Patricia Diart got the idea for “The Cape” after seeing the video of Derek Chauvin kneeling on George Floyd’s neck.

At 3:30 p.m., just as planned, Patricia Diart marched up the Grand Staircase in San Francisco City Hall. Clad all in black, includinga hood and mask that covered her nose and mouth, she climbed past brides in their wedding gowns. Once at the top, she knelt down to retrieve a long black garment from a bag and began to unfurl it down the steps, revealing an embroidered letter to her father, “a cop in the force.”

Before Diart could even finish unfolding “The Cape,” as she calls her “art action,” the building’s guards swooped in, eventually totaling eight. Building Manager Rob Reiter declined to comment for this story, referring The Chronicle to the City Administrator’s Office.

“The interior of City Hall, including the Grand Staircase, is not a public forum like the sidewalk in front of City Hall,” explained the City Administrator’s Office in a statement, “and any unauthorized and unscheduled performance inside the building is prohibited to allow maximum access to public spaces for members of the public.”

During the tense standoff between Diart and building management on Tuesday, March 1, two guards prevented other visitors from climbing the steps.

Eventually, Diart was allowed to silently display her cape — as she has, by her estimate, in nearly 30 police stations, city facilities and museums throughout the country — but for just 10 minutes.

A small circle of about a dozen encircled Diart to try to read the letter while wedding parties looked on from afar. But the demonstration was so brief that anyone happening upon the scene barely got a chance to learn what “The Cape” was about, let alone think deeply about it.

“You tried to strangle Mom once,” the garment reads, detailing a childhood defined by terror and violence, including a molestation. Black friends were “forbidden,” it goes on. “While patrolling the streets, you kept a second gun with you to plant on any suspect as a way to cover up your wrongdoing.”

It concludes: “No more shall I carry these stories alone.”

During the 10 minutes, Diart made pointed eye contact with each of her onlookers, as if to say, “You’re seeing this, and I’m seeing you.”

Then, when her time was up, she refolded her cape and headed outside to the front steps.

“I feel angry,” she said, dabbing away tears. “I felt trapped by that situation and not really seen by the manager. It was like a token. It’s a public space; it’s not a public space for weddings only.”

“The Cape” isn’t Diart’s first conceptual art project. The San Francisco visual artist, performer and writer frequently works in the public square. In one piece from 2004, “Can I Touch You for a Moment,” she stood at Montgomery and Sutter streets in a business suit and asked passersby the title question, in the hopes of calling attention to how “antiseptic” Americans are, how we fear even innocuous accidental brushes of the arm.

Diart was born in France but grew up in Baltimore, where her dad worked on the force. She got the idea for “The Cape” after seeing the 2020 video of Derek Chauvin kneeling on George Floyd’s neck.

“I thought about my dad and how he didn’t have a lot of empathy,” she said. “Then I went to a George Floyd kneel-in here at Civic Center, and there was a helicopter in the sky. It’s just weird that we’re watched from above. This image came to me of a cape with all the names of the people that had been killed by police.”

In her first mental picture, the names would be so big they could be seen from the sky. “Then I thought, I can’t be the person wearing that cape. It should be someone who’s African American.”

Then the letter came to her — something personal, that could come only from her. She had never done embroidery before. It took her six months to construct “The Cape.”

Nowhere on “The Cape” or on her website does Diart state her father’s name. Asked if he’s still alive, she said, “I don’t know.” Her mother, Yvette Diart of Stafford, Va., confirmed with The Chronicle everything “The Cape” claims, adding that she last saw her daughter’s father in the 1980s.

But the purpose of “The Cape” isn’t to out Diart’s father specifically. “This still goes on,” she said of what she documented. “I’m in a shroud, and I could be anyone.”

Diart has showcased “The Cape” back in her hometown of Baltimore and at demonstrations in Sacramento, Vallejo, Santa Rosa, Oakland and multiple San Francisco sites, including Civic Center (though Tuesday was her first time inside City Hall). It has also traveled as far as New York, Minneapolis and Seattle, among other cities. Diart said the piece has sparked a range of responses, including one from a Philadelphia police officer who told her how moved he was by the letter.

“I think art with a message is just mere propaganda,” she said. “For me the best kind of art is open. I didn’t go out with an agenda on this. I’m not trying to preach anything.”

At times, Diart feels as if she’s achieved what she wrote about in the letter’s conclusion — to no longer bear the burden of her story by herself.

“Some parts of this have been cathartic, but I don’t know that one ever ‘gets over,’ ” she said. “Grief is something that arises and then subsides. It’s cyclical. It’s not something you can control.”

“The Cape”: To read the full letter and find out about future showings, visit thecape.substack.com.