San Francisco Dreaming

In four weeks, I will be doing my first of four shows this year in the San Francisco Bay Area...two in June and two in September. Last October, I spent some time in San Francisco and the Napa Valley taking some pictures that I hoped to turn into artworks. At that time, I was only wishfully thinking about doing some shows there in 2005.

After a lot of hard work, I was accepted to do these four shows. By that time, I had already begun work on San Francisco subjects. I was told by those in the know that Northern Californians like to purchase artworks that depict their local area. With that in mind, I have completed five new works featuring San Francisco.

My first painting of the five is also my particular favorite, probably because it took so much blood, sweat and tears to complete. It is simply called, "The Bay Bridge." If you know the San Francisco Bay Area, you know that my picture actually only shows 1/2 of the Bay Bridge, the part that runs from Treasure Island in the middle of the bay across to the city itself.

The foreground depicts Treasure Island and the bridge as it leaves the island. The middle ground is the bridge itself, while the background is the San Francisco skyline. The sky shows the fog creeping in from the Pacific Ocean and and blue sky above that. If you have ever spent any time in SF, you know this blue-sky-over-fog scene is repeated many times during the year.

If you look at all my pictures from San Francisco, you will notice some similarities in the sky. I decided to unify all my San Francisco pictures with the same brush strokes in the sky, although the skies are all different shades of blue. I wanted to have this unifying sky theme throughout all the exterior scenes of my San Francisco work.

If you are familiar with my work, you will also notice that these San Francisco paintings are a different style than I have ever presented before. I am always experimenting with new techniques and this one came together after a lot of experimentations. There were actually 14 different versions of The Bay Bridge before I settled on this particular technique.

Being in San Francisco again after so many years absense was a journey of memory and love. You see, I spent most of my childhood in San Francisco and the Bay Area. In some ways, I was nervous about going there again as sometimes memories are best left as memories.

But that wasn't the case here. I loved being there again and it was as wonderful as I remember it. The City is a very special place and my works reflect my love for it. There will be more SF pictures coming out in the future. But for now, to see my current San Francisco works, go to:

http://www.corkrum.com/jim/sf_gallery.htm