By now you’ve seen them around the city, popping up in unexpected places to provide a welcome dose of vibrant color in the smile-inducing shape of a heart. For the 10th year in a row, the San Francisco General Hospital Foundation has selected top local artists from a talented pool of applicants to create the iconic art hearts displayed all around SF. For the next several months, these unique pieces will brighten up our city, until they are auctioned off at the Heroes & Hearts Luncheon to benefit the Foundation.

This year’s crop of hearts ranges from reflective chrome to glimmering Swarovski crystals and old-school Polaroid photos. The sale of each heart will raise funds to support vital programs and initiatives at SF General Hospital and Trauma Center. When combined with proceeds from the Heroes & Hearts luncheons and Hearts After Dark benefits, Hearts in San Francisco artworks has raised over $11.5 million over the past decade. With the new hospital slated to open next December, fundraising is more crucial than ever.

Learn about each of this year’s artists, then purchase your tickets!

The 2015 Heroes & Hearts Luncheon is on Thursday, February 12, 2015 at AT&T Park. Tickets range from $300 (for a single seat) to to $5,000 (for event sponsorship). Buy tickets by calling 415-206-4478 or purchasing online. Hearts After Dark tickets and info are available online.

Kristine Brandt

Muralist, plein air, portrait artist, and illustrator, Kristine works in all mediums. Reflecting on our diversity of locals and tourists, “Salutations” features greetings from various countries’ respective languages.

Beka Brayer

Mixed media-assemblage artist Beka Brayer created “Leave Your Heart in San Francisco” in the hope of bringing an interactive installation experience to SF and our world community. This heart is wrapped in 100-plus pounds of hand-forged chains, encouraging viewers to attach an engraved padlock, forever leaving a piece of themselves in San Francisco.

Tom Connelly

Having grown up with a California farmer father, Tom Connelly is well-versed in the multifunctionality of tools. In "Heart Wood," each piece of wood acts as a memory to its past. The pieces are cut up, reshaped, and combined with other pieces to create a new story in the present. Like a memory, the wood acquires a patina and changes with time.

Kristin Farr

Kristin Farr is an artist, journalist, and video producer, creating works in different mediums that focus on nostalgia, humor, and relationships between colors. “Magic Hexagon Heart” includes a striking configuration of bright colors and shapes, calling to mind the image of a kaleidoscope.

Michael J. Kruzich

Michael Kruzich maintains a professional studio practice called MKMosaics, producing fine art mosaics and commissions for private and commercial clients.  His piece, “Still Beating!” features an image of a heart-rate monitor that creates the outline of the SF skyline and the Golden Gate Bridge, created from a mixture of natural stone, Italian glass, and Swarovski crystals.

Laura Lineback

Bay Area native Laura Lineback gained a heightened awareness to preventable heart disease after losing her father to a heart attack when he was just 60 years old. Laura has turned the heart into a giant, reflective, chrome mirror, allowing viewers to take their photo within the heart.

Kristine Mays

Kristine Mays has been an exhibiting artist around the Bay Area for over 20 years, expressing the human experience through wire. Her piece, “Love Captured,” is a gold heart veiled in red wire casing.

Mackiebuilder.com

Builder, fabricator, and maker Matthew Mackie Pigman created an original heart sculpture with his local studio, Mackie Builder, entitled “Everett’s Heart Planes, ‘Brave Strong Boar.’” Cut from 2,000 pounds of plate steel, sand blasted, powder coated, and illuminated with solar powered light, the heart was created to honor the medical community and to honor Matthew’s son, Everett.

Polaroid SF

For the past three years, artists Bruce Scott and William Westley have been sharing one photo a day through the Polaroid SF project. The project was inspired by their deep-rooted love of all things local. With “Polaroid Heart,” they asked the community to participate by donating their own Polaroid photos taken in the city. More than 1,000 Polaroid images cover the heart in a collage that is as diverse as the city.

Sara Dykstra

A nationally and internationally experienced painter and muralist, local artist Sara Dykstra created her abstract “Heart Wave” using acrylic paint in hues of blue, green, and purple.

Dora Aldworth Grinnell

Avid runner, collector, and cancer survivor, Dora Aldworth Grinnell is a mosaic and encaustic artist. Her table-top heart “Broad Stripes and Bright Stars” pulls together materials that are souvenirs themselves, creating an image of the American flag.

Barbara Schlein

Returning heart artist Barbara Schlein taught for the Fremont Unified School Disctrict for nearly 40 years. “Views of Golden Gate Park” provides a glimpse of two iconic but sometimes forgotten structures, the Conservatory of Flowers and the Japanese Tea Garden.

Swarovski Crystal

Swarovski Crystal’s creation for the 2014 Hearts series raised $50,000 dollars for the Foundation. By Alice Payr, Doris Obersteiner, Sonja Marinkovic, and Claudia Demetz, this year's design is fully covered with “Crystal Skin,” a special lacquer composed of millions of the finest, tiny crystals.

Jeffrey Thompson

When Jeffery Thompson’s stepson was taken to the General in 2006 for a traumatic brain injury, he received emergency surgery by Dr. Shirley Stiver that saved his life. As a local artist, Jeffrey was inspired by the General and his love of the Bay Area to submit the abstractdesign for “Heartline.” He used various materials, including recycled newspapers from Chinatown, which is near his home.     

Images courtesy of Irja Elisa Photography.