The back of the bus in progress on Wednesday, with Henry's dog and logo, originally uploaded by MaryWit.

I came upon this beautiful, rusty old 1968 Ford school bus in the Golden Gardens parking lot, two dogs peering out the window, two guys with buckets of paint painting it, and a lady sitting in a lawn chair. I was dazzled! I stopped to talk to them. They said the smoke stack goes to the wood stove inside. The bearded man turned out to be muralist Ryan Henry Ward, or just “Henry”, who’s faithful black, paint-spattered dog was never far away.

The couple (and their two dogs, Jellybean and Sis) bought the bus on CraigsList for $800 and were fixing it up, before moving in and taking it on the road. I went back the next day, delighted to see them still there; the painting was progressing nicely. The second day, Tuesday, Henry was painting alone On Wednesday, I left the young home/bus owners sitting on an old blue bus bench seat on the grass laughing with delight, “that’s our HOME, man! That’s our new home! This is where we live!”

I’ll follow the progression each day until the bus is gone. To see more photos of the school bus metamorphosis, see my flickr.com set “1968 School Bus” http://flickr.com/photos/marywit/sets/72157607333979228/

For more on Henry's murals, see this NW Source article here: www.nwsource.com/entertainment/visual-arts/visual-art/loc...

Sunday Morning, Homeless, Expansion. Fremont Condos Sign

Shopping Carts, Sunday. Expansion. Fremont Condos Sign, originally uploaded by MaryWit.

Last weekend I noticed an increasing number of laden shopping carts, those contemporary gypsy wagons of the urban homeless, around this community where seemingly overnight, an infestation of half-million-dollar (per unit!) condominiums and townhouses have infested this charming, working class neighborhood. The gullible nuevo riche have flooded into this PR-created trendy "hot-spot", pushing up housing costs and displacing the traditional working class inhabitants who can no longer begin to afford to live here.

The effect has been catastrophic. Overcrowding, infrastructure stress and social trauma are becoming more visable every day. Lovingly tended gardens and yards have been paved over, homes have been razed, the very sky has been blocked by condo-canyons. Long-term inhabitants--both human and wildlife--who knew every nook and cranny of the neighborhood and its history have been displaced.

For every dollar gained by condo "investers" and developers, by venal municipal government, there will be a cost for we as a society to pay that cannot be measured by mere monetary means. The price will be dear and the decisions they have made, irreversable. Just as an ecosystem depends on infinate layers of interconnection and interdependancy over time, so does a community.

This woman has been inhabiting the new, paved-over (albeit with ultra-manicured patches of mono-grass) "commons," surrounded by massive construction projects--where the only neighborhood grocery store once stood. and newly finished condos and townhouses surrounded her and the newly arrived affluent inhabitants sniff in disgust as they pass by. Other homeless people have begun to regularly gather there on benches.

I first noticed the petite nomad woman on Saturday where she sat quietly in the warm sunshine feeding the birds next to her solitary cart. The next morning she had expanded her one cart to two, and by Sunday night, her holdings had grown to four carts, two on either side of the bench she inhabited. Everything was arranged in tidy bundles and bags and covered with items of clothing in shades of blue. The cherry on this visual blueberry cake was a bright red and yellow sign--Fremont Condos.

I don't know how long the she will be able to stay there, but I hope she remains safe--from the authorities, the wealthy investment flippers, and from the newly arrived groups of taggers and street thugs that have also proliferated since the community destruction began-- coincidence, synchronicity or simply one more symptom of social trauma? I'll post updated photos on the nomad woman for as long as she remains.