{"id":4734,"date":"2014-01-24T07:31:40","date_gmt":"2014-01-24T15:31:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.postdiluvianphoto.com\/blog\/?p=4734"},"modified":"2014-01-24T15:20:46","modified_gmt":"2014-01-24T23:20:46","slug":"american-working-man","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.postdiluvianphoto.com\/blog\/2014\/01\/24\/american-working-man-4734\/","title":{"rendered":"American Working Man"},"content":{"rendered":"

This article originally appeared on January 24, 2014 in The Alamedan<\/a>. Michele Ellson, editor.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Gabriele

Gabriele Bungardt takes a break with her painting by that name, at Spritzers Cafe<\/p><\/div>\n

In this economy, the barista making your morning latte might have a Masters degree, and the day laborer waiting for work at the curb may have left behind a lucrative profession when they immigrated to the United States. Artist Gabriele Bungardt knows this predicament all too well. Besides being a painter, in her native Germany she was a successful industrial designer, but when she moved to this country in 1983 she spent three years busing tables and cleaning houses to make ends meet, stymied by her limited English.<\/p>\n

\"Gabriele

Gabriele Bungardt, “Daily Wait,” Acrylic<\/p><\/div>\n

Watching the news, \u201cthe faltering economy, the Occupy Movement, the 99 percent\u201d resonated with Bungardt, inspiring her to create \u201cAmerican Working Man,\u201d a series of more than a dozen acrylic paintings, all completed since 2012. \u201cAmerican Working Man\u201d currently depicts precisely that, but she plans to return to the project, including working women as well. Her intent is for the series to spotlight \u201cjust working people,\u201d she said. These works are on display at Spritzers Cafe.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m a very political person and very aware of economic stresses on the population,\u201d Bungardt said. \u201cSince I\u2019m an immigrant I\u2019m really aware of how things changed in this country since I moved here. Especially with Obama everyone was talking about the middle class, but no one was talking about the working class or the working poor. With the Occupy movement it came more and more to my attention, the problems of the working class, especially in the Bay Area.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bungardt was already an established professional artist, perhaps best known for her pet portraits. But after opening popUp Gallery in 2012 along with Mi\u2019Chelle Frederick at 1517 Park Street, a venue also occupied by Autobody Fine Art, her creativity took off. \u201cWe do new work for every show,\u201d Bungardt said. \u201cI have felt that I have developed in quite a new direction that I probably wouldn\u2019t have gone as fast into, if I didn\u2019t have the audience of the gallery.\u201d This includes dramatic figurative work such as that now on display.<\/p>\n

She describes her subjects as \u201cthe everyday heroes who scratch out a living and hope their paychecks will stretch far enough to cover the basics. Beyond these exhausted faces, we see the families who depend on them; we imagine their dreams and share in their hopes for a better future.\u201d Without being melodramatic, Bungardt does effectively express just how taxing their labor is. In \u201cEnd of Day\u201d a dock worker trudges off the work site, head bowed and jeans ripped at both knees, and in \u201cThe Long Way Home\u201d a truck driver leans against the cab, dwarfed by his vehicle on a 5’x5′ canvas, rubbing his eyes beneath the brim of his cap.<\/p>\n

\"Gabriele

Gabriele Bungardt, “The Long Way Home,” acrylic<\/p><\/div>\n

Bungardt avoids glamorization and romanticizing. These are not propaganda posters of workers cowed under a foreman\u2019s lash. Still, the danger faced by workers in some of the lowest paying jobs is quite real. She photographed workers cutting down her trees and \u201cflying through the air.\u201d Her painting based on that photo shows one of them, tethered but balanced precariously, a chainsaw in one hand while he arches his back and reaches for a branch with the other. He is literally going out on a limb \u2014 risking life and limb \u2014 for a day\u2019s pay. Bungardt titled that piece \u201cMinimum Wage.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Gabriele

Gabriele Bungardt, “Minimum Wage,” acrylic<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cAmerican Working Man\u201d will be on display through February 20. Spritzers Cafe is located at 734 Central Avenue. They are open from 6 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday and from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. (510) 995-8644<\/p>\n

Michael Singman-Aste
\nPostdiluvian Photo<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This article originally appeared on January 24, 2014 in The Alamedan. Michele Ellson, editor. In this economy, the barista making your morning latte might have a Masters degree, and the day laborer waiting for work at the curb may have left behind a lucrative profession when they immigrated to the United States. Artist Gabriele Bungardt […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[23],"tags":[73,940,189,879,486],"class_list":["post-4734","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-artists","tag-alameda","tag-expressions-gallery","tag-gabriele-bungardt","tag-spritzers-cafe","tag-the-alamedan"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pPxQO-1em","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.postdiluvianphoto.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4734","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.postdiluvianphoto.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.postdiluvianphoto.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.postdiluvianphoto.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.postdiluvianphoto.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4734"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"http:\/\/www.postdiluvianphoto.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4734\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4751,"href":"http:\/\/www.postdiluvianphoto.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4734\/revisions\/4751"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.postdiluvianphoto.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4734"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.postdiluvianphoto.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4734"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.postdiluvianphoto.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4734"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}