Agua Caliente, Boyes Hot Springs, Fetters Hot Springs, Neighborhood Phenomena, Wonders and Marvels

Street Markings

Temporary, informal, unsanctioned, cryptic. Personal expression, job related. Faded, half-obscured.

Ephemeral and permanent.

Highway 12 through Boyes Hot Springs, Fetters Hot Springs, and Agua Caliente, California, though a heavily used commercial and residential street, had almost no sidewalks until 2009/2010. Dirt shoulders for walking was not a problem when traffic was light. Even at the height of the resort era (1950s), people would ride horses down the middle of the highway. That’s how quiet it could be.

Starting in the 1980s, locals started to agitate for a safer road. They wanted sidewalks and streetlights. Along came Redevelopment to provide the funds. Part of the project was completed by 2010 (a good twenty five years after agitation began). Redevelopment was abolished by dear old Jerry Brown. Thanks Jerry! The project languished. Finally, the Sonoma County Board of Supervisors came through with the money to finish. Thanks Susan Gorin!

The following is a collection of street markings from before during and after sidewalks were installed. Some are the ephemeral spray paint graphics of the contractors, which can be interesting. The more enduring marks are by the people who happened to walk by when the concrete was wet. These are also interesting, even poetic at times. One example is pure nature.

2008-Before demolition started a lot of marks went down. Why was it necessary to point out the rocks?

2009. Underground Service Alert (USA) finds all the pipes and wires and marks the surface. Not sure what “CCI” stands for.

2010 or “20010”. Our first folk marks! It’s an ornate tag that is hard to read.

Jack has helpfully given us the day, month and year. I hope he went on to a career as an archivist.

2016. Phase Two. The only actual footprint, gracefully holding leaves and water.

Year of mark unknown, but Phase Two. Someone is trying very hard with the use of a stencil. Is he offering free samples of tagging? Do people pay for tagging?

2019. Right after Phase Two was completed, some corrections that necessitated new concrete were needed. It looks like the left portion of this group of signifying friends was cut off.

In 2021 PGE had some business under the pavement. This tells you all about it, if you could only read it.

2021/ Nobody’s perfect!

2021. This one and the next two offer lush compositions of black and gray featuring inscribed and spray-painted lines and hard and soft textures.

2021. The lines, the colors, the textures, and, the shadows!

Photographed in 2023, actual date unknown, but Phase Two. “Love me.” “ILY Cazzy.” “Mateo.” “FB, LM”

2021. Dude! Where’s my valves!

A bit off the highway, but such a lovely composition!

Nature bats last.

Agua Caliente, nature, Neighborhood Phenomena, Wonders and Marvels

Neighborhood Phenomena: Plants

Observed within a few blocks of each other, two volunteers and a planting. The first one is a small agave planted in a hole in the sidewalk. A valiant effort indeed. Given Caltrans and/or Sonoma County’s neglect of these areas, it may survive a while. The second one looks like volunteer tomatoes springing up at a storm drain. I hope that’s what they are! Third is a humble little California poppy growing in a crack between the curb and sidewalk. Symbolic of California today?

Bonus photo: Tiny calendula in the asphalt, Arroyo Rd., BHS

Boyes Hot Springs, Neighborhood Phenomena, People, Wonders and Marvels

Tony Perez and His Garden

March 2019. Bonita Way comes into Central here, hence Street View’s address.

Sometime between March and November of 2019, Tony started constructing his installation of flowerpots, plants, garden ornaments, lumber, and concrete blocks on the side of the street in front of 67 Central Avenue in Boyes Hot Springs. I originally assumed his name was Richard because of the sign he posted in 2021. The sign, which is not up currently, is a bit puzzling, but I’m glad he gave himself credit, no matter what name he used.

Tony was born in Nayarit state, Mexico and came to the U.S. 50 or 60 years ago (he’s a bit vague on this). He has worked as a landscaper his whole life. “I know how to take care of plants,” he told me.

Joanie Bourg via Facebook:

“He used to come into Sonoma Mission Gardens where I worked for many years.. order plants or buy soil. The thing that struck me about Tony was his super boisterous laugh and spirit, and he obviously worked hard as a gardener.. I would see his truck everywhere. He’s a larger than life dude. I’m also a gardener by profession, so I know just how hard the work is. I love his fighting spirit.”

He has worked at that trade until he got sick. “The doctors took my money, and I’m still sick,” he said. He will go back to Mexico when it’s “time for the ‘cementary’,” he joked. He usually walks with two canes, which he made himself, because he doesn’t like the store-bought ones.

November 2020. The object with the four “tines” is made from ceiling fan blades.

Tony has lived in the apartments next door to his garden for five or six years.

His garden evolves with the seasons. He grows geraniums and plants annual flowers in season. He also uses artificial flowers. Periodically he paints the pots a new color.

Tony drives a Ford work truck. I find it charming that he has replaced the Ford logotype on the tailgate with stick-on lettering, which is slightly askew. It’s a very competent looking truck.

Tony’s garden is getting noticed on social media, probably because it’s close to a popular restaurant, and it’s so great!

From the Instagram of Charles DesMarais, former art critic for the S.F. Chronicle

March 2022. Building back up (“better?”) Tony had winterized for 2021-2022.

Thank you Tony Perez for your gift to our neighborhood!

This post will be updated as Tony’s Garden evolves.

June, July, and August 2022. Tony is bringing a lot of tools and material out of storage to sell.

Boyes Hot Springs, nature, Neighborhood Phenomena, Photographs, Trees, Wonders and Marvels

A Neighborhood Phenomena Sampler

Fences and trees: they have conversations, disputes, collaborations. Time is involved.

This one deserves special mention. Actually it deserves an award for adaptive reuse. During the house addition build, the old garage was torn down, but the back wall was retained and incorporated into the new fence.

Boyes Hot Springs, nature, Neighborhood Phenomena

Volunteer Sunflowers

This year there have been a lot of volunteer sunflowers all over the neighborhood. Why this year? Whatever the reason, they are a welcome sight, even amongst the weeds and bromes.

Art, Boyes Hot Springs, Collection/Obsession, Neighborhood Phenomena, Photographs, Wonders and Marvels

Twenty-four Views of the Tank

Artists and obsession:

“Hokusai created the Thirty-Six Views both as a response to a domestic travel boom and as part of a personal obsession with Mount Fuji.^[5] ” Wikipedia

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Artists, aging, and obsession:

“I have drawn things since I was 6. All that I made before the age of 65 is not worth counting. At 73 I began to understand the true construction of animals, plants, trees, birds, fishes, and insects. At 90 I will enter into the secret of things. At 110, everything – every dot, every dash – will live. To all of you who are going to live as long as I do, I promise to keep my word. I am writing this in my old age, I used to call myself Hokusai, but today I sign myself ‘The Old Man Mad About Drawing.'” ~ Hokusai

“Mount Fuji is a popular subject for Japanese art due to its cultural and religious significance. This belief can be traced to The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter, where a goddess deposits the elixir of life on the peak. As the historian Henry Smith^[3] explains, “Thus from an early time, Mt. Fuji was seen as the source of the secret of immortality, a tradition that was at the heart of Hokusai’s own obsession with the mountain.”^[4]” Wikipedia

Here in Boyes Hot Springs, we have a similarly visible, tall monument, and while the Spa does not claim to bestow eternal life, it definitely makes life more enjoyable, and is a worthy subject of an artist’s obsession.

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“It all adds up to a reminder that, even as the art historians have been slowly trying to squeeze the history our their discipline, artists have been assiduously turning them selves in to historians, archivists even collectors of a sort.” Barry Schwabsky, The Nation Magazine, April 2014

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SMISpaimage

“Historically revered by Native Americans for its healing power, the elegant Spanish mission–style Inn boasts an enviable location atop an ancient thermal mineral spring, flowing from 1,100 feet below the surface. The tranquility and beauty of this environment is echoed throughout the 40,000-square-foot spa, which offers endless opportunities to find your energy.” From the SMI website

Photographs courtesy of the Sonoma Valley Historical Society and the author.

Architecture, Boyes Hot Springs, nature, Neighborhood Phenomena

Waste Space

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In 2008 final construction drawings for “Phase 2 Stage 1” of the Highway 12 sidewalk project were issued. The drawings are detailed and very specific, as they would be. Everything is spelled out, down to the design of the hardware used to hold up mail boxes, sign details, and the depth of fence posts.

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One thing that was not thought about is the space created, or delineated between the edge of the sidewalk and buildings, fences and walls along the highway. Formerly just part of the shoulder of the road, these unpaved spaces became the chaotic province of weeds and trash, unclaimed and untended by anybody.

Layout of the Hawthorne-Thomson stretch

This 300’ strip on the east side of the highway between Hawthorne and Thomson is a good example.

October 2009, soon after construction was finished. Broadcast wildflower seeds are just sprouting.

November 2016. Weeds and exotic grasses grow mixed with a few California poppies surviving from 2009.

2019. Property owners have planted palm trees.

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Other examples of wasted space.

The new sidewalks, streetlights, and other amenities provided by the project are much appreciated in the community. It’s a shame that the interstices of the design were not dealt with originally, but they now represent an opportunity for creativity and community engagement. Let a hundred fledgling landscape architects bloom!

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Boyes Hot Springs, nature, Neighborhood Phenomena, Photographs, Wonders and Marvels

Grape vines and “grape vines”

Boyes Hot Springs, Entertainment, Neighborhood Phenomena, Wonders and Marvels

Fiesta, Dia de los Madres 2019, Boyes Hot Springs

A fiesta on Mothers Day, 2019:Mariachi in Boyes Hot Springs. https://youtu.be/fUv7VsVHFw4

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nature, Neighborhood Phenomena

Wild Artichokes

Corner of Sunnyside Ave. and Highway 12

For lovers of the prickly vegetable, the presence of groves of wild artichokes, as we have in the Valley of the Moon, might seem like an indication of paradise. In addition to being delicious, artichoke flowers are beautiful, fragrant, and attract bees.

However, the wild cynara carduncula is a fearsome invasive plant.

Vacant lot at Sunnyside Ave.

According to the California Invasive Plant Council, the thistle was probably imported from Europe in the early 19^th century as a food plant. It becomes invasive when it escapes cultivation and begins to reproduce from seed. Darwin found it growing in the Argentine pampas in 1889 in an area of “hundreds of square miles.”

The growing artichoke “forest” in the lot at Sunnyside

At its worst, the “edible thistle” forms thickets that are impenetrable by humans or animals and that shade out native plants. As they develop tap roots eight feet deep and produce seed banks that endure for five years, they are very difficult to control.

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springs museum

History, Art, Community

Category Archives: Neighborhood Phenomena