{"id":32400,"date":"2024-03-18T13:01:29","date_gmt":"2024-03-18T20:01:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/?p=32400"},"modified":"2024-03-18T13:02:42","modified_gmt":"2024-03-18T20:02:42","slug":"renowned-sf-artist-has-worked-above-the-chaos-of-market-street-for-three-decades","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/2024\/03\/18\/renowned-sf-artist-has-worked-above-the-chaos-of-market-street-for-three-decades\/","title":{"rendered":"Renowned SF artist has worked above the chaos of Market Street for three decades"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A look inside the studio of Richard Perri, who has been painting in the Odd Fellows building on Market and Seventh Streets for the last 35 years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"A
Richard Perri has collected many unusual items in his studio of more than 35 years, including an oversized phone and a sign visible from Market Street that reads “The End Is Near.” | Source:Estefany Gonzalez\/The Standard<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

By\u00a0Julie Zigoris<\/a> Published\u00a0Mar. 13, 2024 \u2022 email@sfstandard.com<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Richard Perri likes to roost. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

He\u2019s lived in the same apartment in North Beach since 1977 and painted out of the same second-floor art studio in the Odd Fellows Building in Mid-Market for almost as long. At 80, he\u2019s likely the neighborhood\u2019s longest-standing artist, a staple in his purple-banded hat and matching purple vest, a pin in the shape of a palette on his lapel. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

From the street below, the windows of Perri\u2019s Market Street studio\u2014which include a sign reading \u201cThe End Is Near\u201d\u2014signal there\u2019s something unusual lurking on the second floor. The 3,500-square-foot space around him contains more than 1,000 oil paintings, prints and drawings Perri\u2019s made over the years as well as the things he\u2019s collected, like an original hat used in the production of Beach Blanket Babylon and a giant phone in the shape of a pizza. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Behind Perri\u2019s desk is an eye-fatiguing wall of ephemera: stuffed monkeys, pinup girl calendars, wooden ducks, masks with long, hair-like beards and an anti-narcotics pamphlet autographed by Timothy Leary himself. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Richard Perri keeps decades’ worth of ephemera scattered across his art studio in the Odd Fellows Building on Seventh Street in San Francisco. | Source:Estefany Gonzalez\/The Standard<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHe\u2019s eccentric,\u201d said Peter Sellars, who managed the Odd Fellows Building<\/a> for 24 years before moving into a consultant role. \u201cAnd he\u2019s becoming more and more eccentric over the years.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The eight-floor building used to be dominated by the Odd Fellows fraternal organization, which owns the building and whose groups occupied its many rooms. But Sellars and Perri, both Odd Fellows themselves, have collaborated over the years to draw in more artist tenants as the group\u2019s members decrease in numbers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Perri became the first artist tenant in the building in the 1980s after seeing a \u201cFor Rent\u201d sign hanging up for over a year\u2014a length of time he knew would give him some room for negotiation with then-building manager Stanley Panovich.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHe just sat there smoking cigarettes and letting the day go by,\u201d said Perri of Panovich, who was unbothered by the basement full of sewage, dead rodents and rotting food. Perri got the lease he was looking for and moved into what felt like acres of space. His daughter would come to work with him and ride her tricycle in loops around the floor. He\u2019d be in the middle of painting when she\u2019d suddenly appear beside him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt was like The Shining<\/em>,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Seventh Street serenade\u2019<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Even though Mid-Market has garnered a reputation as an open-air bazaar for drugs and stolen goods<\/a> in recent years, Perri said he\u2019s never had a problem walking around the neighborhood.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cPeople only say nice things, like, \u2018You look sharp\u2019 or \u2018I like your hat,\u2019\u201d he said. \u201cAnd I ask, \u2018How about the guy in it?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Before CVS moved into one of the storefronts in the building, Perri brightened the plywood along Seventh and Market streets with a giant mural of a pill<\/a>. It was a nod to the coming pharmacy as well as to the reputation of the neighborhood (CVS has since moved out, and other pill-pushers have moved in). Some people came up to him on the sidewalk while he was painting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"An
\u201cAre you Banksy?\u201d asked some tourists one day while Perri was painting a mural outside his building. \u201cShhhhh, don\u2019t say anything,\u201d he responded. | Source:Estefany Gonzalez\/The Standard<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAre you Banksy?\u201d they asked. \u201cShhhhh, don\u2019t say anything,\u201d he responded.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Perri\u2019s black-and-white mural<\/a> of the former Merrill\u2019s Drugs now graces the sidewalk, a painting he made in 2015 at the location of the former pharmacy on Market Street, which was moved to its present location last year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When cleaning out the basement of the Odd Fellows Building, Perri came across an old letter from a group of women complaining to Mayor Dianne Feinstein they didn\u2019t feel safe in the neighborhood because of all the drunks on the street. The mayor wrote back that she had passed their request on to the chief of police and that it would be taken care of. That was 42 years ago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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A composite image of Richard Perri’s artwork shows a mural of Merrill’s Drugs on the left and a portrait of George Floyd on the right. | Source:Courtesy Richard Perri<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

After more than three decades of working nearly daily in the neighborhood, Perri doesn\u2019t see much difference from that time to now\u2014it\u2019s only the drug of choice that\u2019s changed. \u201cThe alcoholics were the same group, and they were more communal,\u201d he said. \u201cBut now the people change all the time.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The words had barely left Perri\u2019s mouth when police sirens began screaming on one side of the building; at the same time, the historic F streetcar line jangled its cheerful bell.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s the Seventh Street serenade,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A haven for an artist <\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Growing up on New York\u2019s Long Island, Perri was nourished by cowboy movies and television shows like \u201cThe Lineup\u201d<\/a>. He couldn\u2019t wait to head West after finishing high school.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI always felt I belonged here,\u201d he said. He studied at the San Francisco Art Institute after completing a degree at Arizona State University. He then worked a string of different jobs after hitchhiking up and down the West Coast, moonlighting as a carpenter, charter bus driver, market researcher and bar owner. He earned the nickname \u201cLuckey\u201d along the way and always painted on the side, but it was the birth of his daughter in 1989 that prompted him to pick up the brushes full-time.    <\/p>\n\n\n\n

He went on to exhibit at galleries across the Bay Area while filling up his studio with his paintings, drawings and prints, showing off his work at a yearly \u201cArtaganza\u201d at the Odd Fellows Building. In 2022, the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency selected Perri as an official Muni artist<\/a>, bringing his work to commuters across the Bay Area.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"An
Perri has more than 1,000 paintings, drawings and prints in his sprawling studio of more than 35 years. | Source:Estefany Gonzalez\/The Standard<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Perri might have been the first tenant at 26 Seventh St., but he wouldn\u2019t be the only artist in the Odd Fellows Building for long. Sellars took the place of Panovich, and the buildings\u2019 floors became so clean \u201cyou could crawl across them,\u201d Perri said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Perri estimates that today the building is 90% artists\u2014a mixture of musicians, writers, painters and dancers (the Alonzo King LINES ballet takes up multiple floors)\u2014and just 10% Odd Fellows. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cArtists are the easiest tenants to work with,\u201d Sellars said. \u201cAnything that made the art scene better, we did it.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The ship of depression <\/h2>\n\n\n\n

To enter Perri\u2019s studio, you go through a set of black double doors in what Perri calls \u201cthe room of doors\u201d on the second floor. In an attempt to deter thieves when he was out of town in 2023, Perri labeled the doors with a sign warning of toxic materials inside\u2014and that to enter without proper coverage would be to risk illness and death.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That sign is long gone, but the all-black doors remain, with no hint as to what\u2019s behind them. Just inside the studio is an 8-foot-tall painting of Perri\u2019s former psychiatrist, Sterling Bunnell.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHe saved my life,\u201d Perri said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While the octogenarian artist has always been a fan of therapy (\u201cIt keeps my head together,\u201d he said), Bunnell impacted him in a way no other therapist had. The artist first talked to him 20 years ago, when the doctor only charged him $5 despite talking to him for an hour and a half.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bunnell would liken depression to a ship: It comes; it goes. It can be all different shapes and sizes. \u201cBut the most important thing,\u201d Perri said, \u201cis not to get on the ship.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"A
Perri points at one of the many stuffed monkeys he keeps scattered across his art studio in the Odd Fellows Building on Seventh Street. | Source:Estefany Gonzalez\/The Standard<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Creativity has helped Perri stay above water. He cites big names like Edward Hopper and Vincent van Gogh as inspirations\u2014and also local ones, like Anthony Holdsworth, who is often painting en plein air on the streets of the Mission, and Terry St. John, a landscape artist known for his thick brushwork, who died in 2021 (Perri has his obituary hanging above his desk).  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Perri calls his 1996 painting of Red\u2019s Java House<\/a> his \u201cMona Lisa,\u201d a painting that inspired a series of works on San Francisco\u2019s java huts, many of which have long since vanished. The paintings have a sparse, Hopper-esque quality, canvases that are imbued with both loneliness and nostalgia.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

While he\u2019s known for his paintings of San Francisco\u2019s often-forgotten places, Perri paints many portraits, too. He\u2019s created the likenesses of a fair number of politicians\u2014Matt Gonzalez, Aaron Peskin and Gavin Newsom among them\u2014and also notable figures like George Floyd for an image that hung on the Market Street side of the building in the wake of his murder in 2020. It ended up being a sort of talisman for the Odd Fellows Building during the chaos that took over the streets at that time. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe art served a protective purpose,\u201d Sellars said of the painting. \u201cArtwork can be a tool.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"A
Sitting among his piles of art, Perri dreams that someday a wealthy philanthropist will fund a collection for a museum of city-specific artists. | Source:Estefany Gonzalez\/The Standard<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Sitting among his piles of art, Perri dreams that someday a wealthy philanthropist and art lover\u2014a tech scion, perhaps\u2014will build a collection for a museum of San Francisco-specific artists. The painter\u2014who was friends with Lawrence Ferlinghetti, the poet and founder of City Lights Booksellers and Publishers, and once sold paper sheets of Andy Warhol\u2019s soup cans for $100 a pop\u2014thinks it\u2019s something the city needs. And something he needs as well. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019ve got more ideas than time,\u201d Perri said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Julie Zigoris can be reached at jzigoris@sfstandard.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A look inside the studio of Richard Perri, who has been painting in the Odd Fellows building on Market and Seventh Streets for the last 35 years. By\u00a0Julie Zigoris Published\u00a0Mar. 13, 2024 \u2022 email@sfstandard.com Richard Perri likes to roost.  He\u2019s lived in the same apartment in North Beach since 1977… Continue reading → <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32400"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32400"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32400\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32402,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32400\/revisions\/32402"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32400"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32400"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32400"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}