Buddhist Shrine on Arch Street
Frederic Fierstein’s Buddhist altar/shrine on Arch Street. A gift to the street, given without expectation of reward.
Muffler Men Almost in Berkeley
Ron doesn’t run Ron’s Mufflers anymore. Ron’s Berkeley Mufflers isn’t in Berkeley. But the muffler men out front – really special.
Bruce Dodd rescued and restored this giant orange from the San Joaquin Valley. A perfect artifact of old weird America. My favorite piece of Berkeley quirk.
Buldan Seka’s Ceramic Freaks on Spruce Street
People gasp when they drive by this display for the first time. They are huge. They are bright. And they are odd. Very odd.
With guidance from Keeyla Meadows and sculpture by Patrick Amiot, Randi Hermann has created a gorgeous, quirky front yard – double V’s, a big wolf, a mutt mailbox, and a chicken, all in exotic plantings.
A large and varied collection of pigs in farm tableaus and not.
Andreé Singer Thompson lives here. Her front yard is filled with images of ravens and melting sculpture. Only a few steps from the North Berkeley BART station.
Just a few minutes up Monterey from Monterey Market is a front yard filled with small figures, action and otherwise. Many of them. In action and not.
Mark Olivier’s Beach Trash Art on Colusa
Mark Olilvier collects beach trash. He has visions of what it can be. And he builds it. Amazing. Not to be described or believed. To be visited.
Architectural Quirk to da Max: Dwight and King
Karl Wanaselja and Cate Leger designed a work/live space, multiple units, using recycled highway signs and siding. And Volvo lift gates as a gate. Bonus photos of their home on McGree.
Stan Huncilman’s Sculpture and Signs on Fifth Street
The sculpture and signs in front of Huncilman’s house on Fifth Street are an outward and physical manifestation of an inward and spiritual quirkiness. As in – very quirk!
The Tssui Fish House on Mathews
It’s a tardigrade, not a fish. But that doesn’t matter. This is the crown jewel of quirky architecture in Berkeley.
Doug Heine’s Sculpture on Page Street
Sculpture and whirligigs and an airplane seemingly crashed into the roof. Something for everyone.
Eni Green’s Doxies on Harper Street
Dachshund sculpture. Lots of it. And a Doggie Diner head in the driveway.
The Wall of Democracy on Pardee
Leaflets and posters and newspaper articles and signs and hand-written screeds. Lots of opinions.
Marcia Donahue’s Jungle Art on Wheeler Street
A master gardener and a sculptor. What a combination! Exotic. Lush. Whimsical. Magical. Quirky. Inspiring.
Bright Colors and Unexpected Tableaus on Talbot Street
Probably the brightest colors on a house in Berkeley. And probably the most unexpected juxtapositions of figures and images.
Another Small World – On Russell Street (Going / Gone)
Toys. Cities. Stones. On the verge. You can play with them. People do.
Bas relief celebrating the Oakland A’s. Vernacular.
Normandy Village (Thornburg Village) on Spruce Street
Magical. Close your eyes – Berkeley 1929. Magical.
Tunnel Road/Oakridge Path: Found Object Sculpture
Decades of work by Marion Fredman, her children, and her grandchildren. Out of sight.
Michael Parayno’s Birdhouses on Sacramento Street
Rustic birdhouses. A jazz club. A little free library. Urban chickens. A man too free for Berkeley.
The Public Art of Conny Bleul-Gohlke
A painted garage door. A bench. A mailbox. Animals peeking out from the ivy. All that on Marin. At the Marina, many murals, many styles.
We have seen Connie Bleul’s public art, in front of her home on Marin and down at the Marina. Here – a look at her paintings and painted furniture – quirky as heck.
Marc Bulwinkle is an artist best known for cut steel sculpture. He is a genius. He works very hard. This is a long post about him, focus ultimately on his work that can be found in Berkeley.
Here – 19 photos of rusting steel sculptures on fence posts, a collaboration between Bulwinkle and the students of Malcolm X Elementary School in the 1990s. The kids are adults now. Their art lives.
As the old Cody’s rises from the ashes, a bumper crop of new Bulwinkle work is blooming. Outside, inside, steel, sheet metal, tile. Oh Happy Day!
A collection of walls painted by Mark Bulwinkle. Not the medium for which he is most famous, but a technicolor version of his vision. Big wow!
More Bulwinkle! His quirky tiles – how he makes them, where you can see them. Where you can buy them. The very True North of Quirky.
Old Cody’s is the new Mad Monk Center. In it are nine sculptures by Mark Bulwinkle, honoring cultural and political and academic heroes of Berkeley – including Moe at Cody’s!
It’s President’s Day – let’s conserve on gas and just go to Emeryville. At the Home Depot/Target shopping center we’ll find tons (literally!) of Bulwinkle steel sculpture.
Bulwinkle – Making Big Art Look Easy
Three new works by Bulwinkle – a privacy door in Carmel, a huge gate with Bay Bridge steel in Joshua Tree, and Bulwinkle Dreams Oakland, a big masterpiece of a stand-out painting.
Helly Welly: Quirky Berkeley Personified
Helen Holt’s lamp shop / gallery / home on Dwight is magical. Plain and simple. Maximally quirky. Creative. Fun. Overwhelming. The best. The most. The all.
Mark Bulwinkle, ground zero of Quirky Berkeley, is slowly moving his work to Joshua Tree. Here – a visit to the desert and his steel.
Two and half years after my first visit to Helen Holt’s Helly Welly shop on Dwight I went back. The creativity and quirk rock strong. Lots of new, quirky work.
The art at the northeast corner of Scenic and Cedar is profoundly quirky. Some is the work of owners Dan Werthimer and Mary Kate Morris, while some is made by others. It is a work in progress. It is great.
2634 McGee: Small World and Kitsch
This is the first time that I have used the K-word, and I do so carefully. Lovely, classy kitsch and a lovely, perfect, not too-big small world. nice job!
Webster and College: The Quirky Art Installations of Julie Partos Clark
The woman behind those quirky installations on Webster. Her installations, and her studio and her quirky collage art.
Izzy Sher & His Art: 1950s Berkeley Quirk
Izzy Sher’s sculpture is the work of an autodidact genius. Rust constantly modifies the sculpture – just as Izzy intended.
2910 Ashby: Fence/Doors/Sculpture
Michael O’Malley knows a lot about text-speech conversion technology. And publishing a newspaper. And making a wonderfully quirky fence of doors showcasing his ceramic sculpture.
Keeyla Meadows – Garden and Art
Her house at 1137 Stannage is almost in Berkeley, but it is all the way quirky. Bright bright flowers. Architectural features. Bronze and ceramic sculpture. Exceptional.
For two years, Tad Dellinger gathered the detritus of university life and created a stunning Art Wall on a chain link fence in an alley behind Euclid. It was here but now is gone, remembered here.
A fantastic mishmash of sculpture and colors and signs and lights on Hillegass. With a fantastic backstory that I know nothing about. Quirky Berkeley Nation – rise to the challenge! Tell me the story!
In 1998, Rob Garross bought and moved a Southern Pacific caboose to his driveway on Fifth Street. A caboose! Ultimately American. Ultimately romantic. Ultimately quirky.
Amador Village: Gone. Come Back.
I contemplate the beauty of something ephemeral, a small quirky world on Amador. It went away. And then came back.
The Butterfly House on Bancroft
Olivia Hunter’s violet and pink celebration of butterflies, dragonflies, owls, and peacocks. And Dutchess III, dog royalty.
Car Part Bugs in a Kiosk on Cedar
Several dozen car-part bugs sit in a kiosk at Peter’s Automotive on Cedar. They wait. A bug’s life.
Lamps. Unorthodox Taxidermy. Chicken plates, Marcia Donahue art, Mark Bulwinkle art, John Abduljaami art,the Grotto of Santa Basura. 350 tons of stones and granite.
The Wezelman home on Shattuck – African art, an African mud hut, Jana Olson art, Mark Bulwinkle art, Mark Olivier art, Marcia Donahue art. A brilliant couple. Wow! A+
The art of Arlene Mayerson & Allan Tinker
Art made and collected. Lawyer for the disabled, poet for the incarcerated. Art and social justice. A Really Berkeley couple with tremendous art.
A house with stuff outside and Berkeley cultural history cred. And Howie Gordon. And two rooms inside that slay.
Will Squier – Sufficient Strange Kitsch
New rule – go inside if I want to. Here – Will Squier’s alarmingly amazing collection of what he calls sufficiently strange kitsch.
Will Squier’s Strange Things Again
A third with Squier – a new kitten, new work, and new strange things and assemblages of strange things in his home, emphasis on kitsch. Pure Quirky Berkeley.
Mike Nagamoto: Steel this Art!
What a pun! You know the sax-playing skeleton and the fish on Marin. Meet the maker, see his back yard. Dig the fish.
Curtis Street – Wounded Healer’s Home
Performance artist/shaman Frank Moore lived here until his death in 2013. Linda Mac and Mikee LaBash, longtime collaborators with Moore, live here. The wounded healer’s spirit lives on!
The true story of the UFO landing on Vine Street. A look at the world of George McNeil and Joanna Salska McNeil, art, hidey holes, and tree house. An obvious choice for the alien to land.
Jon Balderston: Quirky Royalty
Jon Balderston makes art furniture. And nonfunctional art. And he collects toys and packages and many things more. He is royalty, or at the very least nobility, of Quirky Berkeley.
Small World at 1422 Fifth Street
Dozens of stacked rocks and a trapezoid-ish gravel box with rocks and little animals – a wonderful addition to the Quirky Berkeley collection of small worlds. Plus a peak at how rocks want to fall up.
A rainbow fence with 13 colors not 7. Bricks as books on a bookshelf. A marble gate. Magic! Thanks to Tara and Gregoire Jacquet.