This cycle, which may continue until our sun--or our planet--fails us...

February 14, 2009 11:33 AM

Wilfred Sätty; 1939 - 1982 Illustrator and Collagist extraordinaire; like many talented people of that era hung out at Vesuvio.
" There is a time in the span of civilizations when creative energy and the human spirit are wholly, if briefly focused. When this occurs culture in all its manifestations reaches its zenith. The moment passes; civilizations decline, only to be replaced by others. This process of life appears cyclic. Communities become tribes, turn into nations and become empires which, like suns, radiate their energy to the limits of their power, then decay and finally vanish, leaving behind only traces. This cycle, which may continue until our sun--or our planet--fails us..... "
When you want to know about someone's life you either ask the person yourself or you ask friends ... Sätty is Dead

Sadly I can find little more of his work online except from artsales sites such as this.

posted by adamvasco (4 comments total)

Fascinating shit, thank you. I look forward to exploring these links. Though I've lived in SF for 30 years, and have done a lot of writing/thinking about the layers of bohemian culture here over the years, I never knew anything about Satty beyond the name. I really appreciate this.

Another amazing collagiste here, of course, was Jess, lover of poet Robert Duncan.
posted by digaman at 11:56 AM on February 14, 2009

When Vesuvio, City Lights, and the Caffe Trieste go, North Beach will be a footnote.
posted by digaman at 11:57 AM on February 14, 2009

As well as "Cosmic Bicycle" and "Time Zone" Satty (real name Wilfried Podriech) authored Visions of Frisco: An Imaginative Depiction of San Francisco during the Gold Rush & The Barbary Coast Era. The link fills out his biography a little. There was also an illustrated Edgar Allen Poe.
posted by adamvasco at 10:44 AM on February 15, 2009

When Vesuvio, City Lights, and the Caffe Trieste go, North Beach will be a footnote.

Not as long as Specs lives on...
posted by msalt at 10:02 PM on February 15, 2009 [1 favorite]