeding,” a 110-foot long mural that was recently installed on the seventh-floor Social Commons of the 198 McAllister St. building at UC Law SF.

To capture all the beauty, vibrancy and diversity of San Francisco in one image might sound like a daunting challenge, but that didn’t stop artist and photographer Christopher Dydyk from trying – and succeeding.

Chancellor & Dean David Faigman said the mural reflects UC Law SF’s role as an integral part of San Francisco.

The triumphant result of his 18-month effort is a continuous 110-foot long mural called “Proceeding,” which now adorns two adjoining high-wall panels on the seventh-floor Social Commons of UC Law San Francisco’s newest building at 198 McAllister St.

“We live in one of the most beautiful cities in the world,” Dydyk said. “I hope the mural exudes some of that energy, and I hope people can see themselves in it.”

The mural layers images of urban street life and the city’s many parks and natural features. It also embeds some of the most iconic San Francisco landmarks, including the Golden Gate Bridge, Painted Ladies, Castro Theatre, and UC Law SF campus buildings. Connecting it all, are the diverse people who call San Francisco home.

Chancellor & Dean David Faigman first approached Dydyk in 2021 about creating a piece to enliven the commons of the new 14-story building, then still under construction. The building’s 12 floors of student housing, known as Academe at 198, opened in August, offering 656 new apartments for students of UC Law SF and other graduate schools.

Faigman said he wanted a piece to reflect all that is San Francisco from east to west. At a Sept. 27 unveiling of the new mural, he proclaimed that Dydyk accomplished that goal and more.

“It’s everything we want as an institution to capture part of our legacy as an integral part of this great city,” Faigman said. “I think this is a legacy that will be talked about for generations.”

Christopher Dydyk posed with SF Rec & Parks GM Phil Ginsburg ’93 and former Mayor Willie Brown ’58 at a Sept. 27 Mural Unveiling event.

Former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown ‘58, San Francisco Recreation and Parks Department General Manager Phil Ginsburg ’93, and Sashi Deb ’94 of the UC Law SF Board of Directors were among those who attended the event to celebrate the new mural.

Dydyk first started creating Impressions like “Proceeding” in 2012, shortly after moving to San Francisco. His process involves using digital technology to layer photos over each other, emphasizing different parts of each image to create something new: an “impression” that captures more than a single moment in time.

“I call them Impressions because it’s the impression you create in your mind and in your heart when you visit a place; your feelings of a space or location in time,” he said.

For “Proceeding,” Dydyk layered thousands of photos he has taken in the city over the past decade. The ambitious undertaking required painstaking decisions on how components of countless images should be sized, located, and layered across a wide and formidable canvas.

Christopher Dydyk posed with his work, “Due Process,” at an event in May 2022.

This wasn’t the first Impression of Dydyk’s to be featured on UC Law SF’s campus walls. Another piece he created, “Due Process,” can be found in the Deb Colloquium Room on the fifth floor of the Cotchett Law Center at 333 Golden Gate Ave. It shows the McAllister Tower rising above an urban landscape, reflecting UC Law SF’s central location and role as one of San Francisco’s most vital institutions. It is one of several original artworks by California artists featured on walls across the campus.

Dydyk first started snapping photos at age 13 on hiking trips in the Santa Monica Mountains. He later started developing photos in a dark room that his parents let him set up in his bedroom closet. He earned a bachelor’s degree in biopsychology from UC Santa Barbara before deciding to pursue his passion and enrolling in the Brooks Institute of Photography. His photos were featured in a 1999 worldwide-published book, “Shy Boy, The Horse That Came In From the Wild.”

In addition to UC Law SF, his original works can be viewed on the walls at Harvard Law School in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and have, in the past, hung at the headquarters of Uber, Square, and SF Magazine in San Francisco.

At the recent mural celebration, Dydyk thanked his parents and his husband, Provost & Academic Dean Morris Ratner, for encouraging him and supporting his artistic endeavors.

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Sinéad O’Connor (Shuhada’ Sadaqat) has been remembered as somebody who managed to “change pain into beauty”, by her friend Liam Ó Maonlaí.

The life of the Irish singer was celebrated at a private ceremony by family and friends before the funeral cortege travelled past her former home in Bray, Co Wicklow so thousands of fans could pay their respects before a private burial.

Singer Bob Geldof, Irish president Michael Higgins and Taoiseach Leo Varadkar were also in attendance, where Muslim funeral prayers were led by Shaykh Dr Umar Al-Qadri, an Islamic scholar and Chief Imam at the Islamic Centre of Ireland, who met the star in 2018, the same year she converted to Islam.

Sinéad O’Connor’s friends have shared moving tributes to her on the day of her funeral(The Washington Post via Getty Im)

In a eulogy he shared online after the ceremony, Dr Umar Al-Qadri said: “The more she sang and spoke about her own pain, as well as about the pervasive sins in society that she witnessed, the more her voice and her words resonated with listeners and touched their hearts. Sinead never stopped her search to know God fully, exemplifying a life marked with a deep communion with God.

“Gifted with a voice that moved a generation of young people, she could reduce listeners to tears by her otherworldly resonance.” He added: “I know that peoples of all faiths throughout the world will be praying for this beloved daughter of Ireland, among them will be countless Muslims praying for their sister in faith and humanity.

“Sinead’s voice carried with it an undertone of hope, of finding one’s way home. The Irish people have long found solace in song from the sufferings of this lower abode, and Sinead was no exception, and in sharing that solace, she brought joy to countless people the world over.” He continued: “May her family and loved ones find solace in the outpouring of love from the corners of this earth for this unique daughter of Ireland who moved so many hearts with her mighty voice and unflinching honesty as an artist, poet, and human being.

Thousands lined the streets to say goodbye to Sinéad (Getty Images)

“Sinead had a poet’s heart and, I believe, would share with us today the sentiments of the poet, Rumi when he said: ‘This place is a dream. Only a sleeper considers it real. Then death comes like dawn, and you wake up laughing at what you thought was your grief’.”

Roads were closed so fans could line the streets to pay their respects as the hearse bearing O’Connor’s coffin passed by her former home on the seafront. As it stopped outside the property, Montebello, in the seaside town where she lived for 15 years, there was a moment of silence but for the rest of the procession, fans applauded and threw flowers. The coffin itself was covered in blue and pink flowers.

A Volkswagen camper van decorated with the Pride flag and the Rastafarian flag drove in front of the hearse, with O’Connor’s songs playing from speakers mounted on the roof including her biggest hit from 1990, Nothing Compares 2 U. Fans, some who travelled from around the world, started gathering early in the morning outside the home to wait for the cortege to pass by.

Liam Ó Maonlaí, a friend of Sinéad’s paid tribute while outside her former home(PA)

Karnamrita Dasi, 49, a singer from San Francisco, booked a flight to Ireland as soon as she heard the news of the Irish performer’s death. She visited tributes to O’Connor around Dublin and her former Irish home in the Co Wicklow town of Bray before taking part in the gathering for the funeral procession on Tuesday, singing her hits and sharing colourful roses with other well-wishers to throw on the hearse.

“The first time I heard it (news of O’Connor’s death), I didn’t believe it and I knew I had to be with people who felt as powerfully as I did about how much of an impact she made,” she said. “It feels these days like people say rest in peace on social media, and that’s the end of someone’s remembrance. I wanted to be here to offer more than that because she gave so much to me as a young girl and my generation.”

Isabelle Ferrer travelled from Dijon in France to say farewell to the singer. Speaking outside Sinead O’Connor’s former home on Tuesday morning, she told BBC News NI the singer was her “favourite ever”. “Representing women, she was far ahead of her time, a long ago,” she said.

Sir Bob Geldof (centre) attended the service for his late friend

Bono and Edge were also in attendance

Liam Ó Maonlaí, the lead singer of Irish band Hothouse Flowers, said Sinead O’Connor would be remembered as “a great artist”. She was “willing to shake the tree a little bit, to hold a mirror up to this so-called society that we’re in”, he said, “but was also somebody who changed pain into beauty”.

Despite being in Bray to pay his respects because he was friends with his fellow singer – that didn’t mean he was spared her famously direct opinions. “She was ballsy, you know,” he told the BBC. “She came to our first gig in London and she didn’t like it. She thought I was a poser, and she made it publicly known. But then she apologised to me. She was great fun, and rooted in what music means to the human identity,” he added.

Many fans laid flowers and handwritten notes, thanking O’Connor for sharing her voice and her music. One note said: “You are forever in my heart.” A pink chair was placed outside the pink-framed conservatory of the house, with pink flowers, candles and a photo of the singer placed at the base of the chair.

Campaigners for victims of church and state abuse also remembered Sinéad who was extremely vocal about abuse which was taking place and covered up(PA)

A heart-shaped floral bouquet featured a picture of the star and two Irish flags. One sign left at the wall of the property listed causes that the singer had expressed support for, including welcoming refugees. It read: “Where words fail, music speaks.”

A neighbour was also seen putting candles on the wall that separated the two properties. Since O’Connor’s death on July 26, people have been leaving flowers and paying their respects at the house, which the singer sold in 2021 and now lies empty.

The Grammy Award-winner was found unresponsive on July 26 by police at her south-east London home at the age of 56. At the time, a coroner’s court said no medical cause of death was given and a post-mortem would be conducted.

A picture of Sinéad was displayed by her coffin(AFP via Getty Images)

The results could take “several weeks” and a decision on whether an inquest will be needed will be decided when they are known, the court added. President Michael D Higgins issued a statement after confirming he was attending the funeral yesterday.

He said: “The outpouring of grief and appreciation of the life and work of Sinead O’Connor demonstrates the profound impact which she had on the Irish people. “The unique contribution of Sinead involved the experience of a great vulnerability combined with a superb, exceptional level of creativity that she chose to deliver through her voice, her music and her songs.

“The expression of both, without making any attempt to reduce the one for the sake of the other, made her contribution unique – phenomenal in music terms, but of immense heroism. However, achieving this came from the one heart and the one body and the one life, which extracted an incredible pain, perhaps one too much to bear. That is why all those who are seeking to make a fist of their life, combining its different dimensions in their own way, can feel so free to express their grief at her loss.”

O’Connor is survived by three children, Jake, Roisin and Yeshua.

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SAN FRANCISCO — Small businesses in San Francisco have faced repeated vandalism and break-ins, so much so that merchants are questioning the feasibility of staying in the city.

Josie Li, owner of La Boutique salon on Polk Street, said she was hit by burglars four times in the past year. She estimates the losses and repairs at over $40,000.

She said her insurance claims are so common that she worries her insurance carrier might start to question if they’re legitimate.

Li said every time thieves took away electronics, cash and beauty products. Her mailbox was also broken into repeatedly.

“It was shocking, but also not only traumatic, but simply surprising in one of the largest and most expensive cities that you would think could sustain business,” Li said.

In January, the beauty salon’s cell phone was stolen. Tracking technology showed it was about half a mile away near Van Ness and Geary.

“By the time the police arrived, it had been a few hours since I discovered the incident and by that time the phone was already off,” she said.

Like many small business owners in San Francisco, Li struggles to get people to come through the doors.

She opened this space a year ago after closing her shop for 18 months during the pandemic.

SFPD crime data shows burglaries this year in the Northern District, which includes Polk Gulch, are up more than 30% compared to the same period last year.

“It’s almost a national joke for our city at this point and it’s like we’re trying to bring it up, we’re making this place as vibrant as possible,” Li said worry about what is dangerous.”

This month Mayor London Breed introduced an additional $27 million budget to ensure continued police presence and expand hiring of community ambassadors in business areas.

SFPD has a staff shortage of 541 officers.

“I think the police on an individual level, when I see them they’re very sympathetic and then they say – they’re trying to help, they’re doing their job and they’re filing the report and everything, but I think we’ve defamed them Police so much that we don’t have enough police now,” Li said.

Li is considering moving her business elsewhere, but starting over is also costly. She said it took her a year to build a customer base at her new location.

She added that the Community Benefit District is helping her with funds for a security system. She also said there is a community patrol on Polk Street that begins at 5 a.m. The burglaries usually happen at night.

SF District Attorney Communications Director Randy Quezada said in a statement to KPIX 5:

The District Attorney is focused on improving public safety, restoring accountability, and seeking justice. To improve processes and outcomes in cases like Le Café Du Soleil, District Attorney Jenkins created a Major Crimes Team within the General Felonies Division to focus on more serious and complex crimes, such as some armed robberies and attempted murder cases that are time consuming and more complicated. With the establishment of this new team, General Felonies’ prosecutors will be able to better handle property crime and other crime cases as they come.

Betty Ju

Betty Yu joined KPIX 5 in November 2013 as a general assignments reporter. She spent two years as a reporter at WTVJ, NBC’s Miami-based network, before relocating to San Francisco.

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