“Bella Vista Gate” is made from a curated collection of historic iron objects, some of which were donated by local residents—things like tools, hardware, and everyday metal artifacts. The idea of collecting them from nearby homes gives the gate a strong “material memory” of the neighborhood. The workshops with students from Bella Vista Elementary School helped turn it into a kind of participatory history project, where kids handled the objects, guessed their uses, and connected them to the area’s past (like recognizing horseshoes as evidence of a pre-automobile landscape).

The two busts integrated into the gate add a historical narrative layer: Gertrude Stein — a major modernist writer who lived in the Bay Area in her early years and is often associated with avant-garde literary culture. Francis Marion”Borax” Smith — a mining magnate and entrepreneur tied to the borax industry, who also had a presence in the East Bay.

Together, the gate blends personal neighborhood artifacts, educational participation, and symbolic figures into a kind of community-built monument—less a traditional gate and more a layered historical collage you pass through.