There’s a lot that went into making this painting that you wouldn’t know just by looking at it…

Trespassing, for starters. It wasn’t exactly private property, but the city here had this area blocked off and clearly out of bounds. Walking the perimeter, I observed a well-maintained fence- every hole patched up, no gaps to be found. Which brings us to the next unobvious thing worth noting…

The only access was by crawling around the edge of a steep cliff with a 4o-pound mobile studio packed on my back, fingers hanging on the last section of rusty fence where the cliff beneath had eroded away.

Then there was the dodging of various junkies doing who knows what in the bushes. Yikes.

Oh, and wedging into a cliffside crevice to hide from the 45 mph winds blowing that day…

And finally being told to leave by the police. It’s true. No tickets or anything, they only gave tickets to the kids spray-painting those slabs off in the distance. They made their rounds, evicting everyone from the property until I was the last one. Fortunately, I was finished by the time I’d received my marching orders.

Some days are like this, but see? You wouldn’t have known all that unless I wrote it down.