Pike Place Market

 

Pike Place Market, Seattle, Washington.

Space Needle, Seattle

 

The Space Needle in Seattle, Washington. This was actually the view from our hotel window!

San Francisco

I was in San Francisco for a few days in August, and did these two drawings. I could draw that city's architecture forever. 

Both in Nob Hill. The second building is the work of James Francis Dunn, a self-taught architect who designed numerous residential buildings in San Francisco in the "French Renaissance," Beaux-Arts style in the early part of the 20th century.

TWA

 

The TWA Terminal at John K. Kennedy Airport. Designed by renowned architect Eero Saarinen, the building was commissioned as part of a major expansion of JFK (then named Idlewild Airport) in the mid-1950s to accommodate the Post WWII boom in commercial air travel. With its fluid, swooping Neo-Futurist curves, the building captures the sensation of flight and the optimism of the Jet Age.

The terminal opened in 1962, though unfortunately Saarinen did not live to see its completion, having passed away in 1961. Also unfortunately, despite having been built as a symbol of the jet age, it quickly proved to be too small to serve the increasing size and number of jet airliners, especially after Boeing introduced its mammoth 747 in 1970. The terminal eventually closed in 2001, but it had been named a New York City Landmark and placed in the U.S. National Register of Historic Places, and so avoided demolition. In 2019, the renovated terminal re-opened as a hotel.

Virgin Islands Sketchbook

A couple of weeks ago, me and the family went on vacation to the St. Thomas in the Virgin Islands. I figured I wouldn't have much if any solo time for the long-term, labor intensive sketches I usually do, and I've been wanting to try something new anyway. So I bought a small, inexpensive sketchbook and a small watercolor kit. The book was 3.5x5.5 inches (8.9x14 cm), much smaller than my usual 9x12 sketchbook, and the color was all watercolor. All drawn so much faster and looser than I ever do. It's how most urban sketchers work, but it's pretty alien to me. I need a lot more practice and technique, but I liked how some of them came out.

Creque Alley is one of a series of narrow passageways near the shoreline in Charlotte Amalie, the main town of St Thomas. These warehouses once were notorious for housing pirates' loot; now they house restaurants and lots and lots of jewelry stores. It was also the namesake of a song by the Mamas and the Papas, (they added an 'e' in the title of  'Creeque Alley'). Supposedly they wrote the song while crashing with hippies in this alley, though the song doesn't mention the Virgin Islands at all.

The view from our hotel overlooked the bay where the cruise ships docked.

Magen's Beach is probably the most famous of the St. Thomas beaches, so it was the first one we hit. It was great, but actually not our favorite of the trip.

The observatory at Coral World Ocean Park. When you go downstairs, you're under the water and can view all the sealife swimming around.

It immediately reminded me of the Hall of Doom from the old Super-Friends cartoon.

We spent one day on neighboring St. John's Island and made a stop at the Annaberg Plantation, The remnants of this slave plantation are now part of the Virgin Islands National Park. This structure is the ruins of the windmill, standing 38 feet (11.5 m) high.

There is another, similar plantation windmill ruin that stands at the top of the Peace Hill trail.

This is not my favorite painting of the week, but it was my favorite beach, Secret Harbor.

Johnson's Glass House

I don't remember why, but in 2007 I was passing through southern Connecticut with my then-girlfriend/now wife Lisa, and I had heard that architect Philip Johnson's famous Glass House had just been opened for public tours. I wasn't particularly an architecture aficionado, but I thought it might be a fun side trip, only to find that there tickets were sold out for the next six months! Fast forward to this summer, and Lisa's birthday surprise for me is a visit to the Glass House. Much more availability during a global pandemic, I guess.

Built in 1949, the Glass House is just what it sounds like - a house with four glass walls. The entire 1,800 sq ft. (167 m2) interior is visible to the world, except for a brick cylinder that conceals the bathroom. "The idea of a glass house," Johnson said, "where somebody just might be looking - naturally you don't want them to be looking. But what about it? That little edge of danger . . . " I always imagined it to be a transparent house that any passerby could look into. In actuality, it's situated in the middle of 50 acres of rural land. 

The Glass House was not well-received by other prominent architects; Frank Lloyd Wright said that he didn't know whether "to take my hat off or leave it on," and Johnson's idol and inspiration, Mies van der Rohe, ended his first visit to the house in a drunken rage. Nonetheless, the house solidified Johnson's reputation and popularized the notion of modern architecture in the U.S. Johnson used it as a weekend home and hosted events there, including performances by Merce Cunningham and the Velvet Underground. Later it became his permanent residence with his partner, David Whitney, until his death in 2005.

I had heard a bit about Philip Johnson's fascist leanings in the 1930s, and was aware that lately there is a lot of effort devoted to stripping his name off buildings and otherwise cancelling him. Later in life, he dismissed it as a youthful "phase," and it's often downplayed or bracketed as a side note. But reading up on him after this visit, I found that he was really, really into Nazism! He worked as journalist a far-right newspaper, Social Justice, where he wrote admiring reviews of Mein Kampf, visited Hitler Youth camps, attended the Nuremberg Rallies where he thrilled to "all those blond boys in black leather," and then visited the front as Germany invaded Poland. After the U.S. entered the war, of course, he stopped with all that talk, and after the war pointedly avoided mentioning his seven-year "phase."

Years later, he claimed the inspiration for the Glass House to be "a burnt wooden village I saw once where nothing was left but foundations and chimneys of brick." Several historians have pointed out that this ruined house would have been one of the Polish homes destroyed by the German Nazi invasion, to which Johnson was an eyewitness. If that's true, well, holy shit! That beautiful structure suddenly takes on a very dark cast. Johnson's political leanings were not a secret, but somehow he managed to avoid contemporaneous consequences for them, and according to biographer Ian Volner, he used this very fireplace to destroy his incriminating letters and articles.

Johnson used the acreage for full-scale architectural experiments. In addition to the Glass House itself, there are 14 other structures on the site. This one is The Study, Johnson's library and work space.

This 30' (9.1 m) tall tower is a monument to Johnson's best friend, Lincoln Kirstein, a poet and co-founder of the New York City Ballet.

The Glass House site

Kittery Maine Wharf

I recently spent a weekend in Kittery, Maine, working with the dance company The Bang Group. In my downtime, I spent some time down on the wharf doing some drawings. I've spent most of the year at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, which was great, but I was excited to work someplace different. Of course, it turned out to be more boats and maritime stuff, including another Navy Yard!

More Abu Dhabi

The final batch of drawings from Abu Dhabi.

The Corniche is an eight-kilometer stretch of beaches, parks, and walkways that wraps around the Western edge of the city. I inadvertently wound up walking about half of it. I'd intended to go to the northern end, where the dhows of my last post are moored. One takes cabs to get around Abu Dhabi, but the cab drivers don't know streets, just landmarks. Which is a problem if you don't know what a good landmark is. This cab driver took me about two miles in the wrong direction before I stopped him to let me out. Normally, a two mile walk wouldn't phase me, but this was in 100+ degree heart. Fortunately, about every half mile there were shaded rest stops like this.

The waterfront was virtually empty, except for a few immigrant laborers doing landscape and construction, a few overheated tourists like me, and the lifeguards - men in long-sleeved shirts and pants and women in full hajib - lifeguarding the empty beaches. Late in the day, as the sun goes down and the temperatures drop to the mere 90s, the beaches and parks are packed.

Masdar City is a planned community about 45 minutes outside of Abu Dhabi. It is intended to be an energy self-sufficient city, powered entirely by solar, wind, and other renewable energy sources, with electric driverless cars and advanced green technology. Only a portion is completed, really just a small corporate campus housing some green tech companies. There are some residential buildings, like this one, but it was unclear to me if anyone is living in them. The architecture is interesting and beautiful, but it was late in the day when I arrived, so I only had time to draw this one.

One of the most striking characteristics of Abu Dhabi is the almost complete lack of a sense of memory or history. This building was originally a bus station, constructed in 1986, making it practically historic. It was constructed by a Soviet-era Bulgarian firm called Technoexportstroy, which built hundreds of structures in the Middle East during the 1980s. In this article, Deborah Bentley, the former Abu Dhabi representative for the Royal Institute of British Architects, rather grandly describes this building: 

"The Al Bateen Mall represents a period in history when transportation was celebrated. The parabolic main structure with the sweeping cantilevered canopies, not only resemble a bird in flight but also show the influence to the early structures of the Italian architect and engineer, Peir Luiji Nervi . . .  The celebration of space and the combination of the environmental awareness, by providing shaded canopies when boarding the bus, create a beautiful symphony in architecture that is rarely seen for ancillary bus terminals anywhere in the world."

Some time in the 1990s, it was turned into a shopping center. Today it houses a small grocery store, a little restaurant, and a Baskin Robbins.

Another defining characteristic of the region is that the traffic circles have large, monumental statues in them. This one was a few blocks from my hotel. Most of the traffic circle was closed off due to the ubiquitous construction and street work. Apparently, it's a fountain; I saw some photos of it spewing multiple streams of water. 

On one of my last nights in Abu Dhabi, I came across this, a blocks-long plaza full of giant sculptures. It's called Ittihad Square. It's a local landmark, and at one time one of the main tourist atttractions, but now it seems like a leftover oddity. The sculptures represent symbols of Emerati culture. The coffee pot in the forefront, called a dallah, is also apparently a fountain, but like one in the traffic circle, it was not functioning. There had also been a cannon, but that was removed a few years ago for some reason, perhaps because it no longer fits in with the image the country wants to project.

In the upper left, you see a reddish dot. It's Mars, I think, which seemed to always be in the sky, every night, even though you couldn't see any stars.

Abu Dhabi Dhows

I found Abu Dhabi to be a strange place. Everything is so new, and there is construction everywhere, with new development replacing buildings that are only a few years old. There is virtually no sense of history or memory of the place.

One exception is the dhows. These are sturdy sailing vessels common to the Gulf and Indian Ocean. You can see them lining the harbor as you near the end of the Corniche, a walkway park curving around the Western side of Abu Dhabi.

Many of the dhows you see there are no longer functioning fishing boats, but have been converted into tourist cruise ships, of which this is an example.

On the other side of the harbor is Al Mina, where the fish market is located. I found this, a legit fishing dhow, pulled up onto the ground. The crew was attending to various maintenance tasks. They are probably Indian; nearly the entire workforce in general are immigrants, and certainly hard labor like this are. This article is an interesting profile of the lives of these men.

After spending some time on the Corniche and the Mina Fish Market, I paid a visit to Warehouse421, a cultural arts center on the outskirts of the city, in a warehouse district. When I read about a 'cultural hub' in a warehouse district, I thought, "Oh, it must be like DUMBO." Nope! The warehouse district is a bunch of warehouses, along with the saddest, emptiest mall in the world, one of which is an art space. Across the street, is a dhow graveyard. Eight or more of these boats discarded in this huge lot. Strangely, it was perhaps the most authentic place I encountered over there.

Abu Dhabi Mosques

Recently, I had the opportunity to travel to Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates with the theater company Elevator Repair Service. I'd never been to that part of the world. It sure is hot! 100+ degrees Fahrenheit every day; even at night it was in the 90s. This made it difficult to do my usual walkabout exploring, and it's not a very pedestrian-oriented city anyway. But I still was able to get out and produce several drawings. Here's the first batch: mosques.

We went on a city tour, and the main stop is the Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque. This 30-acre mosque was built between 1996 and 2007 by Sheikh Zayed, founder and president of the UAE for 33 years. It is enormous, capable of accommodating up to 41,000 worshipers at once.

We were told that photography was allowed, so I figured I would have no troubles sketching the exterior. But then a security guard came up and asked me what I was doing, and said, "Actually, I don't know if that's allowed or not, but, please, come with me." I thought, 'Oh, shit, I'm being detained in an Islamic country!' He brought me to an information desk, and the guy there said, "Uh, let me check." He came back and said it was fine. The whole thing was over in five minutes. I resumed drawing, but the security guard kept passing by, checking out what I was doing. Sometimes people see you sitting with a sketchbook and just don't like the look of it.


This one is in the central, 'downtown' area, near the shopping district where the traditional souks used to be located. Those marketplaces were raised to build a mall, and now there is a 'souk section' of the mall.

Sultan Bin Yousef Mosque in an area called Al Bateen. You could do nothing but draw mosques if you wanted. There are more than 4,800 mosques in the UAE, and Abu Dhabi regulations require a mosque to be located within 350 meters of every home, that being the distance that can be covered in the five minutes between the sounding of the call to prayer and the start of prayers.

On my last night there, I walked from Al Bateen towards the Corniche, and encountered this mosque, its tower turned golden by the setting sun.

Providence and Portsmouth

I spent the last two weekends touring with the Bang Group dance company to Providence and New Hampshire/Maine. I've been lighting their holiday show Nut/Cracked for the last couple of years. They're in Boston this week and you can catch it in New York City at the new Flea Theatre.

Providence

Sheperd Company Builidng. This building in downtown Providence used to be Sheperd Stores, which was once one of the largest department stores in New England. The pillar seen in the window is covered with fashion advertisements. It currently housed state offices and local colleges.

Turks Head Building. I went to college in Providence, and always wondered what the deal was with this building. This giant, somewhat racist Ottoman head certainly makes it one of the most WTF subjects I've drawn. (What you can't see in this sketch is that the Turk has fangs.) When it was completed in 1913, it was the tallest building in Providence. A shopkeeper on the ground floor installed a figurehead from the ship Sultan above the entrance. It was later destroyed in a storm, and this stone replica was installed. I was pleased that I finally got the curved architecture almost right; I always struggle with that.

One of the interesting things about Providence is the remaining defunct street furniture, ghosts of the city's past. This tower on Weybosset Street is the remnants of a comfort station that was torn down in 2011. Now it's just a sort of traffic divider. The old night deposit box is outside the Union Trust Company Building on Westminster and Dorrance. The bank is long gone; now it's a restaurant and residences. But this night deposit box remains. Do businesses even use night deposit boxes any more?

Portsmouth, NH

We performed in Kittery, Maine, but stayed across the river in Portsmouth, NH. The World War I Memorial Bridge spans the Piscataqua River between the states. It is a vertical-lift bridge. The center span rises up to allow boat traffic through.

The North Church. The church, constructed in 1854, is one of the main landmarks in Portsmouth, visible from across the city. A winter storm was coming in as I sketched it. I completed it later with photo reference I took. I got the corbels, the protruding support structures, on the lower part, all wrong.

San Francisco

Quick sketches done on a recent trip to San Francisco.