Selling art at the Pooh Boat, a planter box, seat and writing desk, south lot of Hayes Valley Art Works (HVAW) on April 26, 2025.
Untitled. Watercolor on paper, circa 1980. Collection of Dante Buckley.
Glendale Hills. Ink on board, 1980.
Untitled. Watercolor on paper, 1981.
Fort Tryon Park. Charcoal on paper, 1983.
Subway Tunnel. Oil pastel on Bristol paper with painted frame, 1983. Could not get my presence out of the picture!
For Peanut. Mixed media and poem on paper, n.d.
Two Faces. Oil pastel on Bristol paper, 1987.
Untitled. Oil pastel on Bristol paper, n.d.
The unframed works I chose to sell at this neighborhood walk event were kept in a portfolio case in storage. I had not looked at them for years. But, they appeared as fresh as the day I created each one. They also provided a perspective I had vaguely thought about over time. They represent a transition for a beginning artist. Although I had explored art to a limited degree during high school, I enrolled in an art program at Immaculate Heart College in Los Angeles. It was a most enriching experience. The watercolors represent that two-year period.
With my move to New York City in 1983, art took on a different character. I had worked in a more realistic mode in Los Angeles, employing charcoal, conte, graphite, and watercolor to draw people and landscapes. New York engaged me in different ways. The poem for Peanut became a drawing as well. Peanut was a neighbor of mine on Marble Hill. We lost him when he was incarcerated. The subway drawing was one of a series from memory, mainly of people I observed riding the train. I was observing and connecting with strangers. I was looking at my relationship with an impersonal system. The later drawing of two people was a reflection on their relationship with a city and wider country as I reflected upon myself and my partner. By this time, I was disconnecting from art. I was fully employed and making rent with my partner, having lost the earlier stages of intense preoccupation art can demand.
By the time I drew the figure in a landscape waving a white flag to the passing clouds, I was also saying good-bye to a fertile period in my life. I look forward everyday to eminent retirement to renew the purpose I found in these earlier stages of life.
The Pooh Boat was constructed by program participants of The Arc San Francisco from my drawing. Construction was guided by HVAW site manager Stephen Santamaria. The two vines, trumpet and jasmine, have fully acclimated to the structure of the boat.
dpduckworth 