An American writer recalls his interlaced friendships with four Northern California painters at the turn of the millennium and beyond. The painters were Paul Wonner and Bill (William Theophilus) Brown, both of whom were associated with the Bay Area figurative movement of the 1950s, along with Jack Freeman of San Francisco and Sachal (Alexander Lioutikoff), born in Kiev and once renowned by the San Francisco Chronicle as "the Michelangelo of Highway 101."