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“Normally on this type of mural there are three stages: the rough coat which is the roughest possible plaster, with sand and horsehair in it. Then there is a soft coat that goes on top of that, which is plastered and marble dust. And than finally the finish coat goes on, which is plaster and marble dust. “You put on the rough coat, then you put on the scratch coat. Then you ponce the design on the scratch coat. Then you put on the finish coat only in what can be finished in 4 or 5 hours. You put this on, and you try to follow exactly the lines that are there. Then you ponce back on to this finish coat the drawing so that the artist can come back and put on the color. The colors that are put on are the pigments mixed with distilled water. The pigments are absorbed into the lime putty — the lime plaster. Then when it converts itself to limestone by absorbing carbon dioxide it becomes an integral part — literally — he rock on the wall. “The pigments have to be lime resistant. And the palette is relatively limited. It’s dreadfully complex. Once this final coat has dried you can’t do anything with it. It’s finished. You basically do what you can do in one day.” “Lucian Labaudt was there all the time. He would come in and do the final work... Sometimes he would say ‘This is getting dry, put in a bunch of sky color up in here.’ You put in his sky color and you learn his brush technique — kind of hatching, overlapping strips.” “Fresco isn’t the best in terms of permanence. One it is a classical technique.” Commenting on the alleged arrogance of Labaudt: “If I had been him I would have done exactly the same thing. This was his word, he would sign it, he was commissioned to do the mural, and by God it was not a committee effort. One of the figures at the BC had six fingers (as a joke). “He knew it.” “He did what he was commissioned to do. They’re bland, innocuous, nice, decorative. I’m not being perjorative is saying this. He was doing things that were not going to offend (as opposed to some of his contemporaries) including Diego Rivera and SF muralist Victor Arnautoff (Rincon Annex post office).”
He was living in the Monkey Block (noted Montgomery Street building) in the the late ’30s, with his girlfriend. He ate at the Iron Pot right across the street and had a choice of either their 35 or 50 cent dinner. “We used to have the 50 cent dinner and have nothing else for the rest of the day.” There were all artist apartments, about 30, in the Monkey Block, he said. |
While
working at that Beach Chalet: “Young ladies would hang around.
Guys would take them out in cars. I had a 1930 Chevrolet then. I painted
the body a very delicate, lovely gray. It had black fenders and orange
wheels. It was a 4-cylinder Chevy — a two-door coupe. I had stolen
from somewhere a Packard Swan radiator cap. I think I paid $50 for the
thing.”