Showing posts with label Mission District. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Mission District. Show all posts

February 22, 2010

Mission District, San Francisco


click photo for full-size image
photo by Donald Kinney

Usually the weather in the Mission district is a bit nicer than the rest of the City, but not early on Saturday -- it was cold and windy -- just a bit out of my comfort zone (((by the grace of God I am not homeless))).   But I had great fun on my brief walk-around -- some of the window displays are highly creative.

Now, I ask you -- who couldn't use a set of Self-Empowerment cards, or a $40 book on Surviving Jellyfish Stings, a genuine Aretha Franklin doll?   And what about a Bondage and Truth Lasso -- that could probably come in handy in certain situations.   But who in the heck is going to need to pay extra for Glow in the Dark matches -- just strike the regular variety and they're pretty much guaranteed to glow -- wonder who the poor sucker was who bought them.



click photo for full-size image
photo by Donald Kinney

These drawings, along with dozens of others are in the window of a used book store on Valencia Street.   Now, I recognized the name of Edna Lewis -- she used to be known as the Julia Child of the South, but I had to check the Wikipedia for information on Octavia Estelle Butler -- but of course when I saw her photograph in the Wikipedia I instantly recognized her -- probably from television as I have never read anything she has written.   But her writings are extensive -- here's a short quote from the long Wikipedia article:
Octavia Jr., nicknamed Junie, was paralytically shy and a daydreamer, and was later diagnosed as being dyslexic.   She began writing at the age of 10 "to escape loneliness and boredom";   she was 12 when she began a lifelong interest in science fiction.   "I was writing my own little stories and when I was 12, I was watching a bad science fiction movie called Devil Girl from Mars," she told the journal Black Scholar, "and decided that I could write a better story than that.   And I turned off the TV and proceeded to try, and I've been writing science fiction ever since."




click photo for full-size image
photo by Donald Kinney

Well, here you go -- I don't think you need me to interpret this fine and expressive mural, but it's a great one isn't it?



click photo for full-size image
photo by Donald Kinney

And what I know about the Virgin Mary you could fit on the head of a pin -- but that isn't going to stop me from telling you all about my childhood struggle to sort out the differences between Protestants and Catholics.

You see, I grew up in a Protestant family, and we took our involvement with church activities and our belief in God supposedly to the highest level.   Not that our family didn't have problems -- mainly with that Don boy who was SO recalcitrant.   But my parents had deep suspicions and fears about Catholics -- oh, to make a long story short -- all the Catholics were going to end up in Hell.   (((oh brother)))


CLICK to visit my Daily-Duo. 
CLICK to visit KittyBLOG -- the daily doings of my cat.
CLICK for what I call my BIG site.


Your comments are invited and welcome.

November 05, 2009

Clarion Alley, Mission District, S.F.


click photo for full-size image
photo by Donald Kinney

Long before the Conehead family arrived on the scene, we had Mork and Mindy.   Oh, you remember that TV series where the typical Orcan boy meets the typical human girl and decide to shack-up together.   The program ran from 1978 through 1982, and I must confess that I did a whole lot of greeting people during that time period with Mork's "Na-nu na-nu".   I even occasionally said "shazbot", which is an Orkan curse word.   I think I even was saying "kay-o" instead of "o-kay" for a while.   I remember having a huge crush on Mindy -- crushes seem to be a recurring theme in my life...



click photo for full-size image
photo by Donald Kinney

Well folks, this is the famous Clarion Alley, located in San Francisco's largely Spanish speaking Mission District, just south of 17th. Street, between Mission and Valencia.

These are largely the works of a group of former San Francisco Art Institute students who organized in the 1990's around a common love of "street art".

Since then the term "Mission School" has been associated with these murals.   Mission School artists are know to use all sorts of painting materials, from cheap house paint to expensive artist's acrylics, and you can also find three dimensional objects in some of the murals.   Many panels have a political theme -- and some, like the dinosaur above are purely whimsical.



click photo for full-size image
photo by Donald Kinney

I'm not exactly sure that is going on in this mural, but if I had to take a guess I'd say it has something to do with the tumbling of society and blood for oil.   You might see something different.



click photo for full-size image
photo by Donald Kinney

Better put on your wading boots because I feel a story about my past coming on...

Way back in the late 1960's my boss, who owned a microscopically small art supply manufacturing company in San Rafael, developed a partnership with the USA division of the Politec Company, an equally microscopic manufacturer of artists acrylic paint.   The Politec Company was founded in the 1950's in Mexico, supplying water-based acrylic to the majority of the Mexican master muralists.

Up until that time artists such as Rivera, Orozco, and Siqueiros had been using solvent based automotive lacquers for their murals, but after the Rohm&Haas Company found a way to emulsify plastic with water, a man named Jose Guiterrez thought he could use this new water-soluble resin in the formulation of artists paints.   Jose had one basic belief about artist's paint -- that it should be flat and not shine, and to accomplish that he loaded up his paints with lots of mineral fillers such as marble dust, talc, and calcium carbonate.

Anyway, my assignment one or two days a week was to help Politec USA package their paint -- in those days I was quite good at squirting paint into jars and tubes.   Our little paint packaging factory was located near the corner of 14th and Valencia Streets, just a few doors down the street from the original Levi factory.

Way back in the 1960's the Mission District was just starting to get decorated with more and more murals -- many of them done with the Politec acrylic paint I was packaging.   Just look at the Mission District today -- it's really come a long way.   Colorful and expressive murals everywhere!

If you haven't seen them yet, I had a whole slew of Mission District murals on what I call my "big" site at:   http://www.photoarrow.com/big/12/12mission.html.



click photo for full-size image
photo by Donald Kinney

Well, Cafe Prague isn't located in Clarion Alley, but I thought I would show this beautiful painted glass.   I think it's a masterpiece, and I'm just guessing but I bet they serve good food there too.


CLICK to visit my Daily-Duo. 
CLICK to visit KittyBLOG -- the daily doings of my cat.
CLICK for what I call my BIG site.


Your comments are invited and welcome.
 
under construction