the first thing you see is the house at least a hundred years old below street level so it needs sandbags to stop the rain it’s faded yellow with a stove pipe coming out the side and up to the roof behind it are a barn and an old fish house where the fishermen having come up the small canal would store their catch before market I walk along the canal now weed choked an old pram moored to a rusted iron pipe moves slowly in the slight current
I walk along the canal and pass a foundation of something long gone not as lucky as the yellow house to my left is a path of worn bricks which winds to the water parallel to the canal it’s not a straight path it winds and turns with a purpose of its own a little farther on I stop the path has forked and it’s here I set up my easel
I can see the water now with rolling golden hills beyond it even a glimpse of Mt. Tam between two of them half a mile away on my left are railroad tracks and a siding full of tank cars and boxcars above them on the hillside the trees oaks mostly cling almost impossibly while casting hundred foot shadows down the slope and onto the tracks overhead three hawks circle while over the water ten pelicans fly by in formation ten feet above the waves
I pick up a brush
c Warren Dreher 1993-2007 All rights reserved
Images: "Hills and Haze" Oil on canvas 22x28 1993 Private Collection "Mt. Tam from Martinez" Oil on canvas 9x12 1993 Private Collection "Hills and Box Cars" Oil on Canvas 18x24 2004 Private Collection
