My studio neighborhood and neighbors has changed quite a bit in the last month.
I love my studio in San Francisco. It's this light-filled open warehouse space of 1,200 square feet and part of building with about 100 other artists. I also love the rent because for city standards, it's pretty darned good. But the trade off is location.
It's not in the greatest neighborhood. Around the corner is an encampment of guys running a bike chop shop and it's not uncommon to have some poor soul out of his or her mind walking under my studio windows ranting at the world in a drugged-out rage.
Today while I was in the studio, this feathered guy was perched outside my window. Yesterday, there was a cardinal (or what I thought was a female cardinal, I'm not really sure, I'm not a bird expert), singing a very sweet little tune.
There's quite a contrast between my studio neighbors in Charleston versus San Francisco; silent and majestic hawks and songbirds versus the sounds of branding being sanded off bikes and violently yelling drug addicts.
While I absolutely love San Francisco and my studio there, I'm very happy with this change in neighbors.