It is hard to believe that thirty years have passed since the completion of my painting depicting downtown Petaluma, California at night. The once thriving evenings within the Holidaze Bar and Grill on the corner of Western Avenue and Petaluma Blvd. North on Fridays and Saturdays are now just distant memories. The painting depicts a relatively quiet mid week evening with little road or foot traffic visible.
The building still remains today but its past bustling business name has disappeared. Behind the building is the once active marina and railroad tracks that were sitting on dilapidated wooden trestles leading to the other local nightspot – Petaluma’s Steamer Gold Restaurant and Bar. The wooden bridge behind the building was also completed in the same year connecting pedestrians from one side of the marina to the other. My first pride and joy, a brand new car in its day is also in this painting. A charcoal gray 1989 Geo Tracker jeep seems to have a special redhead friend from that time sitting in the passenger seat with this lucky artist. I still remember her name as Brenda but I don’t know why?…
Looking westwards from the Steamer Gold building and marina to Western Avenue with the landmark copper clad clock tower from 1934, which sits above the town’s Masonic Lodge building. The Holidaze Bar and Grill sits directly opposite to this building
Vintage billboard signs such as the Coke-Cola sign were adhered onto the brickwork of local businesses. A sign of a bygone age. Today, Petaluma has become much more modernized town and distinctly more larger in scale than the one I knew so well in 1989. I lived in the outlying areas of the town for almost fifteen years before heading northwards towards Santa Rosa and beyond.
