The Big Art Loop is a citywide project that, when complete, will span 34 miles and include 100 temporary installations.
SAN FRANCISCO, CA — In October 2025, 10 large-scale sculptures appeared along San Francisco's waterfront. Impossible to miss, they are part of the Big Art Loop, a citywide project that, when complete, will span 34 miles and include 100 temporary installations.
Bay Area artists Bryan Tedrick and Michael Christian are among the contributors to the project. Their works are on the Portside section of the loop which runs from Fisherman's Wharf to Hunters Point.
Tedrick's "Steelhead" and Christian's "Corpus" and "Bloom" have been drawing steady attention from passersby.
"I don't really have great expectations of how people will react to it, but I do hope that they enjoy looking at it," says Tedrick of "Steelhead." He goes on, "My hope is that maybe it will turn somebody on and be something they haven't seen before."
Tedrick, who lives in Glen Ellen, crafted "Steelhead" using one of four steel beams salvaged at Soda Rock Winery in Healdsburg, where another of his sculptures, "Lord Snort," a massive wild boar, was stationed. The winery was destroyed by a major fire in October 2019.
"Steelhead," at the Pier 52 boat launch, was created to honor the Russian River and its many steelhead inhabitants. The steel beam, its pronounced arc the result of the fire damage, is the fish's body. Tedrick, who spent 200 hours fabricating the sculpture, added the head and tail with more steel pieces.
He made discoveries during its creation. He says, "I was thinking of showing it a certain way, and then when I was in the process of lifting it with my little crane and flipping it over to weld the backside, I thought, 'Oh, it looks more dynamic up here in the air.'"
He ended up changing the structure of the base to accommodate the idea, putting in many hours of work but enjoying each moment.
"I like to be spontaneous when I work and design as I go -- it keeps it alive and interesting for me," he says. "I really love what I do, but it's got to be fun, and so I don't take it too seriously."
Tedrick has made three other steelhead sculptures, also incorporating the salvaged beams. One is on display in downtown Cloverdale. The other two, titled "Big Redd," are in progress and will exist in tandem, possibly in the Big Art Loop, down the road.
After its residency in San Francisco, "Steelhead" will head to Soda Rock Winery, which has been rebuilt.
Christian, an Oakland resident, is pleased that the Big Art Loop is putting his towering "Corpus" at Pier 14 in front of an audience that might otherwise never come across it.
"I appreciate that it's there, visible for people to see. It's why you make public art, so that you get the possibility to share it," he says.
He initially envisioned the sculpture on the pages of a sketchbook with an illustration of a large boat with legs.
"Then I realized, because it was always intended for people to be up inside of it, that people would fall out of said boat and get hurt," Christian says. "So the dreams of making that sculpture large-scale had to be adjusted."
It morphed from there, with the addition of a top, resembling a submarine.
Like Tedrick's "Lord Snort," "Corpus" originally appeared at Burning Man, complete with a ladder that people could climb to sit inside -- evoking the feeling of being transported by an enormous multi-legged vessel.
"There was a basic urge to make something enjoyable," he shares. "There was no deep, conceptual thing behind it." As a fixture near the Ferry Building, "Corpus," meaning "body," is an eye-catcher, with three eyes and a perceptible smirk. The hand-crafted sculpture, Christian says, took a summer to build.
"I try to make things like that that are loose enough so that they can be changed, but the 'bones' are pretty solid," he says. "I love the process of doing it, because it's selfishly self-discovery and just fun. You're creating as you go, and that's really the gem for me."
A sea creature that's ventured onto land, a crab, a frog -- people have different ideas about what "Corpus" resembles. Children, Christain says, are the most imaginative and direct expressing their ideas.
"Kids will be brutal [about] some sculptures," he says. "They'll just walk up to them and go, 'That's stupid.' And you're like, 'I can't really argue with you on that.' I love that kids will give you their honest opinion, whether you ask for it or not."
While touching up "Corpus" in January after the king tides' flooding and rusting of its base, Christian enjoyed people's reactions.
"It is different, and it sticks out down there, so it sparks some conversation. I think that's the best part," he says. "Somebody might say they hate it. I'm like, 'Great. It's better than not seeing it at all.'"
At one point, his friends and their children happened to come across a "three-eyed walking creature" after disembarking from the nearby ferry port and were enthralled. Then they realized who created it. He recalls, "I was just so thrilled to have them call me and say, 'Michael, we're at your sculpture.'"
Another Christian work, "Bloom," is in the grassy entrance of Heron Head's Park in Hunters Point. Made of recycled pieces from other sculptures, it resembles a playground spinner, with several up-reaching tentacles.
"People can climb on it and sit on it and hang out -- it's just fun and playful, so it's perfect to be in a park," he says. Though in a less heavily trafficked area than the Embarcadero,
"Bloom" still receives its fair share of visitors. Christian never imagined that his sculptures would be on view in the open along San Francisco's shoreline and that so many people he's never met, from so many walks of life, would encounter them, even if only temporarily.
"That's about as good as it gets," he says.
By JL Odom
Bay City News
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