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For many of us, the time we spend riding BART or Muni can be one of the least inspiring parts of the day. It’s a time out of time, spent mostly waiting to be somewhere else. Commuters with headphones snake headphones from ear to ear, eyes focused on smartphones and iPads, or on the pages of books and newspapers. And on the train, it’s sometimes too loud to talk to anyone, even when you want to.
Local painter Brett Amory sees that experience differently. For him, public transportation is a gathering place – kind of like a town square on wheels. And it’s given him the perfect venue to find the subjects of his paintings.
Amory has been getting lots of attention in gallery shows in San Francisco, San Jose, LA, New York, and London. KALW’s Julie Caine sat down to talk to him about the inspiration behind his work. He says it all started back in 2000 on his daily commute on BART...
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Broadcast History
KALW 91.7FM:
October 26, 2011
Transcript
BRETT AMORY: I was living in San Francisco and I was working in Emeryville. I was taking BART every day to work, and I noticed how BART would be packed with people and there'd be this disconnect. People rarely look at each other, you know, let alone speak to each other. And everyone seemed to be in their own little worlds.
JULIE CAINE: Riding the train everyday, painter Brett Amory was intrigued by the anonymity of the people all around him. He wanted to know what they were thinking about. He wanted to imagine their lives. So he started painting them. He called the series “Waiting.”
AMORY: It's essentially about waiting to be somewhere else – in transit – and how there's this disconnect. While we're waiting for something, we're off in our own thought. You know, we're thinking about our past, we're thinking about our future, but most of us aren't in the present moment. And we're not re...
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