HARUMPH! It’s been quite some time since I’ve painted anything other than logos or perfect lines of text. The Urban Camo Seed Bomb project demands a certain photo-realistic precision and that series has ruled my brain for longer than I care to remember. “Out, damn OCD; out I say!” should be my creative mantra – in both good ways and bad.

But obsessive, anal-retentive work is better suited for gloomy winter days indoors; spring calls for more spontaneous, lively, and organic art. So in honor of the season I’ve decided to add some more delicate and painterly pieces to my seed bomb repertoire. Consider this a change of pace and an aesthetic declaration of “Fuck off winter, it’s time for sunshine!” Let me present the first additions to the Faberge Egg Seed Bomb Series.

Inspired by this glitter-filled Easter Egg, my evil/brilliant friend Rick Abruzzo, and my long-time obsession with Faberge Eggs – these seed bombs are simply blown eggs painted with acrylic & watercolor paints and filled with the seeds of California Poppies, Yellow Lupines, Arroyo Lupines, Dwarf Godetias, & Baby Blue Eyes. I decided to disperse them (smash the eggs into a thousand pieces) on a favorite little Fruitvale oddity – the abandoned UPRR Oakland Subdivision trestle bridge that spans 42nd Avenue at San Leandro Street. Currently used as a driveway and slated to become part of the East Bay Greenway, I figured this neglected spot could use some native plant love. So off my housemate Jean and I went.

The Dwarf Godetia Egg we tossed off the bridge onto the banks of the roadway. We lost it in a thicket of fennel, blackberry brambles, and garbage where I suspect it won’t ever sprout. However, it was fun to sit on the railing, legs swinging, screaming “Whoops, damn butterfingers! I’m such a klutz!” at the passing cars below.

The Yellow Lupine Egg we shattered against the pillars of the adjacent BART track. Given the brambles at the pillar base I assume this egg won’t sprout either. However, this was by far the most satisfying egg to break. A good overhand pitch against civic infrastructure can’t be beat. There’s something to be said about violence, wanton egg-destruction, and a lack of gentleness.

The Arroyo Lupine Egg, California Poppy Egg, and Baby Blue Eye Egg we smashed onto the bed of the bridge itself. The California Poppy didn’t shatter on impact but that’s what stompy boots are for. I have high hopes for these sprouting as the soil quality, sunlight, and lack of competitors were all better in this spot. Truck tires and dogs could be an issue but we tried to place them in out-of-the way portions were they could sprout undisturbed.

All in all, nothing says “Fuck Yeah Spring!” like a little seasonally thematic guerrilla gardening. The eggs were wonderfully delicate to handle and so much fun to break. There’s something very passive about the Urban Camo Seed Bombs; their destruction relying on the slow progression of weather and time. Destroying the Faberge Egg Seed Bombs was all direct action and observable force and instant gratification. Egg + force of arm + hard surface area = SPLAT! I’m hoping this more direct seed dispersal method will result in more effective sprouting. However, I suppose only time will tell. I’ll post updates on both the seeds and future additions to this mini-series as they come out.

Vol. 1 The Freeman Landfill Library. Albany Bulb. Albany, CA

The Albany Bulb should not exist.

Much like the entire bay, it’s a man-made intervention into natural space, a construct of fill and development brokered by non-native peoples and plants and materials. When it comes to nature, “there is no there, there” and hasn’t been for some time. But it feels close, in a very visceral and real way. The greenery stretched taut over concrete and metal bones, it serves as a passable substitute for authentic wilderness. A stand-in for the world That Was – before tech rushes, rail rushes, and gold rushes changed the physical foundation of the region forever.

Besides being an artificial construct, a simulacra of nature, the Bulb is also a relic. It’s the end result of antiquated environmental policies wherein the bay’s tidal marches were closed in with construction debris, rubble, and dirt in order to aid the railroad and shipping industries. Formed in 1939 when the Santa Fe Railroad dynamited a small hill on Fleming point to form Golden Gate Fields, Bulb construction was most active between 1963 and 1984. This infill process would permanently stop in 1987 leaving behind a warren of rebar and concrete slabs overgrown with Scottish broom, pampas grass, and blackberries. Following the greening of the space by these volunteer plants came a peopling of the space by volunteer residents and artists. Making sculptures and living structures with debris from the original dump, they would turn the Albany Bulb into a hybrid dog park, jogging trail, outsider art gallery, and shanty town.

Often described as “anarchic” or “wild” or “free”, these descriptors revolve around a concept of nature that, as stated above, I feel is nostalgically misplaced when discussing a mildly rehabilitated landfill. But hey, sentimentality is a strong force and the Bulb is devastatingly beautiful in it’s own way.

Low on amenities, there are only two public structures at the Bulb - the Castle and the Landfillian Library/Freeman Landfill Library. (Well, three if you count the single porta potty at the entrance.) Built from scrap wood, bits of old boats, various pieces of fabric/tarp, and the low-slung branches of a tree; the library has the magical feel of a childhood fort – if that fort were a set piece in a post-apocalyptic Mel Gibson film. Mad Max – Beyond Summer Camp! Coming to theaters in Summer 2013! The feeling of standing in the last-oupost-of-civilization is aided and abetted by the pirate flags, rusty rebar, and copious graffiti tags on the library grounds. My favorite being this lovingly rendered freight train complete with it’s own meta-graffiti tags.

I often dream of trains when I’m with you…

Tended over by “head librarian” Jimbow the Hobow, the library houses a few hundred books and magazines on various topics. Worn past recognizable standards of use/abuse, the library is an oasis both from and of it’s place. I appreciate it for it’s lack of pretentions and utmost utility. Those marks of wear are signs of functionality, love, use, and the reality of life on the Albany Bulb.

Go. Visit it now. Ask Jimbow if he needs any new books. He may not but you never know unless you ask.

Because the pursuit of non-monogamy knows no class/economic bounds

Nature guides to non-native habitats

Main collection

This instructional sign has seen better days

Main sign

Side alcove, often filled with books it is currently empty

Flag Garden

LIb–>rary

TIL - In 1879 an explosives plant opened on Fleming Point (the current site of the Albany Bulb). In this era explosives production was an… imprecise art and the eucalyptus trees on the beachfront where *supposedly* planted to “muffle” the blasts.

 After:

Incomplete paint job is both awkward and incomplete. Above are before-and-after shots of two piano company adverts on the side of 1020 Market Street. Built in 1908, the building recently underwent it’s third graffiti/ghost sign abatement paint job, completely obscuring the C.G. Horn Pianos sign. However, this most recent (and most opaque) paint job frames the Pianos for Rent sign in a really lovely way. If you’re going to paint a third of a building in garish brick orange you might as well kern it to the ghost sign.

Also, I’m very curious about those triangular windows – they don’t exactly match the time period and/or architecture of this building.

]]> http://www.perceptionfilter.com/2013/03/awkward-paint-job/feed/ 0 http://www.perceptionfilter.com/2013/03/camofield-painting/ http://www.perceptionfilter.com/2013/03/camofield-painting/#comments Sat, 16 Mar 2013 00:34:50 +0000 Kasey Smith http://www.perceptionfilter.com/?p=1185 Continue reading →]]> Polk by Geary by Van Ness by Cedar

Eventually this will become medical offices; part of a greater hospital complex for the Polk Gulch/Cathedral Hill neighborhood. For unlike other parts of the Tenderloin, there’s a purposefulness behind this stretch of seven blighted storefronts. The buildings wait, dreaming of wrecking balls and the grandiose plans of developers. Patient, quiet dreams obscured behind layers of plywood and the drab, mismatched tones of graffiti abatement paint.

Which is exactly why I love this doomed little block.

Looking at it, I go back and forth, “Does this graffiti abatement job remind me of camouflaged army fatigues or color field paintings?” “Have I seen these colors and shapes in war footage or on the walls of SFMOMA?” “Am I reminded of the military-industrial complex or the gallery-museum complex?”

The camouflage description is apt. The oddly layered tonality, the disruptive pattern of amorphous dabs and blobs, the importance placed on obfuscation. Camouflage works by using color and pattern to break up the outline of a figure. Here color and pattern are used to break up the stories of opportunistic local taggers and hide this perceived sign of blight. The City furiously erases and the city furiously reinscribes over and over and over again. Paint camouflaging the territorial scribblings and statements of the urban core –> paint camouflaging the blight endemic to that core —> paint camouflaging the very buildings themselves.

But the color field description is just as equally apt. There are whifts of Rothko, of the amorphous, massless abstraction that typified his generation of painters. Even the scale is correct – all but calling out for a viewing bench, a catalogue forward by Clement Greenberg, and a descriptive placard reading No. 1062, 2013.

A painting is not about an experience. It is an experience. – Rothko

A simple and all consuming experience. Like the smell of urine or the arterial beat of city traffic or the act of waiting alone at a Tenderloin bus stop. An experience of reality which cannot be captured by gestural marker tags but instead requires the broad mark of a paint roller and discount primer. On this block the graffiti abatement team has won out over the taggers, the background over the form, the field over the focus. The de Kooning has been erased leaving only a finely tiled ground behind.

Camouflage vs Color Field Painting. Color Field Painting vs Camouflage. Camofield Painting? The art of concealment blends into the art of expressiveness and back again as if blurred thin by the strokes of a brush. Because quite literally it has been.

I shall enjoy seeing this block go. But not as much as I enjoy the dumb, blind, brilliant and utterly accidental outsider art created thereon. To progress! To progress?

As shot from Minna

While I hate to see old buildings go, part of me loves the jack-o-lantern smile of blocks in transition; especially when they lead to new ghost sign reveals. For instance, shown above is a picture I took in November 2011 of the Albain Hotel at 948 Mission Street.

The building dates from 1907 and has two clearly visible signs, one for a small rooming hotel and the other for a safe manufacturer.

The Piedmont
Furnished Rooms ___ ____ $2.00 Up

Richardson Bros.
Agents

San Francisco City Directory, Crocker-Langley, 1908

Case closed, right? The signs clear the roofline of adjacent 942/946 Mission and while the angling is awkward we’ve seen worse, right? Well, recently 942/946 Mission was demolished and a whole new ghost sign set was revealed.

February 2013

_______
______
_______
Beer Drawing Apparatus
German Silver & Copper ______
Beer _______
Faucets and Carbonators
Vacuum Heating Systems

Dated sometime between 1907 (when 948 Mission was built) and 1929 (when 942/946 Mission was built) the sign is for a brewing supply store. Unfortunately, the name of the business is obscured by graffiti and sun damage, rendering it impossible to read. Anyone know anything about local brewery supply businesses active in the early 20th century?

Interior Balconies and Catwalks:

For most of this portion of the tour I was simply shooting blind with either my cellphone or my sad, quasi-functional camera. Via elevators and stairs we went from the ground floor to the balcony to the first tier of walkways to the catwalks in the upper rafters. Needless to say, the more solid and broad the floor and the higher the railing the easier a time I had.

The main organ, the Alexander Memorial Aeolian-Skinner has 7,466 pipes.

The nave floor and  indoor labyrinth.

The nave floor and indoor labyrinth.

As shot from the balcony, my back to the main pipe organ. Per Grace Cathedral, “The labyrinth has only one path so there are no tricks to it and no dead ends. The path winds throughout and becomes a mirror for where we are in our lives. It touches our sorrows and releases our joys. Walk it with an open mind and an open heart.” On Tuesdays they host yoga on the labyrinth.

The word.

Here we’re on a very narrow concrete walkway passing over the first tier of stained glass windows . These were solid, substantial- feeling, and connected to the cathedral walls giving them a sense of architectural weight – and hence safety. The metal catwalks over the central space were impossibly triggering as they were higher up, had “bounce”, and were less visually tied to the surrounding building. Hence the lack of photos from that portion of the tour.

Einstein

The top tier of stained glass windows represent important “secular saints” – this one being Einstein. We’re still on the lower concrete catwalks and have yet to reach the rafters. The church has sixty six windows by five different artists.

The apex of the walkways and catwalks.

Look at the angle, this part was hard.

This is where I had my second panic attack (the first was on entering the catwalk system) . We’ve now left the metal catwalks and are on a concrete walkway somewhere over the main altar and choir. Not only is this the highest point of the cathedral but the angled climbs & descents added a certain feeling of instability to one’s footfalls. This lack of traction and balance – whether real or perceived – was incredibly hard for me to handle.

Rooftop Walkways and Towers:

From the catwalks to the South Tower to the Singing Tower and round about the back of the cathedral – these walkways were infinitely easier than the interior ones.

South Tower

The South Tower is a lovely vaulted space with stunning views of the city. It’s twin, the North Tower, or Singing Tower,  contains the cathedral’s carillon.

Nob Hill

From the South Tower one has a gorgeous view of Huntington Park, The Pacific Union Club, The Fairmont Hotel, and the InterContinental Mark Hopkins. Not pictured – the stunning California Masonic Memorial Temple across the street from the cathedral. Also, also not pictured – pigeons. Because the netting keeps them out of the tower.

South Tower as seen from the  Singing Tower.

The 44 bell carillon

I Am The Way, The Truth, And The Life.

The 44 bell carillon and Singing Tower were a gift from San Francisco dentist and realtor Nathaniel T Coulson. Coulson would spend his life savings on the construction of the Singing Tower and the bells it houses.  Purchased in 1938, they were first played in 1940 and formally dedicated in 1943. We were in the tower when the bells chimed 4pm and it was magically resonant – vibrating up your toes, through your torso, and out the top of your head.

Despite the narrow walkways and short railings, height was less of an issue outside.

This should give you an idea of how narrow the walkways were. Single file, very little room to turn around.

More shots of the narrow rooftop walkways.

Contrary to my facial expression – the outside walkways were much, much easier than the interior catwalks.

Chemtrails and gargoyles.

Geometric rooftop shapes

Spying on the neighbors

Looking down. I didn’t like looking down.

Liturgical Vestments:

We were also shown the cathedral’s collection of liturgical vestments. Each was a beautiful, unique piece of textile art. Some truly inventive work – the costume geek in me was very pleased by this section of the tour

Thank you to Grace Cathedral for a wonderful tour! For the full set of images see my Flickr set and those of my friends Rick Abruzzo and Tom Cavnar.

I love using maps to visualize data. It’s often the only method that allows me to see/think through my spatial blind spots. So of course I had to throw my Urban Camo Seed Bomb data into Google Maps to help gain perspective on future placement sites. Turns out that using Google Street View in my neighborhood is FASCINATING. I blame the rain, my various winter colds, and the resulting cabin fever for this newfound interest in digital urban explorations. Google Maps Hole! 

So after thoroughly exploring the pixelated contours of this particular Map Hole I’ve found some special tidbits and interesting urban puzzles worthy of sharing. Consider this the best of the weird from Fruitvale and Google.

I do not trust this business juxtaposition… A bait shop 1+ mile from the shore? A tattoo shop with questionable kerning and font use on their signage? No.

Slut shamed by a club wear store! Also, I kinda want one of those ass mannequins. For art.

There’s something so adorable about this sign! I love the impossibly tiny, impossibly detailed cars painted on either side. Someone had an imprecise understanding of signage scale…

Stockpiling tires for a post-oil world. If you view it from all angles on Street View you can see seven tires. That’s an impressive collection – even for this neighborhood.

I love the clashing colors, angles and materials on this building and sign. There’s so much going on! The very definition of architectural busyness.

This building is so quaint – the colors, the font, the boxy profile – I want to keep it in my pocket and feed it sunflower seeds.

Alas, this sign is no longer there. I can’t help but read it as a condemnation of having sex with cars. Also, I love that it’s pink. And that they’re attempting to make a cute rhyme.

The bottle cap mosaic circa 2010. This is what it currently looks like - a solid field of Heineken caps. Rumor has it the brake shop uses the mosaic to document their “year in beer” and that they start over each January. It’s been pretty inactive the last couple months – perhaps they have big, boozey things in store for 2013?

It is near impossible to stare at this concrete watermelon and not smile.

I really wonder where these go. Are my neighbors collecting them? Are magpies and crows scooping them up? Are dogs wolfing them down? I guess I’ll never know. But in the future I should probably aim for more covert seed bomb placement.

Per the Grand Lake’s Wikipedia page:

The sign mounted on top of the Grand Lake Theater is the largest rotary contact sign west of the Mississippi River. It measures 52 feet (15.85m) high by 72 feet (21.95m) wide and consists of 2,800 colored bulbs and was designed by Theodore Wetteland. The firing sequence is controlled by a device much like a music box. The sign is typically lit Friday and Saturday, from dusk until the start of the last show of the night.

Obviously a sign of that scale will leave an impression on a neighborhood. So I walked around Lake Merritt and up the commercial corridors of Grand and Lakeshore to count the murals depicting the Grand Lake Theater. On my walk I found four.

Three day time depictions and one nighttime, two focusing on the signage and two  on the architecture, all of them neglecting the infamous political messages on the marquee. These four murals stand as a wonderful community testimony to the power of cinema and the Grand Lake Theater. Enjoy! And if I missed any do tell!

572 Grand Ave

746 Grand Avenu

3300 Grand

3250 Lakeshore

I love this sign.

It’s decay and it’s color contrast and it’s geometry and it’s everything.

But looking at it closely; doesn’t that octagonal frame seem awfully fancy for a one hour photo shop? And the two arched frames to either side; those were definitely custom, right? So where did they come from?

The answer – architectural appropriation. Looking through the San Francisco Historical Photograph Collection it seems that the basic structure of the signage was borrowed from a previous tenant. Look closely at this photo of the adjacent S.H. Kress and Company building. Notice the octagonal frame? The 1 Hour Photo store simply incorporated their prefab signage into this framework and called it a day. Instant Fancy Pants Signage without the Fancy Pants Budget!

Oh look! Here is a different, better, and somewhat older pic of the 1 Hour Photo signage. It comes from Up From the Deep - the SF history blog you should be reading but probably aren’t. That was a breathtaking sign in it’s heyday.