Standing in front of the burnt out warehouses I was first aware of a subtle yet acrid smell of unidentifiable, incinerated materials. Then the stillness. I felt I shouldn’t be there. There were barricades and warning signs, but the strange shapes reaching into the sky drew me in. I saw undulating sheets of metal collapsed on stacks of rolled up wire, then a misshapen burnt out truck. There was such a strange quality to the newly formed shapes that I felt compelled to photograph them. Looking up I saw charred wood supports angling into the morning fog. And beyond, the freeway and downtown buildings. This will all be rebuilt I told myself, but for now it has its own uncommon, silent beauty.
After that dark experience I wanted to see something really alive! I crossed town to the Bay to see Pier 39 sea lions. This was a brand new experience which the pandemic afforded me - an early morning visit to the deck usually crowded with tourists to see, all by myself, the floating palettes weighed down with huge, wiggly sea creatures. I was mesmerized by two young male sea lions pushing each other off the palette into the bay over and over. But ultimately it was the undulating flesh of the sea lions packed in tightly against one another that held my interest - the rippling pattern of squeezed together bodies dark, then light, then dark again. The punctuation of a flipper here, a head there. It was quite sensual!
Later as I thought about these two experiences this is what came to mind: crumbling vs rippling, hard vs soft, stillness vs motion, tragedy vs playfulness. Two contrasting textures amongst many in the city.
