Bascomb's Regrets

So, what were your New Year’s Resolutions?

I’m enjoying mine: the new studio space is working well. And I’m not sure whether it’s the segregation of living / working space, or the lack of distractions, or the aesthetic of the other artists wearing off on me–but something is clicking. I kept to my New Year’s Resolution, and made something of an attempt to push it through on New Year’s Day (although I was on a plan for New Year’s, so I had to settle for January 2nd).

Here’s the space:

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On January 2nd, I concentrated on getting some canvas covered, and ended up with three micro-paintings that I hated. So, on to the macro. I was satisfied with these. But I also started working on a cityscape, whose progress is traced below. I was working on this one today, when I remembered that I had to paint the bottom of the canvas (some people paint the sides of the canvas, because it’s cheaper to paint the sides than to frame the canvas for show). I rotated it 180 degrees and when I looked at it, I had vertigo. That was a good feeling.

I paid a dollar for the board, and I already had the paints and brushes… And when I presented the completed painting to the guys at Red’s Java House, they offered me free lunch. And if you know Red’s, you know that can be almost a five dollar value. So, if you don’t count the four hours of squinting into the sun, I was well ahead. Until I got back to the car: $60 parking ticket! I’ll try again tomorrow with Mark…

With Lormot in West Chester, PA, I’ve been spending days at a time in my BatCave, writing Facebook and Android apps and becoming paler and paler. Yesterday I remembered my promise to have the car’s interior shampooed, and with luck I was out doing it in the middle of the day. An hour and a half to kill; it would have taken me a half-hour to get anywhere anyhow, so I just puttered around in the vicinity of the car wash. First I visited the pound and talked to all the dogs up for adoption. (They live well in San Francisco’s Animal Adoption Center. Lots of pit bulls. Pit bulls look friendlier when they’re not dragging a human around.) Took a stroll down the aisle at Best Buy: still no Wii’s for sale; and what used to be the satellite radio / car alarm section has been transformed into a navi system bonanza. Rainbow for oatmeal and beets and kale.

And then I made a daring leap. You know that place on S Van Ness, the old burger stand, never any customers–the kind of place that’s evidence that San Francisco has never seen a riot of any kind (it would have been demolished: you could take the place apart with an eight-ounce hammer and a set of sockets). Turns out: pretty good cheeseburgers.

A few weeks ago Dean and I planned to paint / sketch the view of Pier 38. I showed up over an hour late, and his work day had already begun. So, enthralled by Barge Patricia and yoga-for-the-homeless, I hunkered down in the wet shadow of Pier 40 on a floating dock. Five hours, one trip to the paint store, and one barbecue later, I was finished. (In spite of the funky perspective, marine traffic and the VERTIGO I got from the moving platform, I was satisfied enough to ‘go public’ with it. It’s hanging on the wall at LabZero, the office on the far left of the panting.)

On October 28, 2008, Brett and Richard got married in San Francisco. They’ve been committed partners for a long time, and made it through some difficult times togther. They lived together and bought a home together, so it seemed natural for them to come to California with a dozen or so of their close friends and family to make it legal.

It was legal for about a week.

The passage of Prop 8 in California (which amends the California state constitution to define marriage as being between a man and a woman) pretty much rolls back the right of same-sex couples to get married in this state. By Friday the opposition to Prop 8 had regrouped and reorganized with an end-of-workweek demonstration in Dolores Park. I stopped by on my way to dinner with a friend, thinking to sign my name and get a bumper sticker. An hour later I was marching with the group to City Hall. There were lots of feelings in this powerful group: the recognition (typically somber) that gay people are, once again–at least for now–an outside minority with restricted rights; the resolve to work harder to bring communities together for equal protection for all; the anger at having a lot of hard work undone; and the celebration of the opportunity afforded 18,000 couples in California to marry during a brief window of legality.

If you can, support the legal effort to overturn Proposition 8 in California.

Slow day at Open Studios today, my favorite question was, “Is this the open studio? Are you the landlord? How much is the rent?” At least I got a chance to ‘finish’ a couple of things: this from my trip down south with Google Geoff (it took a while for Geoff to make it into the painting), and below from yesterday’s plein air session near Rodeo Beach with Mark. I know, it looks like I’m back in the crayon box. I’m considering it actually.