Monday, June 16, 2008

working on the Potrero Hill


I have an ongoing series of plein air in my Potrero Hill neighbornhood. The other day I was on the 20th Street hill on a weekday. The afternoon featurerd a lot of au pairs with children. A lot of children. Some mothers with children, some fathers with children, some grandparents. It felt like Noe Valley. Not that there is anything wrong with that but the old Potrero Hill didn't have au pairs and that many children.

There were also men with dogs and a few runners, mostly men. The only younger women seemed to be high schoolers waiting for the bus.

I saw a city truck, some kind of official vehicle, white, pouring a large bottle of pine sol down the sewer. What's that about? I forgot which block is was on while searching for the right view, on but later realized I was working directly above the pine sol and had lovely whifs of it all afternoon.

There must have been a childcare center down the block because as the afternoon wore on and especially around 5pm, I kept hearing cars sitting in the street honkng. No body gets out ofthe car...just sits in there and honks. It was annoying enough that I was ready to go down there and murder someone.

I didn't.

But really. Other people do use the outdoors. I wonder how the neighbors deal with this noise? Perhaps they are out making their fortunes. Online it said the average household income in my zip code is $200,000.

The perspective was all skwonky when I got home. Sometimes I work in such a rush that I don't notice the errors. There was a lot of detail and not much time. Sometimes I leave the paintings askew if they seem charming. In this case I went back and had another whack at it a few days later -- repainted the right side (except for the car which was not there).