Beginnings
- Portrait of the Artist as a (very) Young Man sometime in the 1960’s. This photo was taken by Mr. Sam Provanzano in his studio in San Francisco. Somewhere my mom heard about him and either she or dad would drive me down to his studio on Saturday mornings. I remember that his studio was on the second floor of a big warehouse on the Embarcadero. Incredibly cool. Sam was a well known local painter who taught students of all ages in order to support his own craft. He encouraged the very shy kid seen above to explore his creativity.
- I remember doing lots of paintings of San Francisco sites. One technique Sam taught me was to freely use bright colors to paint the impressions of what I saw (or imagined) and then to clarify or form the shapes more fully by delineating them with black paint using the edge of a piece of cardboard. Fun and ordinary. Cardboard. The Golden Gate Bridge. Coit Tower. Fishermans’ Wharf. And a caring teacher.
- Sam died in 1999 and mom sent me the obituary that was in the Chronicle. I feel blessed to have been taken under the wing of such a kind and generous man. He encouraged me to know and feel that I could do something (and be someone) special. Provanzano obituary
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