Quirky Berkeley

The Quirky Material Culture of Berkeley

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August 2, 2014 by tomdalzell

Major Quirk

 

Gate-RoofBuddhist Shrine on Arch Street

Frederic Fierstein’s Buddhist altar/shrine on Arch Street.  A gift to the street, given without expectation of reward.

 

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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.

 

L1210149-940x940Giant Orange on Spruce Street

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.

 

707-Spruce-1Buldan 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.

 

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Double V on Vassar

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.

Quirky BerkeleyLittle Pigs on McGee

A large and varied collection of pigs in farm tableaus and not.

 

Quirky BerkeleyRaven Chaos on Short Street

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.

 

Quirky BerkeleyA Small World on Monterey

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.

 

Cathy-1Mark 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.

 

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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.

Quirky Berkeley in Berkeley, Calif., is seen on Thursday,  June 20th, 2013.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!

 

Fish-1The 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.

 

Page-1Doug Heine’s Sculpture on Page Street

Sculpture and whirligigs and an airplane seemingly crashed into the roof.  Something for everyone.

 

Quirky Berkeley in Berkeley, Calif., is seen on Thursday,  June 20th, 2013.Eni Green’s Doxies on Harper Street

Dachshund sculpture.  Lots of it.  And a Doggie Diner head in the driveway.

 

Pardee-31The Wall of Democracy on Pardee

Leaflets and posters and newspaper articles and signs and hand-written screeds. Lots of opinions.

 

Quirky BerkeleyMarcia Donahue’s Jungle Art on Wheeler Street

A master gardener and a sculptor.  What a combination!  Exotic.  Lush. Whimsical.  Magical.  Quirky.  Inspiring.

 

Talbot-5Bright 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.

 

Quirky Berkeley in Berkeley, Calif., is seen on Thursday,  June 20th, 2013.Another Small World – On Russell Street (Going / Gone)

Toys.  Cities.  Stones.  On the verge.  You can play with them.  People do.

 

Quirky Berkeley in Berkeley, Calif., is seen on Thursday,  June 20th, 2013.

Baseball on 9th Street

Bas relief celebrating the Oakland A’s.  Vernacular.

 

 

Quirky_092013_0316-XLNormandy Village (Thornburg Village) on Spruce Street

Magical.  Close your eyes – Berkeley 1929.  Magical.

 

 

Buddha-in-water-heaterTunnel  Road/Oakridge Path: Found Object Sculpture

Decades of work by Marion Fredman, her children, and her grandchildren.  Out of sight.

 

Quirky BerkeleyMichael Parayno’s Birdhouses on Sacramento Street

Rustic birdhouses.  A jazz club.  A little free library.  Urban chickens.  A man too free for Berkeley.

 

"Quirky 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.

 

Quirky Berkeley 09-14-2016

Connie Bleul’s Non-Public Art

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.

 

2315 Carleton

Bulwinkle in Berkeley

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.

"Quirky Berkeley"

Bulwinkle at Malcolm X

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.

More Bulwinkle!

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!

 

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Painted Bulwinkle Walls

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!

 

Quirky Berkeley 05-12-16

Bulwinkle Tiles

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.

Quirky Berkeley 05-12-16

The Faces of Mad Monk

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!

Quirky Berkeley 01-30-2017

Field Trip – Bulwinkle Plaza

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.

Quirky Berkeley 08-20-2018

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.

"Inside Quirky Berkeley"

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.

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Bulwinkle in the Desert

Mark Bulwinkle, ground zero of Quirky Berkeley, is slowly moving his work to Joshua Tree.  Here – a visit to the desert and his steel.

 

Quirky Berkeley 04-11-2017

Back to Helly Welly

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.

"Inside Quirky Berkeley"

Art at Scenic and Cedar

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.

"Quirky Berkeley"

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!

"Quirky Berkeley-03/19/2015"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.

"Quirky Berkeley April 3, 2015"

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.

 

"Quirky Berkeley 05--07-2015"

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.

"Quirky Berkeley 05-29-2015"

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.

"Quirky Berkeley 05--07-2015"

Tad Dellinger’s Art Wall

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.

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Quirky Hillegass – Mystery!

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!

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The Caboose on Fifth Street

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.

2Amador Village: Gone. Come Back.

I contemplate the beauty of something ephemeral, a small quirky world on Amador.  It went away.  And then came back.

 

"Quirky Berkeley 09-26-2015"

The Butterfly House on Bancroft

Olivia Hunter’s violet and pink celebration of butterflies, dragonflies, owls, and peacocks.  And Dutchess III, dog royalty.

 

Peter Mitchell

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.

 

Quirky Berkeley

Jana Olson’s Lamps and Garden

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.

 

Quirky Berkeley 11-10-2015

Dick and Beany Wezelman

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+

 

Photo: Colleen Neff

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.

 

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OMG!  2233 McKinley

A house with stuff outside and Berkeley cultural history cred. And Howie Gordon.  And two rooms inside that slay.

 

Quirky Berkeley 12-30-2015

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.

 

Quirky Berkeley in Berkeley, Calif. on November 23rd, 2019.

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.

 

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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.

 

Quirky Berkeley 02-15-16

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!

"Quirky Berkeley"

UFO on Vine Street

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.

Quirky Berkeley 09-14-2016

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.

Quirky Berkeley 10-02-2016

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.

Quirky Berkeley 03-21-2017

Jacquet Magique on Monterey

A rainbow fence with 13 colors not 7.  Bricks as books on a bookshelf.  A marble gate.  Magic!  Thanks to Tara and Gregoire Jacquet.

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