🎂 Maria celebrated her special day in the most unique way, by booking my Downtown SF POPOS Walking Tour! 🌆
I had an absolute blast personalizing the tour with little surprises and delights along the way, think hidden rooftop gardens, secret art corners, and some sweet birthday touches just for Maria. 🥳💐
Seeing Maria light up with her family and friends as we explored the tucked-away gems of San Francisco’s skyline made the day unforgettable.
Thank you for letting me be part of your celebration, Maria, what a way to start 2026! 🥂✨
Here’s to more adventures, more hidden city magic, and more joyful moments in the year ahead. 💛
I’m part of a super fun end of year group show at Mini Mart Gallery in SF! It’s an honor to show alongside so many talented artists and to celebrate creativity together.
Serendipity in the City: The Spark Behind My Curated Retail project.
In starting The Urbanist, I was motivated by solid intuition, and the city itself conspired to give me a nudge. My curated retail pop-up venture, focused on helping people slow down and truly appreciate San Francisco, was born out of moments of pure serendipity.
Serendipity and the power of community recently played a role. I joined The Kindredly, a community of entrepreneurs co-organized by good friends, Ariana and Luisa. At their recent event hosted by Mae, I met Tarita who introduced me to Cathy, the host of walking tours in the Castro. Kathy invited me to take her Cruising the Castro walking tour on the Saturday after black Friday.
On Cathy’s Cruising the Castro walking tour, I met Heiko and Nicole visiting from southern Germany, currently, on a sabbatical year to explore the world. We admired the activist history of the neighborhood together, and then went our separate ways. Or so I thought.
Later that very day, I was stationed at my pop-up kiosk at the Union Square Muni station, my kiosk business was barely a day old, when I looked up to see Heiko and Nicole. We laughed at the coincidence, and we all had the pink rose crystals from the Pink Triangle Park, which commemorates LGBTQ+ history in such a moving way. We even snapped a photo to send to Cathy, connecting the threads of our serendipitous meetings.
As if the universe wasn’t done weaving the story, the couple booked my Downtown rooftop adventure tour for Monday morning. That tour turned into another magical moment, Yana, the brilliant designer behind the San Francisco walking map, that we just finished printing at Colpa Press by Luca in the Mission, joined us just before our meeting to discuss plans for our New York City map design. I found myself guiding new friends from across the globe through hidden rooftops while collaborating with a local creative talent I deeply admire. It just so happened that the couple’s next stop was to visit New York!
That’s the heart of why I started this retail art project, The Urbanist: to create opportunities for spontaneous connection, discovery, and appreciation of the city. San Francisco is full of moments like this, glimpses of beauty and community, if we simply slow down to notice.
If my first week in business at the kiosk was any sign, serendipity is not just a theme for my business, it’s at the core of my artist lifestyle, and the ethos for the experiences I hope to share with every curious person who engages in community with me.
Why did I create an urban-focused retail art project?
The Urbanist is a retail art project designed to help people thrive in the city at the intersection of local community, urban inspiration, art, and design.
My passion to support people in the city is based on my own experience. I looked for a place to call home after leaving the suburbs. I moved to the city looking for creative inspiration and queer safe space. But, it was a challenge to adapt without knowing how to find belonging and the high cost of living had me operating in survival mode.
Now, the city is my home, I want to put all of my urban problem solving skills to good use, helping others[a] here feel welcome by creating goods, services, and community building. This is how I want to show up as an artist[b] in the city and how I want to interact with the world.
When I started this artist retail project, I focused on things people needed. I interviewed people and curated a welcome kit through partnerships with other small businesses. The first Welcome to San Francisco Kits were sold to brides to give to their out of town wedding guests in 2014. These kits now exist as a resource for all kinds of visitors, whether visiting or relocating, their contents offer locally made products that help welcome you to the city that has so much to offer.
This artist run retail project has evolved from just offering welcome kits to offering services that build community[c]. It’s a potential future goal to help people find affordable[d] housing in the city.
I celebrate the serendipity that occurs when people meet in cities and I want to use humor and inject joy into my process, making it healthy, fun, and the end result both lively, human, and engaging. I want this small artist business to be able to thrive while maintaining its unique voice in the fast-paced urban environment.
Welcoming essentials for urban explorers. Taking the sense of secrecy out of urban exploration while leaving all the adventure, The Urbanist aims to offer mindful, sustainable, and essential services to the community, fostering a sense of accessibility and familiarity for visitors, tourists, and relocating urban explorers.
For Walking, 2025, acrylic on canvas, 11” x 14” x 1”
Howdy Cowboy. A western painting series that I’m currently working on. This work challenges traditional masculine stereotypes by reinterpreting cowboy imagery to critique conventional idealized narratives. I found myself needing to explore a personal conflict, being attracted to cowboys but also not wanting to further patriarchal symbolism.
This series documents queer people exploring and being rejuvenated by forest bathing in nature. The collaboration with queer subjects across the spectrum of LGBTQIA+ includes video interviews and still photographs to share that sense of calm with our community. The goal is to capture a human centered portrait in nature and bring back that green natural environment to the gallery space. Details
There is an open call to be photographed for this ongoing project. Link to participate.
Nate Mahoney creates work inspired by dualities. Design and art. Rural and urban. Photography and painting. Analog and digital. The work is centered on compassion for others trying to survive in our complex and inhospitable world. As a queer artist, and urban dweller, Nate reacts to the city with inspired work that communicates connections between people, time, nature, place, and space. Nate’s works often result from a research practice and collaborative process.
Nate received a MFA in Design from California College of the Arts, a MFA in Cinema and Photography from Southern Illinois University, and a BA in Liberal Arts from The Evergreen State College.
Nate lives and works in downtown San Francisco, California.
