The Woohoo! Report

One of Bren Bataclan's Paintings

By Meredith May, Chronicle Staff Writer

Bren Bataclan’s cheerful cartoon creatures have been exhibited in some high places: at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, in Logan International Airport and even on a Girl Scout patch.

But lately he’s been leaving his artwork outside unemployment offices and closed-down retail stores across the country bearing the note: “Everything is Going to Be Alright – This Painting is Yours to Take.”

“The economy is so bad now. People are losing their jobs, so this is how I can help,” said Bataclan, 39, as he propped an acrylic painting of a horned creature with googly eyes and fangs next to an Embarcadero BART ticket machine on Friday.

The Boston artist stealth-deposited his canvases throughout San Francisco over his holiday family visit, in places such as the Financial District, where he figured he’d find a concentration of economically stressed-out people. He wants to give away 30 of his artworks, which sell for anywhere between $95 and $400, by Wednesday.

His artistic twist on paying it forward allows Bataclan to fight the recession funk, bring art to gallery outsiders, and live out his fantasy of being a graffiti artist without actually defacing anything.

“I am expressing myself and helping others at the same time. That’s a pretty good combination,” Bataclan said.

Since 2003, he’s left 400 free paintings in 20 U.S. cities and 20 countries. On his Web site, finders pose with his creations and tell how his work brought them cheer. Strangers open up to him about their chemotherapy, their bankruptcies, their failing marriages.

Preschool teacher Linda Gossage plucked one of his artworks from the Embarcadero BART station. She plans to hang it in her classroom at Sunset Co-op Nursery School.

“I’ve heard about this artist before. I can’t believe I actually found one his paintings!” she said. “I’m going to tell my students about this – it’s a perfect example of sharing.”

The buzz Bataclan has created acts as his public relations arm – much in the same way Keith Haring launched a career as one of the country’s most sought-after muralists after he anonymously drew chalk cartoons in the New York subways in the 1980s.

Bataclan’s name has begun trickling from the art magazines and blogs to the mainstream media, and he’s getting enough commissions to pursue his art full time. His murals dot schools, hospitals and libraries throughout Boston.

It all started with the dot-com bust. After working at several design firms and teaching computer animation at the University of Massachusetts, Bataclan found himself out of a job in 2000. He returned to his childhood fascination with doodling, and decided to show his cartoons at the Cambridge Open Studios event. He sold 49 of 56 works.

Delighted, amazed and giddy, he decided to thank Boston for patronizing his art by leaving free paintings around town with a note asking only one thing in return: to smile at strangers more often.

Since 2003, the Smile Boston Project has taken him around the world. Wanderers have found his paintings at the Eiffel Tower, on park benches in Japan, at Graceland, along the canals of Venice, in penguin territory in Antarctica, on a cafe table in New York.

“I never in my life thought I would be doing this full time, but it’s the best job I’ve ever had,” Bataclan said.

A newlywed who adored, but couldn’t afford one of Bataclan’s paintings of a husband and wife later found the art piece on a park bench. The first person to take a free Bataclan had just had her first chemotherapy treatment.

Teenagers Josh Cabrido and Kyle McCurdy of San Jose plan to decorate their dorm rooms with the paintings they found in the Embarcadero BART station.

“I’ve seen things like this on the Internet – where people post hopeful messages about the economy,” Cabrido said. “I’m definitely going to go on his Web site and see what this guy is all about.”

Yusef Beckles, a San Francisco graphic designer and self-described “guerrilla artist,” was deeply touched that another artist gave him a personal work for free.

“This,” he said, holding up the Bataclan painting he found in the BART station, “is the most precious and true thing an artist can do.”

Artist’s Web site

Everything is Going to Be Alright Project

www.bataclan.com

By Bill Dwyre

For many years, Andre Agassi stole the show at the U.S. Open. Now, three years out of the tennis game, he’s doing it in coat and tie.

Monday was opening day. They played 56 matches. Defending champions Roger Federer and Serena Williams won handily. There was drama on the back courts, great play on the grandstand, exceptional effort everywhere.

And then, Monday night, the bald guy from Las Vegas walked to the microphone and one-upped everything. He was there as part of a ceremony honoring “athletes who have given back.”

The other honorees, Doug Flutie, David Robinson and Mia Hamm, did not speak. This was, after all, Agassi’s hall of oratory. Center court, Arthur Ashe Stadium, the usual 20,000-plus people there to listen, as there had been that day in 2006, when he lost to Benjamin Becker, took the microphone and said goodbye as articulately as any athlete, before or since.

Some athletes become Terrell Owens. Some become Socrates.

Agassi, the latter, began as a long-haired and angry youngster, sent off to play tennis and little else. He now jokes that his best time as a student was “the three years I spent in eighth grade.”

Now, when he speaks, it is not from things learned in books.

“Life’s blessings are not handed out evenly,” he told the crowd, still settling back in its seats after a spontaneous standing ovation. “Caring means doing.”

He was being honored for his work on behalf of the Andre Agassi Foundation. It has raised $75 million to date and used it to start a charter high school in a poor part of Las Vegas.

He talked about this year’s first graduation, in which seniors paraded across a special bridge and stopped halfway to show a sign to the underclassmen below, indicating which college they would be attending. Every senior in the school was accepted to a college.

“100%,” Agassi said, proudly.

Agassi quoted one of the senior commencement speakers, who is now in a college pre-med program.

“She said that some who are short-sighted have labeled us as at-risk,” Agassi said. “She said that was right. That we are at-risk. At risk of excellence.”

The media sought an encore of his on-court performance. So he came, once again, into the room where he had spent so many hours, most happy, some sad, as he discussed the outcome of his matches. He played here for 21 years, won in 1994 and 1999, and had three completely joyous news conferences.

Yes, three, including one after that final match and third-round loss in 2006, when he followed his tearful stadium goodbye with a memorable warm-and-fuzzy session with a press corps he once scorned and often scorned him in return.

Now, he was back again, to elaborate on his on-court appearance Monday night.

He was asked about the graduation at Andre Agassi College Preparatory Academy.

“I was on the other side” of the bridge, “kind of receiving them as they came across, just looking at their faces,” he said. “Pretty incredible.”

He was asked about being sent off, as a child prodigy, to the Bollettieri Academy in Florida.

“There were a lot of moments I didn’t understand, I was confused by, scared by,” he said. “A lot of time I wanted to hide from facing it. But I’m still in a process, so don’t believe what you are seeing here, either.”

He was asked about other foundations, and their tendency to lack focus.

“Having a foundation is like choosing to have a child,” he said. “You better be ready to care about it.”

He was asked about the moment of decision when he had just lost a match, slipped to No. 147 in the world, was still only 27 years old, and was sitting in a hotel room in Stuttgart with his coach at the time, Brad Gilbert, who had challenged him to find new resolve, to use all the talent he had and not just fade away.

“I gave him a big hug,” Agassi said, “and said I’m going to choose this. I looked out at the streets. I saw the lights of the cars in Germany. I know every car out there was going somewhere they possibly didn’t want to go. . . . It’s not till you choose for yourself that it is really going to resonate.”

He was asked whether there will be more schools. The dreamer turned bottom-line businessman.

“If you help me raise the money,” he said.

With Agassi, you never know what you are going to get. You just know it will be good.

He used to be special to tennis. Now he’s just special.

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