Traveling up to San Francisco in the Winter of 1997, near Greenfield California, I saw this old pump house by the side of the 101 freeway. I was determined to immortalize it, some day, in paint.One year later I traveled up to the Bay Area once again, and stopped along side the frontage road to capture the chiaroscuro of the night.
This pump house seemed like something out of a Steinbeck novel: with the austerity of Edward Hopper, and melancholy of Francisco Goya.
One solitary light illuminated my motif, and but for the sound of the freeway traffic a hundred feet away, all was dead silent. I had one visitation from the Highway Patrol who were just checking on what it was I was doing out there at two o'clock in the morning. I welcomed them back, and requested that they keep checking in on me throughout the night. They never came back.
In 2001, they tore the old pump house down. This landmark is lost to the ages.
Scenes like this are getting fewer, and harder to find, but they are out there. When I see them, I feel like a seed has been planted, and it will germinate, and sometimes fester, until I capture it in paint. I guess this is part of the passion and obsession that comes with being an artist.
I am always a bit unfulfilled; questing to quench my insatiable desire to create.
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