Through story and images, Asha Carolyn Young portrays the industrial, western waterfront of Oakland, California during the early 1990s. Rugged train tracks, horn-blasting trains, towering cranes, dilapidated warehouses -- all spring to life through Young's images and prose.
Uprooted and devastated by the Oakland Hills Firestorm of 1991, Young and then-husband Malcolm Clark moved to a work-live space in west Oakland overlooking train tracks, Schnitzer Steel buildings, and the Port of Oakland shipyard. They moved there partly because of difficulties securing nice rental homes after the firestorm, with so many people searching. However, the new location brought a sense of freedom and creative discovery for her, as well as for Malcolm, who was a musician. Over the course of several years, Young portrayed the industrial terrain in various mediums from windows overlooking it.
Young first saw industrial terrains in Bangkok, Thailand as a young child, and they captivated her attention. The West Oakland industrial area mesmerized her later when riding BART to and from the East Bay and San Francisco.
REVIEWS:
I also thank you for sending a copy of avant gardeindustrial sketches/paintings by Asha Carolyn Young of sites in Oakland, the location of my birth and growing up, (to a point) which began in September 1928. Her work captures many of the less attractive sites in the city with color, sensitivity and the starkness of industrial life which few venture to portray. Only one or a few with an eye or vision for stark reality would dare to reveal the haunting feeling of man’s industrial pragmatism combined with the colors and expansiveness of nature, and would turn out such a volume in the competitive art world. I hope Ms. Young is successful with her unusual efforts, for they do paint an important exposition of those elements of life we so depend upon but tend to ignore, as we enjoy the gratifying fruits of their flowering.
--Brother Mel Anderson (formerly with St. Mary’s College)
Asha's personal history is told so poetically -- it's truly a "phoenix rising from the ashes" story, and so well told.
-- Susan Crutcher, former film editor
Journey to the Tracks: Industrial Landscape Paintings and Sketches of Oakland, California by Asha Carolyn Young is a relatively short book, filled with reflective impressions and expressions. Part is a personal narrative of Asha’s life, while the rest are her personal paintings and drawings of the places she’s been and the things she has seen.
I absolutely loved this book from its very beginning to the last page. It’s like this book was calling out to me: ‘Stop and smell the roses! Slow down long enough toappreciate the world around you! Reflect, breathe in, enjoy!’ It is apparent by both Asha’s words and pictures that her world means a lot to her. Those rustic buildings and familiar railroad tracks mean everything to her. A safe place. Comfortable.
Journey to the Tracks is the type of book that I wish we Americans would take in and emulate more and more. But our hectic and harried lifestyle in today’s society often pushes away the quiet and reflective ideas which we need so badly. This book provides that reflection, both in pictures and prose.
The pictures express both the colors and intensity the writer communicates through her words. They ooze quietness and reflection, through and through. The repeated scenes presented during different seasons are eye catching, emphasizing the importance of those places to the author. Journey to the Tracks: Industrial Landscape Paintings and Sketches of Oakland, California by Asha Carolyn Young is a delightful book that readers of all ages will enjoy reading over and over again.
--Reviewed by Bruce Arrington for Readers’ Favorite (5 Stars)
Journey to the Tracks: Industrial Landscape Paintings and Sketches of Oakland, California is a nonfiction arts book written and illustrated by Asha Carolyn Young. Young is an author, artist and educator who lived in the old Del Monte warehouse in the Oakland industrial area for several years after her neighborhood was destroyed by the Oakland Hills fire. The huge windows looking out onto the intricate webbing of train tracks leading off in all directions, which were highlighted by the bright reds and yellows of train cars and the muted rust tones of the nearby Schnitzer Steel recycling facility, spoke to the imagination and memories of the author of those earlier times when she was seven years old and living in Bangkok, Thailand with her family. She commuted by bus daily through industrial areas to get to the small school she attended. While her artistic interests also include portraits, plein air landscapes and abstracts, the industrial landscape speaks most powerfully to her creative muse.
I would challenge anyone who’s ever travelled by rail, whether it be a daily commute into New York City or an Amtrak adventure across the country, not to admit to a certain fascination with the industrial landscapes that are passed along the way, places where travelers by car are not privileged to see, places of infinite mystery and intrigue. There’s something inexplicably enticing about those curving steel lines of railroad tracks leading off into far-off places, a sense of promise that following any of those silver lines would take you somewhere special, new, exotic. Young captures that sense of wonder, that wanderer’s spirit so well in her sketches and paintings of the Oakland train tracks. Perched in the background like the fabled land of Oz, the San Francisco skyline appears misty, dreamlike and unreal, while, in stark contrast, those tracks lead to places; some heading to the great northern plains, others curving around and heading to sunnier, southern climes.
The Bay Area changes shape, texture and color daily as one watches, due to the fog patterns which bathe the area in protective coolness during the summer mornings, only fitfully and slowly receding as the hours march on. In her work, Stormy Sky over Shipyard and Steel Mill, one sees the vast, blue tinged clouds swirling and dominating the sky and the darkened images of the warehouses and recycling plant while the golden touches of lighted windows echo the bright living hues of the pampas grass, and the reds of a train car and ancient truck cab grab the eye and demand closer scrutiny. Train and Brick Wall with San Francisco Skyline shows a muted, foggy landscape filled with gray tones that are broken by vivid splashes of red on the approaching trains, containers and far-off remnants in the distance. On a clearer morning, in Oakland Train Tracks and San Francisco Skyline, the city stands distant but somewhat clearer with the fog still looming out over the Pacific in the far distance. One sees the greens of grassy spaces between the tracks and the answering greens of a warehouse and the turquoise-blue of the morning sky.
A particular favorite of mine is an untitled piece showing Schnitzer Steel Works and the shipyard under a pale green-tinged sky, fronted by trailers which seem to be floating effortlessly on air, anchored to reality only by the pampas grass and greenery which separate the airy surface from the neighboring warehouse. The red roofs of the buildings and the answering rust tones of the scrap hill stand in stark contrast to the parallel sky and foreground. In Sun and Clouds over San Francisco with West Overland Overpass and Tracks, the artist’s use of pastels transforms the industrial area into a fantasy scene with shades that blend from muted reds and pinks and greens up to the iconic vision of San Francisco bathed in fog with a fresh orange slice of sun peeking through. Young also teases the imagination in her introduction with her oil painting Old Bear Cat and Blooming Magnolia Tree, which had me remembering the joy I felt on first discovering the work of the Fauves, the vibrancy of colors and shapes, lush landscapes and Old Bear standing as resident muse and hale companion. Journey to the Tracks is a visual feast for the imagination, a sequence of journeys into the unknown. Each painting and sketch is a delight, filled with the elements of surprise and mystery. It’s most highly recommended.
--Reviewed by: Jack Magnus for Readers Favorite (5 Stars)
Journey to the Tracks: Industrial Landscape Paintings and Sketches of Oakland, California is written by Asha Carolyn Young. This illustrated book reflects the life of the author, first giving a brief outline of her childhood in Thailand, and later her life in Oakland, California. Initially living in the quiet and picturesque area of Montclair in Oakland Hills, but following on from the devastating firestorm in 1991, Young moved to an industrial area completely different from Montclair. But the author found beauty in the towering cranes and industrial buildings and endlessly passing locomotives on the train tracks that she could see from her window, which inspired her artistic and spiritual inner self to produce the paintings included in this book.
The author’s story of her life journey to self-fulfillment is very interesting, albeit brief. It gives the reader a taste of an unusual life and journey which could have been expanded, but works well as a brief encounter between author and reader. The paintings are expressive, in particular the changing stormy skies and the lack of greenery and natural colour of living things which was so apparent in earlier pictures from Montclair. This shows clearly the contrast of environments in which the author lived. The brief story line and the art work blend well together to bring the reader a taste of the author’s life. Asha Carolyn Younghas created a nice piece of work and should be encouraged to expand on her experiences and to share more.
-- Reviewed by: Jane Finch for Readers Favorite (5 Stars)