Sights

One of my lifelong friends spent part of this summer living in a house located high in the Berkeley hills. Before returning to her arid inland home in Southern California, she took this memory-picture of the airy skies that float and move above San Francisco Bay much of the time. She also sent several chromatic splendors encountered in San Francisco Chinatown.

The final memory-picture – fog, again – above rooftops and treetops of the Inner Sunset edged by dense green of Golden Gate Park.

Back To Chinatown

Mabel initially got interested in this webbing-sling-climber-swing-contraption when she was only barely able to walk. A companion of her own primeval past. Yet she keeps contriving new possibilities for it, as seen here Friday in the fenced-in toddler section of the Chinatown playground. Soon this part of the playground will probably seem too baby-ish to Mabel. Or maybe I only think this because her arms and legs have suddenly grown quite long.

The weather was bright but not particularly warm. We haven't had more than an isolated day or two of really warm weather since summer started.

Photos by Mabel

That is my backpack above, with Mabel's discarded purple hat sticking out the top of it. She took this picture herself on Friday afternoon when we revisited the gated playground in Chinatown that we have neglected for many months in favor of other playgrounds nearer to Mabel's place of residence. When it occurred to her to ask if she could take a picture, we figured out a way to rest my heavy camera on a railing. When it was stable and aimed in the right direction, Mabel could use her pointy finger to push the big silver shutter-button. Then we checked the small display screen and viewed what she had captured.

Mabel was far from satisfied with her first picture of the square-windowed office building. She wanted it to be less dark. I set a slower shutter speed and helped to hold the camera Very Steady. Then we got the second square-window picture and Mabel said yes, it was good.

Equally challenging was this squiggle-shaped cut-out on the climbing structure. We determined that it had no purpose or function other than "decoration" but we did not stand back far enough from it when we first tried to photograph it. All we got on the first try was a dark rectangle with a shadowy worm-blob along the bottom. We moved back and sat on a step and propped the camera on my knee. Then Mabel could make an image of a squiggle-shaped cut-out that really looked like a squiggle-shaped cut-out. She then had three pictures she liked and two pictures she didn't like. I got permission to use all five of them here, including the not-liked ones.

Above, an unpremeditated view of the red squiggle-shaped cut-out (caught by accident in background) as taken by me some while before it entered Mabel's head to start making photographs for herself.

N Broadway

Mandla Reuter (b. 1975) recently put together a sprawling show for Kunsthall Basel, the first solo exhibition in Switzerland for the Berlin-based artist, originally from South Africa. Earlier this month Contemporary Art Daily reported at length on this set of interlocking, room-sized environments. Everything shown above is from Room 5, an installation called N Broadway (the title reportedly derived from Chinatown in Los Angeles). For each of his Rooms at Kunsthall Basel the artist set up a lighting-program that automatically (but unpredictably and irregularly) dims, brightens, and otherwise reconfigures the disposition of gallery lighting.

Winter Playground

In black and white, without the brightness of Mabel's clothing, the winter quality of the San Francisco daylight is more apparent

High Perch

This treehouse-type room at the top of the climbing structure at the Chinatown playground had never much interested Mabel Watson Payne before, but on Friday she decided that she liked the little bench, situated to permit personal concealment.

Happy Sand

Before doing anything else Mabel Watson Payne wanted to bounce on the teeter totter when we first reached the Chinatown playground on Friday afternoon. But the enthusiasm for teeter totter bouncing was (as usual) pretty brief. And then the serious sand work could begin.

Since infancy Mabel has had  a particular partiality for the sand pit at this playground. She seems to feel some sort of primal affinity with sand. Sifting it, scooping it, pouring it, tossing it – all these activities amuse and stimulate her. She can spend many minutes simply watching the sand trickle through her fingers. I get the sense that she is fascinated because sand seems to be halfway between liquid and solid.