I continue to find and photograph murals. I continue to create mural posts. I continue to acknowledge that most murals do not fit the strict guidelines for Quirky Berkeley. I can live with this contradiction.
In about 1979, Lou Silva painted a huge, ecology-themed mural on the west wall of what was the Lucas Bookstore, 2430 Bancroft. now home to University Press Books.
Faded but present. I am told that these not-murals-but-paintings on the house on the southeast corner of Rose and Josephine are also by Lou Silva:
For many years, the second story of the west side of the house was painted with a rose and an eagle. They have been gone for several years now. I have heard speculation that the rose and the eagle honored Rose Bird, former Chief Justice of the California Supreme Court. I don’t know that for a fact and hesitate even to include that speculation here. But I do.
Lou Silva’s most famous – and culturally anachronistic – mural is in San Francisco.
Yes, the Mitchell Brothers. Painted in the late 1970s and early 1980s. What the heck?
Speaking of big murals, here is a Paul Barron mural on Berkeley Way, on the western back wall of the Shattuck Avenue stores, including where Radston’s was for many years.
A few block north of this mural is a reclusive mural at the Jewish Community Center.
On the southwest corner of Alcatraz and Adeline there appears a relatively new (fall 2014) mural, heritage unknown.
This mural brings to four the number of murals on Alcatraz between Sacramento and Adeline. Alcatraz rocks!
The Roxie Food Center on Dwight is now closed. I stopped there frequently in the early days of a Diet Coke habit. This may be a false memory, but I clearly remember a mural on the east wall of a horn of plenty filled with junk food, alcohol, and cigarettes. Does anyone else remember it?
Shortly before Roxie closed, they gave us murals on the east and west walls.
Those are cool murals. Just a few blocks up Dwight at Telegraph is the Shakespeare Book Company. After many staid years, they went wild in 2014 with a bright mural:
I have previously posted many photos of the steel art at Malcolm X School which was produced with the help of Mark Bulwinkle. In the garden that is surrounded by the steel sculptures is this mural:
Here are a few graffiti-style murals off the beaten path:
Last for this installment is a bear mural at Edwards Stadium, painted in 1933 by Dale Bogasky:
I took the mural photos to show my friend. He was deep in contemplation, looking at his iPhone in one hand and two photos in the other.
“The world has changed. I can do all that with this. Or I could if I understood what they were doing. You get my point, don’t you?”
I did. What about this new batch of mural photos?