Coffee Head Still Life #1

This is one of dozens and dozens of still-life paintings that I did back in the mid-nineties, when I lived with a bunch of other artists in an illegally converted warehouse space in San Francisco.
It was 10,000 square feet, big enough to have rollerblade parties in, and absolutely freezing in the winter (no way we could afford to heat it).

But I digress. This piece, titled "Coffee Head Still Life #1" (named for a beloved and long defunct cafe who's cup provides the central motif) is 24" by 32", and painted in oils on linen. The other coffee cups are from Farley's, another beloved, and thankfully not defunct cafe. I'd walk up there for coffee and accumulate these graphically striking cups, and eventually they came to dominate these paintings.

I'd painted before, but I really learned to paint through a year of working obsessively on still-lives like this one.


(click to enlarge)