The Shoemaker

It is always a struggle for me to get started on a new piece after I finish a painting. When this happened recently, a friend gave me a 3-word prompt: 1890’s, San Francisco, Chinese.
When I entered that prompt in Google, a photograph named The Shoemaker, taken by Arnold Genthe around 1896 popped up.  Research told me that in San Francisco during that period, Chinatown was a segregated area, as thoroughly segregated as black districts of the South during the same time period.
The intensity of this man’s gaze from almost 130 years ago fascinated me.