The signature is hard to read. Matheson? Mathieson? What is that dot? Mathejon?

How do you locate an artist when you do not know the name? I googled, "San Francisco Artist". Yes, there are lots of them.

The paintings that had always been on the wall, place holders, just being there, sort of like wall punctuation, breaking up the space. I had always looked at them and wondered, I did wonder about the man who painted them. His life so different from the lives I thought I knew as a child. No one in our family did anything like paint, or drugs, or live in a garage. When I started looking at the pictures that is what I thought. We, our family, did things right. We stayed under the radar of ever being seen as, well what would you call it, 'the unfortunate?', 'the troubled?', the one with a story that others could tell in a hushed voice? The was something in the air we lived in that asked us not to be seen. Stories about people who were seen were unfortunate. I think that is what we breathed. Trouble comes to those who stand out. Unfortunate stories are told about them. Stories of disapproval.

I wonder, did he have a family somewhere? Before I thought about the paintings I imagined he was a traveling sort of fellow. No family. No children. But now I wonder. Now I know that I do not know. Everyone has a family. Somewhere. Everyone has a place they had to leave in order to go somewhere else. Don't they?

If he earned his living selling art, if his life had highs and lows, and he sold his art for food and rent, which is how my dad got the picture, if he was the kind of guy who could just, 'turn them out', there should be lots of his paintings out there. Did he live in San Francisco or just arrive there in the 60's like so many other people?

I am sure there is something I could put into google that would make this artist come right up but I have no idea what it is. Somewhere, just the right words, the letters in the right order, his first name, James? Henry? Not Steven. I do not think his first name would be Steven. I don't even know his last name.

I do not know how to do this. There is only one thing to do......... Call Maureen.