These pictures are immediately recognizable to Alameda/Oakland ferry riders. It’s impossible to ride that line and not goggle at the passing scenery of freighters, cranes and tugboats.
By Bobby Winston
Published: August, 2000
These pictures are immediately recognizable to Alameda/Oakland ferry riders. It’s impossible to ride that line and not goggle at the passing scenery of freighters, cranes and tugboats.
It’s hard to explain why I think the Estuary is beautiful. My first thought is of my bulldog: he’s so ugly that he’s beautiful. But unlike my bulldog, the Estuary is man-made; it was cut in the early 1900’s to accommodate shipping, making an artificial island out of Alameda in the process.
Also, what you see happening in the Estuary is hardly a pastoral natural scene. It’s pumping with commercial activity, huge ships filled with goods coming and going, the very aorta of Bay Area commercialism.
Yet then and still, the Estuary has an undeniably artistic effect. Sometimes, when riding the ferry, I see my fellow riders stunned into an almost reverential silence by the passing of an oceangoing vessel, so absurdly huge that for a moment you feel like a character out of Alice in Wonderland. It’s quite a different flavor of awe than what is experienced when passing a natural wonder like Angel Island, or even a static man-made marvel like the Bay Bridge.
So it was that my eye was caught when I recently happened upon an art exhibit while passing through the lobby of 101 California, an office building in San Francisco’s Financial District.
These scenes are by Bay Area artist Jan Lassetter. She is inspired by what she describes as the "complexity and beauty of the marine-industrial image". The absurdly oversized loading cranes — Lassetter calls them her "horses" – that were George Lucas’ inspiration for the walking beasts in Star Wars represent a "juxtaposition of hard, dense solid metal against soft, fluid, translucent sky and water".
In the course of Lassetter’s long and distinguished career she has studied in Japan and Germany and taught at many places including the San Francisco Art Institute. Her paintings appear in many public and private collections and can be seen locally at the Oakland Art Museum and the Port of Oakland. For further information, call 510-891-0343.
"This tug boat I liked — I also liked the tug boat company. It’s Crowley. And this tug boat came in only for two or three minutes. Luckily I had a camera. I could take a few snaps. Then the tug pushed in whatever it was pushing — this barge. And then it left. Later, I was out photographing it in its little berth and some person came out from the office and said, "Pardon me, but are you from a law office?" And I said, "Oh, no, I’m not. I’m an artist and I love this tug boat. I want to paint it." They were so relieved that they weren’t being sued for something they offered to take me out and then they had the tug boat driver come and spin it around in the harbor so I could get some really good shots of it.
The reason it’s called "Tug for Two" is because there is a double reflection. I’m told that this tug has been retired to mothballs."
"I called this one "Pegasus" because it looked like a big white horse to me. Actually these buildings you see in front are no longer there. They are gone."
"I was down in Santa Barbara just having a good time on the beach and I saw this wonderful dredge out doing work in the harbor."Big Red" is now painted green and owned by someone else."
