Nocturne Fine Arts

E x p r e s s i v e   f i g u r e s   a n d   f a c e s

 

" I live in San Francisco on the top of a hill that was once a graveyard. Across the street sits a big old Spanish-style building that was originally Saint Joseph's Hospital. Now it is a condominium known affectionately, I think, as The Pink Palace. The hill has become one of the most beautiful parks in the City- Buena Vista. It changes constantly- yellow acacia in the spring, flowering plum in the summer, mauve and wine periodically. But always there is the fog, swept in from the ocean on the afternoon breeze. During the day, the police patrol this paradise on horseback and Vespas. At night they go home. The park is silent, dark, dense and wet, but not, rumor has it, empty. But, then, we all know about rumors.My favorite time is when I leave at dawn to go to my studio across town or in early evening when the new electrical bus kneels graciously to let me arrive at my front door. In the half light, fog shrouds the huge black trees- greys and greens, pale blues- like a landscape on an old Japanese screen. The flowers seem to exist only in my imagination, like a dream. Ghosts of the old gravestones have become terrazzo, now embedded in the curving concrete curbs. "