Marie Jonsson Harrison » San Francisco

17. The Jail Bird in Alcatraz (the last bit of the San Francisco tales)

Marie — Tue, 25 May 2010 08:04:48 +0000

ART & TRAVEL

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.

9. Bike ride over the Golden Gate Bridge & ART (continuing tales of San Francisco)

Marie — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 04:59:41 +0000

MORE ART BLOGS

On this detail below from the painting “I love San Francisco”, you can see Golden Gate bridge and here is a link to the whole artwork and the art blog called 6. San Francisco where this tale begins,followed by 7. More tales from San Francisco and if after you read this and still want more here is the last installment in this paintings blog 17. The Jail Bird in Alcatraz (the last bit of the San Francisco tales).

FOOD IN MY PAINTINGS AND IN MY STOMACH

So after all that stuffing of our faces, we had to get some exercise in, so of we trotted up and down nearly every street of this fair city, and zig zagged down the crookest road in the world, all the while with one eye behind us (well…the Muni Stabber..remember!)

I had to see firsthand all the places that I had previously painted and found Pier 39 and after a little walk-about there, decided to bicycle across the Golden Gate Bridge, found ourselves a very Happy Chappie who enthusiastically sold us on the idea of using his company, a bike each and helmets (yuck hat hair).So we were ready to go with a water bottle, map in hand, when the Happy Chappie told us the entire bike ride from the pier across the bridge to Sausalito and then the ferry back would be no more than one and a half hours max.

THE ART OF THE CON

Yea Right! We were skeptical before we set off, but hey nothing ventured nothing gained right? So off we go, and boy I am glad we did, fantastic experience, peddled our butts off and had so much fun, but even without more than a couple of photo stops it took 3 hours to reach Sausalito. What he had also neglected to tell us was that the ‘you beaut’ ferry only went a few times a day and the next one was not due for another hour and a half, and by the time we got on it, it was pitch black.

The saga didn’t end there either for this little ferry did not go back to Pier 39, oh no this one went to the SF Harbour proper, with a 20 minute bike ride in the dark. So 6 hours later we finally got back to the still very enthusiastic hire fellow, as luck would have it, ran a 24 hours a day bike return, although funnily enough we had to pay by the hour! Well what could you say apart from, Thank you, we had a lovely day! Lol There certainly are many more paintings & paintings blogs inspirations here!

Here is another quote I like from J.P. Donleavy(writer);

“When you don’t have any money, the problem is food. When you have money, it’s sex. When you have both, it’s health. If everything is simply jake, then you’re frightened of death”

How True!

Till next time, happy painting and sculpting everyone,

Love Marie

(To be continued) (c)

7. More tales from San Francisco & ART

Marie — Mon, 19 Apr 2010 06:35:25 +0000

HAPPY AND GAY HOTEL

In this art blog I will continue with our San Francisco travels and the inspirations for lots of artworks to come.

So we finally got to Hotel Carlton, a Joie de Vivre Hotel (and it was too) but at first we thought maybe a little too much as it had a distinctive gay feel (not that that would worry us in the slightest, some of our closest friends are gay) no I thought we may rain on their parade not being gay. That feeling soon went away as we were welcomed very warmly as everybody are to this establishment, a delightful boutique hotel that even has a Happy Hour for the guests in the afternoon, so Happy in fact that all the wine is free, together with entertainment and encouragement for the guests to mingle, needless to say we got Happy every afternoon. So much so that we had stopped our sightseeing activities and rushed back not to miss it!

CHINA TOWN & PAINTING

As you can see in this close up of the SF painting we were just a stone throw away from everything, China Town was nearby as were Little Italy, Union Square and many other interesting places to explore. Happily we wondered about enjoying the sights and smells of this city with not a care in the world…… well that was until we caught the news on the telly and found out there was a so called Muni Stabber on the loose (so called because his first victim was stabbed on the Muni Trams) at this stage he had attacked 6 people (I think it was) in broad daylight. Just sliding up on the quite like ( like a fish, for you fans of the movie Chicken Run lol) What gave us the Heeby Jeebies is that only a few days before we arrived, he had snuck up on some unsuspecting soul on the street we were staying on and stabbed away. So now me and Bryan became very concerned about who was walking behind us,lol.

FOOD IN MY PAINTINGS

I always love painting food too so for research sake mind you, we ate our way through this city (I do like my food) and went to many fantastic restaurants and had, Chinese, Indian, Iranian, Mexican, Italian and our hotel had a fantastic restaurant serving Arabic fusion cuisine, delicious!

(To be continued)

I do agree with this quote from Tommy Lasorda (baseball manager) from the book ‘Don’t forget to sing in the lifeboats’;

When we win, I’m so happy, I eat a lot. When we lose, I’m so depressed, I eat a lot. When we’re rained out, I’m so disappointed, I eat a lot.

Me too!

Till next time, happy painting and sculpting to you all!

Love Marie xxx (c)

6. San Francisco Art Blog

Marie — Fri, 16 Apr 2010 02:54:31 +0000

PAINTING INSPIRATIONS

Sometimes I paint from personal experience and sometimes I paint and then experience and that is what happened here. Some artists that I know hate doing commissions, I feel the opposite entirely, and I love doing them. I think it is because it makes me take a look at a subject that I may not have painted otherwise and I strive to please the client, however I have been very lucky and most of the time get just guide lines and then my imagination can roam free. The hard part is that you have to research the subject matter, but at the same time you then acquire knowledge and you never know where that can lead to.

This painting of San Francisco was a commission again for my US gallery and ended up being bought by an interior designer. I had so much fun pouring through travel books and coffee books on SF, that I felt I had really been there, and finally last year we went.

THE ART OF TRAVEL

Our daughter went to Ecuador, son flew in from London and went to San Diego (we were to meet up later in LA) and me and Bryan hired a car for the drive from LA to SF. What we did not realize was that it was the Thanksgiving Weekend which is the busiest time of the entire year on the roads! So what should have been a 5-6 hour trip took us more than 12 to complete. It was amazing to me that we got there in one piece as the multi lane highway is very scary not to mention they drive on the opposite side of the road, luckily Bryan felt confident to drive (and had been there and done that before anyway) I on the other hand nearly held my breath the whole way and almost relished the traffic jams so that I could rest a bit.

MORE IDEAS FOR ARTWORKS

All experiences find their way into my art blogs or paintings in one way or another! Anyway we finally arrived in San Francisco but then were unable to find our hotel, so after a lot of map looking and going on and off the freeway, we decided to ask in a liquor shop for directions (the idea being; get a bottle of wine for the hotel room and some takeaway Thai as now it was nearly 10pm and too late for a hotel dinner).

Bryan went in and I stayed in the car, but it wasn’t long before I realized this may just be the seedy part of SF as I had a passing parade of girls in miniskirts and people decidedly worse for wear walking past. I tried to busy myself in the car (trying not to make eye contact) paying great attention to the contents of a rather boring handbag. I was getting a bit worried I may soon get a job offer from some unsavoury characters and besides that there were 2 fellows drinking out of paper bags right outside the liquor shop were Bryan was. I was trying to call Bryans mobile as 25 minutes had passed by and I couldn’t go looking for him (might get dragged into a dark alley lol) but that did me little good as his phone rang beside me on his seat!

Thought at this stage maybe Bryan had been pulled into a dark alley himself, however when he finally got back to the car, he also had a long tale to tell, with a handful of directions on several bits of paper. The funny thing is that all of those directions differed from each other, the store keeper gave one version as did his wife, then a customer had called his wife as she worked close to the Hotel, and someone else said that was not right and gave another version. Finally a totally legless man had come in and said they were all wrong and given his version. Would you believe the very drunk mans directions were spot on, and the others did not have a clue, as it happens!

(to be continued)

Here is another saying I like by Ernest Hemingway;

“Always do sober what you said you’d do drunk. That will teach you to keep your mouth shut.”

Till next time happy painting and sculpting to you all!

Love Marie