Walking in San Francisco Part Two: Colors
A lot of times cities can be created with a rather gray monochrome color pallet, which can be exaggerated when the sky is gray and the fog gathers about the city. But San Francisco isn't the type of city that will let the gray encompass the city. They did build a huge orange bridge after all.
While walking in San Francisco to the waterfront, I found beautiful blasts of color amongst the less vivacious colors of the surrounding buildings and the gray sky that reflected in the windows.
RED!
This fortune teller's sign is adorned with one of my favorite colors...red! I like red because it is a color that is unafraid to be bold and seen.
It must be an interesting life being a fortune teller in San Francisco. I imagine she lives in an apartment that faces the water. In the morning, she goes to her balcony with her mug of coffee. She stares out at the glimmering water and clears her mind. A fortune teller needs a clear mind before entering the lives of so many strangers. Probably she then walks to work where she passes so many people and she imagines their fortunes, their futures, their pasts. Then, throughout the day, adventurous tourists and exhausted but hopeful locals come to her for their future. She has to decide if she will tell them the truth or not.
I think fortune tellers, psychics and mediums are all very interesting. I made a comic about one a few years ago!
More red from this coffee shops sign. I didn't go inside, but probably just like the coffee shops of Seattle, there are a bunch of bleary-eyed dreamers in there, sipping coffee in their own hazy head bubbles of whimsy and imaginings.
RAINBOW!
Of course San Francisco is known for their rainbows! The rainbows of San Francisco have long worked to empower those who have been disenfranchised throughout history. Rainbows mean something powerful in this modern world!
All these flags look pretty fluttering in the wind together, but the San Francisco flag is the prettiest of them all with that bold yellow border.
Flags add a great aesthetic element to a plain building front. Any city with wind should adorn their buildings and poles with lots of flags. The wind can open them up wide and wrinkle them into flapping shapes. The sunlight can make the flags colors glow.
Based on the logo, this bright yellow van looks like it is headed out to set up for an EVENT. But what sort of event? A stage performance about the nations presidents? A seance featuring real life mediums summoning ghosts from the roaring twenties? A interpretive dance about a windstorm in a forest? A stand up comedy routine about the fall of Rome? An improve show where all the players were born on the same day in November? A play preformed only by cats? A magic show where a top hat is pulled from a rabbit? So many possibilities.....
ORANGE!
PINK!
The Museum of Ice Cream sounds like a magical place. I only walked past and didn't go in, so I don't know what it is really like, but here's what I imagine. There are pictures of ice cream and underneath the ice cream pictures are samples of actual ice cream that you can try. Next to the ice cream are plaques describing the history of the flavor. If that's the case, the Museum of Ice Cream is my kind of museum!
On a busy corner of San Francisco, right by the entrance to the light rail, is this beautiful flower stand full of not just many shades of pink flowers, but all sorts of colorful flowers. If someone taking the light rail realizes last minute they need to get their mom flowers or a present for their boyfriend, they can stop here and grab a beautiful bouquet. Sometimes it is just nice to get yourself a flower too!
Oh San Francisco! You sure are a pretty city with all your colors!