©Susan Schwartzenburg
Photos Ed Krieger

In 2002, the County Criminal Courts Building was renamed in honor of Clara Shortridge Foltz, a pioneer for women’s rights and equality within the California justice system. This memorial, initiated by County Supervisor Yvonne Burke, illustrates the life and achievements of this remarkable woman.

Artist Susan Schwartzenberg conducted extensive research and created a multi-part work composed of photographs and tapestries to honor Foltz’s accomplishments, which include being the first woman to join the California Bar, the first person to author a bill separating juvenile and adult offenders in California’s prisons, and one of the first people in the United States to argue for a public defender’s office.

Schwartzenberg depicts Foltz’s life through an “image biography” – a visual timeline on a series of glass panels placed alongside the building's north and south walls, interior doorways, and partitions. The images are collages of historic and contemporary photographs, and the text is partially taken from Foltz’s journal. Other interior artwork elements include a set of glass doors symbolizing the opportunities Foltz helped to create, two tapestries, two large glass panels featuring photos of Clara Shortridge Foltz, and a portrait of Foltz overlaid upon a 1908 Los Angeles map.

The memorial also includes the exterior seating benches, located at the Temple Street entrance. Each includes the monogram ‘CF’ for Foltz’s initials. Two benches are also inscribed with the statement, “No one should buy justice in a land that boasts that justice is free.” These are Clara Shortridge Foltz’s words on the necessity for a public defender system. The bench seating is intended to suggest Foltz’s struggle to give all citizens a right to legal representation, that is, a place at the bench.

About the Artist: Susan Schwartzenberg is a California artist who has exhibited her work internationally. Many of her works explore the connection between our outer physical environments and our inner personal lives. Her public commissions include Philosophers Walk in McLaren Park in San Francisco, the Rosie the Riveter Memorial in Richmond, California, and the Ernest W. McFarland Memorial in Phoenix, Arizona. She has also published several books including the recent Becoming Citizens: Family Life and the Politics of Disability. She has taught at the University of Santa Cruz, Stanford University, and the Banff Centre in Alberta, Canada. In 1998, Schwartzenberg received a Loeb Fellowship for Advanced Environmental Studies from Harvard University.