The Urban Garden

'The Three Sisters', July-Sept, oil on canvas, each painting 36" X 24", 2008

Last Wednesday while I was considering writing this blog I turned to a column by Jon Carroll, in the Chronicle. He began “Food is important. We cook it, we eat it, we talk about it. It sustains us. It is also politically important.” He went on to cite the work of Alice Waters and the Michael Pollan and to opine that perhaps we are sometimes guilty of being faddish and snobbish here in “this center of good food and good food opinions”. But what really bothered him, in this deepening recession, was the realization of just how expensive it is to eat good food.

He promised “more on Thursday”, and I thought “Jon you’re going to tout urban gardens!” But no. He was not about to tear out his flowers or frighten his cats by introducing chickens. Instead he’s frequenting inexpensive, local ethnic restaurants.

When we eat out we usually choose inexpensive ethnic restaurants. But mostly we eat at home. Alice Waters maintains that 85% of good cooking is good ingredients. We have two excellent sources of good ingredients. The Farmers’ Markets and our own urban garden.

All these paintings were created in our garden. You may enlarge the images by clicking on them.

Only the corner of our garden which has a stream, pond and rock garden is landscaped. The rest is a motley collection of vegetable beds. Lettuce, basil, carrots, sugar snap peas and other vegetables rotate through these beds. The asparagus, raspberries, artichokes, rhubarb and lemons are perennial. Everything flourishes on layers of household compost mixed with my ‘house blend’ of cocoa hulls, coffee grounds and ash.

As well as providing maybe thirty percent of our vegetables the garden has become my outdoor studio. I’ve started a series of time lapse paintings of the growing plants. “The Three Sisters” which is posted at the top of this blog is an example. The “Three Sisters” are the “Las Tres Hermanas” of pre-Columbian agriculture. Corn, beans and squash which were grown together, and together were the foundation of the diet .

The pond is the primary source of excitement in the garden.

It attracts an astonishing variety of creatures. There are the regulars: morning doves, mocking birds and jays (who eat my snails), and a variety of migrating birds. One day a red-shouldered hawk flew over my shoulder as I was bent over the pond. He settled on the rock garden twelve feet away and gazed at me.

A Grey Heron passes by occasionally. After one visit two of my three frogs were missing. Only this one remained.

The other day my son Mario and I were observing a humming bird skittering over the pond’s surface catching insects. Our local hunter, the black cat Pilar, was also interested and set himself in ambush. The humming bird passed within inches of the frog. To our astonishment the frog sprang at the hummingbird jaws agape. He barely missed him. Pilar dashed towards the source of commotion drawing the attention of a jay. This jay makes it his business to constantly harass Pilar, and proceeded to drive him out of our yard.

Mario and I were left to speculate whether the frog mistook the humming bird for a large insect. How would he have ingested this whirring ball of beak, feathers and claws? Or was he simply chasing the bird away from ‘his’ turf?

Our garden produces 30% of our produce most of the year. It’s the best tasting food on our table. I’ve always thought that the taste of unadulterated food is a good indication of it’s nutritional value. At the farmer’s market we buy organic food if it’s reasonably priced. We also purchase from farmers who claim not to use chemicals if the flavor of their food supports their claims. Many small farmers who have no use for pesticides and chemical fertilizers prefer to avoid the cost and hassle of certification. The beauty of obtaining our food from these two sources is that the, nearly, expense free garden vegetables more than offset the cost of organic purchases.

Study after study indicates that organically grown food is 20% or 30 % more nutritious than industrial food as well as being free of poisonous residues. Which justifies paying more for it. This is admittedly a hard sell among impoverished minorities. Many label my point of view ‘elitist.’

Not the young, urban pioneers around my studio in West Oakland who are establishing market gardens in abandoned lots and unused yards and selling the vegetables cheaply around the neighborhood.

Urban gardens are not only a good, healthy response to the current recession but anyone who works regularly in the soil will tell you it’s a ‘grounding’ experience.

Farmers Markets: yesterday and today

(Read Brenda Payton’s on the street commentary in the Sunday Insight Section of the SF Chronicle.)

Old Oakland Market - April, 24"x 35", oil/canvas, Anthony Holdsworth, 2009

In these recessionary times Farmers’ Markets appear to be thriving. This is reassuring. Many of us look forward to their arrival in our neighborhood as a high point in the week. The sights, smells and flavors of the countryside spilling out onto concrete and asphalt. The opportunity to support small, family farmers, to pick up gardening tips. To enjoy the food stands and musicians. It’s  hard to imagine a time before most of these markets existed. It wasn’t so long ago.

Open air Market, Florence, Italy, pen and ink on paper.

My first encounter with an outdoor farmers’ market was in Florence, Italy in 1966. In those days this market occupied the piazza behind the Mercato Centrale. The local farmers had large handcarts with colorful awnings that could be unfurled on sunny days. It was a picturesque and animated scene overlooked by the pale yellow palazzi with their green shutters. The  Duomo floated in the distance.

While Florentines haggled with the farmers, Gypsy families worked the tourists or stole fruit. The merchants would intermittently chase the Gypsies or hurl rotten fruit after them.

(Remember you can click on all these images to enlarge them.)

Gypsy mother and children & Butcher inside the Mercato Centrale, pen and ink on paper

When I tasted the fruit I understood why they were stealing it. The peaches, especially, were a revelation and made me wonder what American farmers were doing wrong.

I returned to Berkeley, California in 1970. The counter culture rebellion against industrial agriculture was gaining momentum. Our block joined ‘The Food Conspiracy’. Many Saturday mornings I would drive my ’54 F-100 truck to the Alemany Farmer’s Market in San Francisco to pick up the week’s orders for more than a dozen households. Before noon, friends and neighbors would gather  in our backyard to collect their food.

The Food Conspiracy, oil/canvas 7ft X 9ft, 1973

In the mid seventies an open air market rolled up a block from my home in North Oakland. It stopped on a parking lot on Telegraph Avenue just south of Alcatraz.  I would set my up  easel there almost every week. The market consisted of two or three red trucks with white wooden panels. The panels swung up to form a wooden awning revealing shelves filled with colorful fruit and vegetables.

John's Market, oil on canvas, 1976

I’d been painting on and off near Ratto’s in Old Oakland for a decade. The neighborhood was emerging from skid row, when in 1997 ‘Urban Village’ opened the Old Oakland Farmer’s Market.

My mural sized painting of the market in those days hangs permanently in the foyer of Holy Names University’s Performing Arts Center. It was composed from dozens of small sketches made at the market over several months.

(Remember you can click on all these images to enlarge them.)

Market on 9th St - July, 10.5ft X 11.5ft, oil canvas, 1997, Oakland

Some of the people in the painting from far left are Richard and Byron Fong son and grandson of the famous Oakland Chinese herbalist Fong Wan. Richard died a few years ago.  Byron Fong continues the family trade as an herbalist and acupuncturist with an office on Grand Avenue opposite Children’s Fairyland. The next two people are Martin Durante and his daughter Elena owners of Ratto’s Delicatessen. Talking to them is Sandro Rossi founder of Caffe 817.

This last painting is an up to the moment rendition of the market. Completed May 1st of this year.

'Old Oakland Market - April', oil on canvas, 24" X 35", 2009

If you are in Oakland on a Friday morning come on down to Ninth and Washington Streets. Enjoy the market. Sip the best cappucino in town at Caffe 817 and enjoy organic, Italian food while you consider what you need to buy at Ratto’s Delicatessen next door. For a more complete preview of what you will find watch my five minute video titled “Celebrating Caffe 817“.

(Read Brenda Payton’s on the street commentary about the creation of this painting in the Sunday Insight Section of the SF Chronicle.)

News in the News Pt 2: The Once and Future Chronicle

For years I’d been considering painting the San Francisco Chronicle building at 5th and Mission. I ‘d hesitated because the location seemed so difficult. When the Hearst Corporation announced it was shutting down the Seattle Intelligencer and eying the San Francisco Chronicle for closure, I hurriedly set up my easel on what Leah Garchik would describe as a “boomerang shaped traffic island”.

This was one of the busiest sites at which I’ve worked. It was also one of the most interesting.

Storm Clouds over the Chronicle, 24" X 48" (Click on image to enlarge)

I started Sunday, March 15 . There was a strong wind and heavy clouds. I got soaked and my easel very nearly blew over into the traffic but I managed to block in an ominous sky.

Monday, I’d just started painting when I caught sight of Joel Selvin striding towards me in a maroon overcoat. Like everyone that I would talk with, Joel was concerned about the future of the paper, but, unlike most, he was not upset about leaving.
“I’m 59 and I have a book deal. So I’m taking a buyout. I started here as a copy boy when I was seventeen. It was so different then. You know, the presses used to be down there.” He pointed to the far end of the building.
“When they started to roll the building would rumble and shake. You felt the building lurch and you knew we were going to press. There were grates over those windows. Hot air would be driven out by the machinery. After work I’d stand on the street below inhaling the smell of the presses.”

Over the next few weeks, as I talked with reporters, columnists, editors, copywriters, and teamsters about the crisis, I had the sensation that I was standing in the eye of a storm. Of course, the Chronicle’s drama was unfolding against the backdrop of collapsing economic institutions, and the huge brouhaha over “retention bonuses” at AIG which added a surreal dimension to this local event.

An insurance agent “between jobs” stopped to chat. Referring to AIG, he volunteered his opinion of management in the insurance industry.
“These guys at the top, four rungs above me, with their Yale and Harvard degrees, all they know how to do is play golf, walk around in expensive suits, and tell you where to eat that’ll cost you $ 300 or more. They couldn’t run a hot dog stand!”
When I asked him about his chances of finding another job. He replied confidently.”Oh I’ll find another job. I know how to talk.”

Chronicle writers and staff were less sanguine. Being in the newspaper business they had a sense of the “big picture” and they could see that that if they took a buyout or were laid off they would probably never have a job like this again. I became aware of a real esprit de corps which in the current circumstances was accompanied by gallows humor: I was told that the joke making the rounds was that the paper must be going under because it was having its portrait painted.

Photo courtesy of Maryly Snow, www.snowstudios.com/artist.htm

Kenneth Baker passed by on several occasions. One day he remarked on the ominous clouds in my painting. I told him that they had taken this form almost by accident. That I was pleased with the ‘fissure’ in the clouds falling diagonally towards the silhouetted Chronicle building.
“More like slow lightening.” he replied.

Just about every afternoon, around the time that I put on the clock, the Executive News Editor, Jay Johnson, would stop on his way to work. One afternoon, observing his long face, I asked him how he was doing.
“Not so well. Last night I had to say goodbye to a hundred and twenty employees.”

Friday, March 3, was the last day for many of the 120 who’d opted for buyouts. Steve Rubenstein and a number of other reporters paused to chat with me on their way to a final lunch. Steve posed for a photo next to my painting. An associate told me that Steve was brokenhearted to be leaving, but that staying was too risky.

This last observation was reinforced by a younger reporter, Jonathan Curiel, with whom I had a stimulating conversation about the Middle East and about Robert Fisk whom he had interviewed. I inquired if he had taken a buyout.
“No, but maybe I should have. The paper needs to shed another 30 people. They could fire me next week.”

Shortly after he left, a gentleman stopped whose wife was completing her last day at the paper.
“Who’s going to monitor our local and national government if we lose our newspapers?” He asked, “ It’s newspapers that generate most of the investigative reporting. I don’t think Americans realize what the loss of newspapers will mean for our democracy.”
“A democracy that we barely salvaged in the last elections.” I added.
He nodded grimly and crossed the street to meet his wife at the entrance on Mission.

A lifetime subscriber, who’d overheard him, shared her concern. “ I’m so upset. Every time I receive my paper it’s a little thinner. It’s like watching someone on chemotherapy. I just hope it survives and recovers.”

Those who remain at the Chronicle, and many good people remain, must strive that much harder to reinvent it. To somehow link it effectively into cyberspace while remaining a tangible paper of record. Non profit institution, investigative reporting by subscription, these and many other ideas swirling around probably need to be explored.

Whatever our criticisms of the paper (and Chronicle readers are a diverse and critical bunch) the paper functions as our public square. It is a place. It leaves a permanent record. The mercurial internet is everywhere and nowhere. Words cut into stone in the ancient forum. Words printed on paper today. Ok, so I can print words from the internet and pass them around to my friends. But will they be in news stands on the street, in coffee houses, on breakfast tables all over town? Will they remain as part of the common historical record in ten or twenty years?

Friday, April 10 my last day on the street I spoke for a few minutes with Deputy Editorial Page Editor, Lois Kazakoff. She had no doubts as to the value of the Chronicle. “ It tells our stories.” she declared.

Like it or not, over the years the Chronicle’s reporters, editors, columnists have laid the cobbles or bushwacked the trails that constitute much of the intellectual landscape that we navigate in the Bay Area. We should all work to keep this institution alive.

I am offering a special of $5 Shipping & Handling on all prints on paper. Prints on canvas are also available online. To purchase the original painting please inquire: anthonyholdsworth@yahoo.com

A Hidden Gem in Oakland: The Dunsmuir-Hellman House

The Dunsmuir-Hellman House, an arrow shot away from the 106th Street exit of 580, is a world removed from Thirteenth and Franklin Streets where I last worked in Oakland. This testament to the Greco-Roman thrust of our westward course of empire stands in splendid isolation in its own 45 acre valley. When the wild turkeys make a racket or the wind blows, they muffle the the low hum of the hidden freeway. At such times observing the duck pond, the thirty-seven room mansion, the subsiding swimming pool, the tiny grotto and the barn strung out along this valley with a stream running through it, observing all this, one can be excused for imagining oneself in another time and place.

The Dunsmuir-Hellman House, Oakland

I encounter many interesting people while I paint on the street.  I met Annalee Allen this way, in Oakland, around the time of the Loma Prieta Quake (Nov 1989). I was documenting the quake’s aftermath while she, as president of  the Oakland Heritage Alliance, was working to preserve some of the older historic buildings that had been damaged by the quake.

Recently we’ve been discussing collaborating on a book that would feature my paintings of Oakland accompanied by her historic commentary.  Annalee observed that the Dunsmuir Hellman-House would need to be included.

So I went out and painted it. This seemed a good moment to explore a collaboration. I’m, therefore, turning the rest of this post over to Annalee – my first guest blogger!

ANNALEE ALLEN

The Dunsmuir Hellman House # 2, Oakland

News in the News Pt. 1: Gossip at the Chronicle

Leah Garchik gave me pride of place in her column today, so I thought I’d post a picture courtesy of Jeff, a bicycle messenger/ blogger at www.bluoz.com , who’s been photographing the progress of the painting, on his daily route. It’s been a unique experience to work in front of the Chronicle during this period when the paper is reinventing itself.

Painting In Progress at the Chronicle

After the painting is finished, in about ten days, I will write about some of my experiences here. In the mean time, please subscribe to my RSS feed or add me as a friend on facebook for updates.