ART BEFORE DISHES @ Minnesota Street Project Foundation

In conjunction with the ten year anniversary of the San Francisco Art Book Fair, Minnesota Street Project Foundation is pleased to present ART BEFORE DISHES (2015) by Bay Area artist Susan O’Malley (1976-2015).

From her Advice from My 80-Year-Old Self series, ART BEFORE DISHES (2015) makes its debut as a large-scale mural installation on the exterior of 1201 Minnesota Street. What advice would your 80-year-old self give you? This is the question artist Susan O'Malley asked more than a hundred ordinary people of all ages, ultimately transforming their responses into vibrant text-based prints, posters, and murals made publicly accessible and redistributed back into the community.

A call to action and words to live by—heartfelt, sometimes humorous, and always fiercely compassionate, O’Malley’s work unveils the wisdom we hold inside ourselves right now.

Artwork courtesy of the Estate of Susan O’Malley and Romer Young Gallery.

Susan O’Malley (1976–2015) was an internationally exhibited artist and curator based in the San Francisco Bay Area. From posters to pep talks, billboards to vending machines, O’Malley used simple and recognizable tools of engagement to connect people to one another. In her Advice from My 80-Year-Old Self project, she interviewed people of all ages and transformed their words into bold artwork that has been shared widely as a book, prints, and public installations. The impact of O’Malley’s work has travelled far and wide, with public projects across the United States—San Francisco, New York, Nashville—and around the globe in the United Kingdom, Poland, and Denmark. Her work has been exhibited at alternative spaces and cultural institutions, including SFMOMA, Oakland Museum of California, the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, the San Diego Airport, Montalvo Art Center, Kala Art Institute, and Palo Alto Art Center. Her participatory installation Finding Your Center, was featured at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. O’Malley’s project A Healing Walk is permanently installed at the Montalvo Arts Center. Her career spanning monograph, It Will Be More Beautiful Than You Could Ever Imagine: The Art of Susan O’Malley (Chronicle Books, 2026) presents all her major works in vibrant color alongside essays from Bay Area art luminaries.