Mark Ulriksen: colorful Cole Valley character, October 2006

By Ed Attanasio

Mark Ulriksen is a lot more than an award-winning freelance illustrator who creates acrylic paintings for many of this country’s best-known magazines, book publishers and ad agencies. He’s also a native San Franciscan and an integral part of the creative and political environment of Cole Valley.

Since 1993, Ulriksen has published more than 500 illustrations and over 20 magazine covers for publications including the New Yorker, Rolling Stone, Vibe, GQ, Entertainment Weekly, Time, Newsweek and the New York Times. He has also worked for advertising agencies, creating paintings for clients like The Vanguard Group and Cole Haan shoes, and paints commissioned pieces, primarily family portraits and dog portraits. In addition, Mark has done several book covers and recently illustrated his second children’s book, The Biggest Parade by Elizabeth Winthrop.

Ulriksen, 49, was born in San Francisco and grew up primarily in San Carlos. He graduated in 1980 from Chico State University with a BA in visual communications. Upon graduation, he got a job as a graphic designer for a Northeastern University publishing group in Boston, a position he held for the next two years. After that, he worked in various capacities within a variety of graphic designer jobs. In 1985, Mark returned to San Francisco and in 1986 moved to Cole Valley. At that time, he tried his hand at freelance illustrating and found the experience “very humbling.”

In 1986, Ulriksen parlayed his freelancing into an eight-year stint as an associate art director and then later head art director for KQED’s San Francisco Focus magazine. In January of 1994, Mark made a full-time commitment to working independently and hit the ground running.

“After I decided to seriously start marketing myself, things happened quickly,” Ulriksen said. “In the course of one week, I got assignments from GQ, Rolling Stone and Esquire. I knew at that point I could do this for a living.”

Mark said it takes him approximately three days to create an illustration––one day to conceive it and two days to paint it. When he’s doing magazine covers, the deadlines can be very tight. “Typically the most a magazine will give you is a week,” Mark said.

Mark loves living in Cole Valley, where he resides with his wife and two daughters. He likes being close to Golden Gate Park and enjoys the political environment, the architecture, and the fact that there’s a friendly neighborhood market right down on the corner.

“We love this neighborhood and don’t plan on ever leaving,” Ulriksen said. “It’s a very creative environment here. The actor Danny Glover lives down the block. Many creative individuals, including artists, musicians and filmmakers, live in this area. It’s a great mix of people.”

Mark is also very interested in keeping up the appearance of the neighborhood. “We recently formed a neighborhood group to fight the demolition of a house nearby,” he said. “We tried to preserve the house and we lost. But, we did win in a sense, because we were able to force the contractor into building a new house that fits the look of this neighborhood. We prevented him from building another one of those faceless stucco condos.”

Mark said one of his more well-known New Yorker covers is a take-off on the movie “Brokeback Mountain,” and featurres Dick Cheney and George W. Bush on a hillside standing very close to each other while Cheney holds a smoking rifle. The cover appeared in February shortly after Cheney shot an associate while bird hunting. Another one of his famous covers is called “Shakespeares in the Park,” which shows the playwright walking a dog, riding a bike and just generally enjoying himself in New York’s Central Park.

Ulriksen is one of the local artists participating in San Francisco’s annual Open Studios––which hits the Haight this year October 21-22. “Leslie and I welcome people into our home,” Mark said. “Open Studios usually happens right around the same time as the World Series. We’ve actually had people come here and sit down with us and watch a game.”

Mark also likes visiting other artists in their homes during Open Studios. “I enjoy seeing how other artists set up their work spaces,” he said. “Where they put their brushes and how they do their art is something I can always learn from.”

In some cases, Mark will paint portraits of people for publications and then later the personalities themselves will purchase the paintings from him. Martin Scorsese, John Travolta and O.J. Simpson attorneys Christopher Darden and Robert Shapiro have all bought original Ulriksens of themselves over the years.

Mark’s goals for the future include doing more covers for the New Yorker and more personal work for galleries. He’d also like to continue illustrating children’s books, and maybe even write his own.

“There’s a lot of freedom in kids’ books,” Mark said. “I want to explore that avenue more, because I enjoy being a storyteller.”

To see more of Mark Ulriksen’s work, and to buy prints, visit www.markulriksen.com. To read more of Ed Attanasio’s work, visit www.edattanasio.blogspot.com.