A woman talks on the phone as she walks along Jack London Square’s Third Street. Suddenly she looks down, then up again, then down. She starts hopping. One foot, then two, then one and two, until she returns to her call.
The hopscotch she used is part of the Jack London Hopscotch Tour, an installation of 11 hopscotch murals dispersed around the area by the Jack London Improvement District (JLID). Each mural was created by a local artist with full creative control of their design. The result: a mix of colors, concepts and inspirations now adorns the concrete sidewalks of Jack London Square. Ten of the murals are currently on display, with the 11th to come later this summer.
Ivana Pinto, a graphic designer for Nido’s Backyard in Oakland, created the hopscotch pattern on Third Street. Originally from Peru, Pinto has lived in the Bay Area for the past 20 years. Her design, marked by green agave and cacti surrounded by deep blues and reds, is inspired by Latino folk art.
For Pinto, one of the harder things about moving to the United States was the feeling of not having a home like the one her parents and grandparents had. One full of the color, quirkiness and mysticality she associates with Peru.
“To me there’s nothing more beautiful than walking into a space that’s just colorful, and I think that represents a lot about being Latina,” she said. “I always felt inspired by migration and longing and the kind of feeling of wanting to create a space, even though we are in the United States, to make it our own.”
Her hopscotch mural sits right outside the Oakland branch of the Immigration Institute of the Bay Area. Richie Flores, also of Latine heritage, told Pinto he thought this was something she might like. Flores spearheaded the hopscotch project as public space manager at the JLID.
He wanted to fill the space in Jack London with interactive art, something he hadn’t seen before. Most of the mural locations were intentionally chosen to be near local businesses in order to bring people in to enjoy both the art and the establishments that surround it.
Danny Pirello, owner of the oyster bar The Salty Pearl, says he sees kids playing on the hopscotch outside his restaurant all the time. As someone who appreciates the arts scene in the Square—most of the art displayed in his restaurant comes from the neighboring art studio, The Grand Gallery—Pirello says he wants to see more projects like this one.
The hopscotch outside of The Salty Pearl uses each square to highlight an East Bay wildflower. Creator Jeni Paltiel, a graphic designer and gardener, wanted to draw attention to plants around the city that might otherwise be overlooked. Most people see them, but don’t think about them or know their names.
“My hope is that people will come away from this and maybe next time they see one of these flowers they’ll go, ‘Oh, that’s a tidy tips!’” she said.
Outside Alta Vina, a wine bar celebrating its one-year anniversary, Cookie Lockhart and her four-year-old daughter, Libberti Stewart, stop to play on a hopscotch mural. Lockhart says Stewart constantly draws her own with chalk she finds on their walks through Eastmont Hills in Oakland.
Stewart can’t get enough. She finishes hopping in one direction, then immediately turns around to repeat the process. After a couple of minutes, Lockhart tells her daughter they should start heading inside.
“Let me do one more,” Stewart says, completing a last round before running to meet her mom.
The mural she leaves behind is illustrator Kaeli McLeod’s homage to Jack London’s vibrant and diverse history as an industrial waterfront. Originally from Southern California, McLeod moved to the Bay Area five years ago. When living in San Francisco, she took the ferry to Jack London Square nearly every week to visit her partner in the East Bay.
“A lot of these were things I was passively observing, but maybe not at the forefront of my mind,” she said. “So when I had the opportunity to work with Richie on this project to create a hopscotch design, a few of these images immediately came back.”
At its center is a man playing the saxophone, a reference to Oakland and Jack London’s legacy as a western jazz hub. McLeod also wanted to depict hidden gems like Plank, the bowling alley that has stood in Jack London Square for 12 years and is set to permanently close this August.
Second Street is quiet and calm on a Sunday morning. April Garland, 53, brings a bit of excitement to that tranquility by taking a moment to hop on the mural outside Cafe Da Fonk.
“It brought me back; you don’t see them very often,” she says as she laughs and recounts stories of throwing rocks at hopscotch squares in the schoolyard.
The Jack London Improvement District will host an official celebration of the murals this July 11.
