You'd never know it by the looking at this painting, but, the waiter here is an attractive young woman, a real hunny with red hair, blue eyes, classic anglo bones under freckled skin. The restaurant primarily employed male servers, the wait-staff uniform was white shirt, black bow tie, white coat with black paints and shoes below a long, white apron. A very male look for this lovely, long-haired girl and she looked terrific in it.
She dealt with the aggressive, male environment on its own terms, held her own against crude sexual humor, I heard her shut down suggestive frat-boys with lines like, "I would fuck you silly, chew you up and you'd be dead". She could drink any of us under the table and frequently did. Back at the job the next night, strong.
I admired her greatly. In this painting, I saw her as the archetypal worker. Her handsome features made it easy to execute a wild algorithm. In this one, the angular treatment of parts disperses the worker into the environment, fitting for a portrait set in the midst of a delirious restaurant kitchen. The painting gives her one good eye, sharp on the task at hand while all holy hell is breaking loose around her.
Those who haven't worked in restaurants have little appreciation of the number of factors a chef or waiter balance in their co-dependent slamdance. Through peak periods, the entire team flips into a zone of instinctual actions. We were good. As graceful as we were ferocious. This waiter was up there with the best -- faster than thought, slipping through the throng of customers, into the dangerous kitchen, stabbing a new order in my face, lifting three or four just completed plates, zipping back through the swinging doors into San Francisco's hardest partying public. If she had to think about what she did, if she separated herself from the environment, she'd trip over her big shoes and sending plates of steaming food over unsuspecting seated guests.
The many micro images which make this painting one is expressive, accurate. This is social-realism. A worker's painting of a worker at work. Give me the goddamn medal already and let me do my work!
