If you have just joined my art blog recently, you may want to check out numbers 6 &7 in the Blog archive for the start of the San Francisco travel tales.

You can’t go past the wit and wisdom of Oscar Wilde who quotes; “It is an odd thing, but everyone who disappears is said to be seen at San Francisco.  It must be a delightful city, and possess all the attractions of the next world.”

ARTISTS INSPIRATION

And yes it is, utterly delightful and full of interesting places and people; you can even surf under the Golden Gate Bridge, but only for the most experienced!  These images are details of my San Fran painting and going here has really inspired me as an artist, the ideas are swirling in my head of future sculptures in mosaic & ceramic and lots of paintings.

A day after we went on our Golden Gate Bridge bike ride, we decided to go down to the bay and catch the boat over to Alcatraz which we were told was like a village where some Prison guards and the Warden and his family lived and the kids went to school there too.

ALCATRAZ THE ART BLOG

What an experience that was, the prisoners long gone but their former home just as eerie as if they were still there. In one way they still were, because as soon as you got up to the main prison building, you went to the place where the prisoners used to exchange their clothes for the snazzy black and white numbers.    We were handed a set of head phones, whereby the former INMATES, PRISON GUARDS and WARDENS started talking to you, about their trials and tribulations.

Now I should tell you that I’m not one for old houses and museums as I’ve said before I’m a party kind of gal with a penchant for dancing, so Bryan did well to talk me into this and besides as I had already painted Alcatraz, I did feel the need to see it in real life and I did not regret that for a second.

They walked you around the whole prison and it was absolutely fascinating. We were perhaps 400 people wandering about totally in silence engrossed in the Alcatraz tales.

Half way through I stopped my recording, took off the headphones and to my amazement,  you could have heard a pin drop.  Never have I ever been with that many people at one time, where not a sound was uttered.

Here is a saying which you can contemplate by Charles Bukowski (writer);

“If you want to know who your friends are, get yourself a jail sentence.”

Till next time, happy painting and sculpting everyone!

Love Marie xxx  (c)

Why not come and have a look at Marie Jonsson-Harrison’s PAINTINGS FOR SALE, GICLEE PRINTS FOR SALE and SCULPTURES for sale or WALLBASED SCULPTURES.  Enjoy an original artwork on your walls or perhaps one on your bed ARTnBED.