What I Would Say About Oakland
“The city...does not tell its past, but contains it like the lines of a hand, written in the corners of streets,...every segment marked...with scratches....”
Oakland Chinatown—Sketchbook Study, Oakland, CA, March 2021
Marco Polo’s Report to Kublai Khan
I love the way Calvino’s beautiful novel Invisible Cities starts. Marco Polo telling the great Khan of the cities he visited, sharing the objects he collected from the conquered empire, and of hearing languages unknown to him. On top of that neither the Khan nor the explorer are able to understand each other (Can you imagine?). The explorer and the emperor eventually find understanding, and Kublai Khan reflects that he would always remember the cities he first learned of in the indecipherable signs and symbols that Polo first shared. And, so the novel is magic in that way, allowing me and whomever else to wander imaginary and therefore invisible cities to make meaning on our own.
Sketch Odyssey East Bay
I often like to say that I have worked to nurture a spirit of exploration in my open-air workshops. Sketch Odyssey East Bay reflects my desire to explore the community where I live and work. And, I realized that I am taking up an explorer’s quest—to know a place—and decipher the meaning of it by sketching it. I have discovered, like Marco Polo has said, that the city will not tell me its past and sometimes not even tell its present. I wander the city like an explorer and hope to report back in pictures. Sketch Odyssey East Bay strongly fits in with the “urban sketching” movement. In, The Art of Urban Sketching, I found the urban sketcher’s manifesto: “Our drawings tell the story of our surroundings, the places we live, and where we travel” and goes on to say that behind each hand-drawn sketch is a story. Sketch Odyssey East Bay is my opportunity to tell a new story.
“...drawings tell the story of our surroundings, the places we live, and where we travel...behind each hand-drawn sketch is a story. Sketch Odyssey East Bay is my opportunity to tell a new story.”
Jack London Square—Sketchbook Study, Oakland, CA, July 2021
What I Would Say About Oakland
What I would say to Kublai Khan is this: Oakland will not tell it’s past. It is contained elsewhere: in boarded windows, empty AC transit buses, dry fountains, and the old live oaks in Frank Ogawa Plaza. Its story is on the walls of closed shops where murals tell me about new heroes who are celebrated and loved. I would say that Oakland’s language is music, gone with the change of a traffic light. I would say that in my sketches I see what the city has gone through. I am shown trauma. There are words that I understand, “do not forget” and “remember.” In these years of experiencing this place at different moments in time, I have to work hard to separate my memories of it from what I am seeing now. I would tell Kublai Khan that Oakland is sleeping. It is quiet, but rumbles at times. I am positive that one day soon, the city will wake up. It will burst with energy like it did before. Until then, I will continue on my sketching odyssey with hope to tell a new story and report back in pictures.