“The City Is My Sweetheart”: Remembering the Art of Peet Lum

As another big move comes to an end, it’s time to figure out where all the art goes. I’ve collected a lot of small paintings and sculptures over the years, so this process always fills me with nostalgia for the San Francisco artists I’ve met along the way. None hit me harder than these two paintings by Pete “Peet” Lum.

I think this is the fifth home where I’ve hung these two paintings over the past twenty years. Every time I unpack them, I end up thinking about Peet and that era of San Francisco all over again.

Peet was a fixture of the San Francisco art scene in the mid-2000s. He played drums with the Human Beans, painted graffiti as “Goonies”, and could regularly be found selling his paintings on sidewalks around the Mission District. His paintings often featured cassette tapes, clouds, telephone poles, and whimsical phrases like “The city is my sweetheart” or “We never sleep”. He frequently used found objects, like 2x4s and chunks of wood from construction sites, and kept his palette limited to 3 colors at a time.

His pieces were incredibly cheap, probably ranging from $5-$50, which was perfect for broke-ass artists like myself who loved his work but didn’t have much to offer for it. Peet Lum wasn’t necessarily a famous artist, but if you lived in the Mission around 2005–2006, there’s a very good chance you have one of his paintings hanging somewhere in your home.

When he wasn’t selling paintings, Peet was tagging the city with two recurring characters: a Pac-Man-style ghost with spiraled eyes and a melancholy little bear with a fang hanging out and a heart on its chest. His graffiti name was “Goonies,” though he rarely needed to write it. The characters, along with short phrases lifted from his paintings, were recognizable enough on their own.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve described Peet’s work to friends only to hear, “Oh yeah, I had one of his paintings. Whatever happened to that guy?” Sadly, Peet passed away on May 25th, 2006.

Peet’s art had a huge influence on me, but I didn’t know him personally. Our bands played a few shows together, and I’d chat with him whenever I ran into him on the street, but we never really hung out beyond that. I loved his characters, his phrases, and the clean, crisp lines in his work, but mostly I loved how much Peet cared about this city.

San Francisco’s art scene in the 2000s felt so full of energy and possibility. There was amazing art and music everywhere, and the city still felt affordable enough for weird little scenes like this to thrive.

Whenever I see Peet’s work, I’m immediately transported back to my early days in this city and how exciting it all was.

If you have a story about Peet, or photos you think I should include in this post, you can leave a comment below or email me at [email protected]. And if you have any of Peet’s old work laying around, I’d love to add it to my collection. I’m still broke, but maybe we could trade stories or yo-yos 🙂

Gemini: A new kind of hell from Google.

(a modified Google ad spotted this morning) #SFGraffiti #SanFrancisco

Carreau de céramique posé quelque part sur Mission Street à San Francisco (Etats unis). Des céramiques sauvages similaires semblent apparaître régulièrement dans la ville suivant le principe éprouvé de la dissemination aléatoire d’objets d’art dans l’espace urbain. Auteur⋅e inconnu⋅e (ou anonyme).

Photo trouvé sur le compte Pixelfed de DocPop (joueur de yo-yo, artiste et vidéaste de son état), une très bonne source sur le street art à San Francisco. N’hésitez pas à suivre.

— https://pixelfed.social/DocPop
— https://docpop.org

#StreetArt #Ceramique #ArtAnonyme #CreativeCommons #SanFrancisco #SFgraffiti @DocPop