SF’s cheapest gas fuels a 365-day photography project

SF’s cheapest gas fuels a 365-day photography project

Turns out that the Arco has the cheapest gas in the city, which means a line of cars up Fell, day and night, with tension and fights as if this were 1973.

[...] one day Krouse put his Canon G11 on a tripod in his dining room bay window and took a picture of the scene, including the price of gas on a big blue sign.

“Each square on that billboard represents one day of the year,” Krouse explains while standing beneath his work, as the western wind dances through his spiky hairdo, hence his nickname, Spike.

The Arco Project” is at the Union 76 station across Divisadero, which has a billboard facing east to catch all those motorists waiting in line at the Arco, plus those roaring by homebound for the Haight and the Avenues, and bicyclists on “the Wiggle.

The day-to-day gas price fluctuation is impossible to study without parking and pulling out binoculars.

The show, in two locations, is up until May 8 and cannot be extended because Krouse had to rent that billboard from Clear Channel Outdoor at full market rate, which could have bought him a used car for waiting in that Arco line.

With the oil wars and the fights and everything, I set up a camera and started taking pictures.

Anybody who came through his dining room could take a picture, including Madrone bartenders upstairs on a bathroom break and Krouse’s two daughters, Isabella, 12, and Seraphina, 6.

“It is all by random chance, whoever pushes the button,” he says.

[...] there was always the random chance that the family pet Lenny, a 225-pound English mastiff, could disrupt the whole setup with one wag of the tail.

Krouse would go away for weekends or on vacation, but somehow somebody always snapped an image, day or night, rain or shine or fog, and always wind and a line of cars, even on Christmas Day.

When he started out, in 2013, low-grade unleaded was $3.33 a gallon at the Arco.

[...] the tripod is still in the bay window, and Krouse and his kids and dog are still taking daily pictures, now that his artwork is added to the streetscape.

[...] if, as predicted, gas prices start to rise again, who knows?