Monday, September 14, 2009

The Fall of The Upper Crust



No, this post is not about upper crust San Franciscans Dede Wilsey, Jeannene Przyblyski and Alexander Lloyd resigning as San Francisco Art Commissioners recently, after new financial reporting regulations were enacted for city film and art commissioners.



I do have to admit finding the story hilarious (click here for Heather Knight's SFGate account), particularly when Ms. Przyblyski (who is married to local political fixer Eric Jaye), whined to society columnist Catherine Bigelow at 7x7 that she was being unfairly targeted and accused Supervisor Daly of behavior that "bordered on gender discrimination."



I'm not sure where young venture capitalist Alexander Lloyd fits into that equation, but Przyblyski was probably referring to her fellow commissioner Dede Wilsey, San Francisco society's Queen of Mean Stepmothers, whose resignation looked amusingly like "only little people fill out financial disclosure forms."



No, what this post is about is the San Francisco Art Commission sculpture, "The Upper Crust," by Patrick Dougherty in the Civic Center Plaza, which has changed aspect with each season.



Right now the leaves and twigs from the sycamores are turning brown with fall, which means that the sapling sculptures are almost indistinguishable from the trees themselves.



The tentative date for removal of The Upper Crust is at the end of November but it may stay up until the sycamore trees are brutally pruned for their winter hibernation.

3 comments:

Matthew Hubbard said...

This was a remarkable juxtaposition of text and photos. Obviously, you have a lot on your mind.

The entangled twigs are a brilliant piece of work. San Francisco politics... not so much.

Civic Center said...

Dear Matty: Thanks for getting both the subtext and the entangled twigs.

AphotoAday said...

I've softened considerably from my initial scorn of Doughterty's stick and twig project, and like you predicted, it actually looks quite nice with the foliage growing into and around it.

Nice pictures -- and also got a kick of reading a while ago of you talking your way out onto the Mayor's balcony for a good vantage point.   You should have yelled out something funny to everybody below...