Frame is a monumental Rococo‑style bronze structure that stands 15–20 feet tall at the Hunters Point Naval Shipyard. Created in collaboration with Walter Hood’s nearby installation Refrain, the two works together form Frame–Refrain, a paired experience that shifts the cultural weight of a picture frame from a single artwork to the landscape itself. By enlarging an ornate frame to the scale of the environment, Howard transfers its associations of value, privilege, and appreciation to the surrounding land and the histories embedded within it. The open rectangle captures changing views of the Bay, the city, and the shipyard, transforming the act of looking into a public encounter with place. Howard’s work honors the generations of people, particularly African Americans, who migrated west seeking opportunity and found work in this shipyard. As visitors walk through the frame, they become part of the composition, bridging the industrial world of steel and concrete with the intimate traditions of art and ornament.

“You are the art,” Howard has said. “You are part of what makes this place what it is.”