Is It Finished?

1970, San Francisco, street pastel artists earn their living or at least some of it by painting tourists. In those days we used film to photograph, and this film photo stayed around undeveloped so long that when I did finally develop it it was pretty useless as a photograph. So I did some techie things to bring it back, but the only way to really show it at its best was to use it as a basic reference and paint the scene in pastels. The title came because as artists I think we are never sure exactly when something is finished. For street artists who must have turnover, this must be a somewhat difficult decision. In the painting it felt like the painting itself was asking the artist, “Is it Finished?” And this artist says, “Not sure.” But we did finally stop.