The Start
Making Murals Isn't Always Safe
A very short history of horse racing at the California State Fair: racing began in San Francisco in 1854 and moved to Sacramento in 1859. My dad had the only sit-down restaurant at the Fair starting about 1955, I guess; I was just a kid. Many of the chefs at the better restaurants around town took their vacations then, as did my dad, for an intense but lucrative 3 weeks. For a sheltered, middle-class, tennis club kid, this was an enlightening experience, year by year. It taught me many valuable lessons, including how to accept people without making judgments: carnies and cons, jockeys, trainers, FH kids, and customers. The end of an iconic tradition ended last March.
Here are two thoughts about my experience making murals for the California State Fair many decades later.
A very short essay about one morning at the track.
It was an August, too dry for lack of rain. Sun not yet risen, a guard waves me to the stables of the racetrack. I gently shut my car door, not wanting to disturb the silence of sleepy horses, jockeys and trainers.
Dust rises around my boots and with the dust, odors of hay and warm earth, sweat, horses and droppings, and only a hint of a cooler night just past. These sensations return me to my childhood when my dad had the only restaurant at the County Fair for two weeks every summer. I learned to be a salesman. I learned that I never wanted to be a waitress or own a restaurant. I learned that there are all sorts of fascinating people in the world, valuable knowledge for a sheltered middle-class white girl.
A small building serves mediocre coffee in heavy ceramic mugs and donuts that came from somewhere else. I grab one of each, smile at a couple of grizzled patrons and head to the track with my camera.
Climbing up on a white fence that stretched in an oval around a quarter-mile track, I breathe deeply and deny danger. From the distance, two horses come closer, hooves beating a cadence in soft soil, snorting, heads raised resisting or complying, one tiny rider and trainer on each, bumping side by side. Quivering rumps, tails raised high, they disappear.
Looking to my left and right, others perched. Jockeys who’d broken every bone in their body. Trainers with faces like maps of every indignity they’d ever suffered, who slept in barns with their horses.
Degas was an artist who drew horses. I can’t. Even in the paddock they rarely stand still. My camera captures their magnificent power as they streak by.
And then I draw.
Cal Expo, California State Fair mural commissions
A very short essay about how to get what I want
As soon as a winner was declared, we darted across the track, onto the infield to the starting gate on the far side. Twelve starting stalls already stretched across the track with crews loading horses and riders into padded stalls. Some enter peacefully, some protest, metal gates clang, jockeys prepare, all noses point forward.
I’ve ridden horses but not like these–Thoroughbreds–huge and dangerous. Starting gates, invented in 1939 to give all starters a fair chance, hardly seem adequate to contain such power.
We hunker down on our bellies behind a pile of dirt, the track photographer and me. He’s got the camera and skills to capture what I’ve imagined for my murals, a view looking up at the start of this race.
I listen to the photographer’s warning. He understands how dangerous this is, the potential that we’ll spook a horse and cause an accident, either to ourselves or others, including the animals. Someone might die. I feel no fear. I focus on feeling what it’s going to be like, seeing the start of this race from a position few can experience.
Time pauses for a second. It’s quiet.
The bell rings, gates spring open, animals lunge and they’re off.
Hooves pound, dirt flies, jockey colors flash–white butts in the air. Then they’re gone.
It’s like an orgasm only quicker.
Immediately a mere memory, I remember nothing but the thrill.
We look at each other in triumph. Shall we do it again? Before I can shout an emphatic yes, loudspeakers boom from high in the stands. People in the infield! Get out now!
A personal note: Amid horrifying turmoil with what’s happening on our own front steps and globally, I offer this brief break to contemplate the process of bringing what’s in our heads to reality.