Cayuga Park’s Wooden Folk Art: How One Park Gardener Filled an Excelsior Playground With Nearly 400 Carvings

Cayuga Park sits at 1800 Cayuga Avenue in the Excelsior, along a ravine beside the BART tracks. Its paths are lined with carved wooden figures, and they were made by a city gardener.

The gardener

SPACES, an archive of self-taught art environments, says Demetrio Braceros was a San Francisco Recreation and Parks gardener assigned to Cayuga Park in 1986. He made nearly 400 pieces from wood found on site, mostly fallen cypress. They include totems, animals and portraits of figures from Barry Bonds and Herb Caen to John Lennon, Michael Jordan and Princess Diana. A Garden of Eden scene lines one path. SPACES says he retired in 2008 at 68.

In his words

The Art and Architecture SF blog quotes an interview Braceros gave to Conversations.org. He said the park had been a place for drugs and crime, and that he took up carving because “I wanted to inspire the kids.” He described working with the Monterey cypress trees that fell in the park.

The renovation

According to SPACES, the park closed in December 2011 for a $9.4 million renovation. The San Francisco Arts Commission inventoried 376 pieces. About a third were stabilized and coated, a third were put into storage, and the rest were left to decompose naturally. The park reopened in 2013.

Visiting

The park is open daily from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. Look for the carvings along the paths and near the playground.