Here is the current work of Tyler Hoare that you probably know the best.

These large airplane sculptures are what we know best of the work of Tyler Hoare.  Until recently there was a third such work to be seen in the garden courtyard of  NIAD in Richmond:

This triplane will soon be shown at the Compound gallery, 1145-1167 65th Street in Oakland.

Tyler Hoare (silent “H”) arrived in Berkeley in 1966 after earning a BFA from the University of Kansas in drawing and painting. He began building sculptures that he installed in and along the Bay, in Emeryville and Berkeley.  All of these following photos are courtesy of Hoare.

This next shot is a screenshot from YouTube, “Berkeley! Past & Present” by Ian Ransley.

A friend who is always doing this kind of weird “coincidence” thing sent me a link to the video just as I was working on this post.

Over the years Hoare tried making a couple of boats.  In 1978 he built an 18-foot Viking ship.

He moored it to the Red Baron.  Within days, if not hours, the Bay had taken it.  The Bay giveth, and the Bay taketh away.

Ditto with a pirate ship.  The Bay tore it lose from its mooring and it washed up on the beach where the Bay unmade that which Hoare had made.  Hoare says “The Bay is my gallery.”  He gathers the materials for his sculpture from the shores of the Bay, and for 40+ years his work has been seen in and along the Bay.

The bay and weather are rough on his work.  He doesn’t seem to take it personally.  It doesn’t seem to discourage him.

Even mounted on a pier, there are challenges to keeping the planes intact.  Vandals love the propellors.  Here Hoare is replacing a set – a regular deal.

Hoare made a living designing home and commercial renovations – most notably a number of Mel’s Diner locations.  And he has never stopped making art.

Since the summer of 1976, he has maintained a gallery in Albany.  It is filled with sculpture and collages and notebooks (explained below).   All of the sculpture is made by assemblage, not by carving, addition not subtraction.  Here is some of it:

Hoare is a maker of scrapbooks.

He also keeps notebooks with collages.

 

The page on the bottom reflects Hoare’s love of Car Culture.  Hoare is well past 400 notebooks with collages.  The Bancroft Library is acquiring them in increments.

Hoare also works in collage.

Collage is easier to transport and less expensive than sculpture. And very cool.

Hoare does his work in his garage in the Berkeley hills above Colusa.

This is the airplane sculpture seen above at NIAD in Richmond, bound for The Compound gallery in Oakland. The garage walls are lined with Hoare work:

Again, the painting breaks the plane.  Hoare’s art fills the house.

This piece came with Hoare and his wife from Kansas.  It fit well into a shipping carton made for a mattress.

This is another piece that came from Kansas in the mattress carton.  It shows Hoare’s tendency to paint outside the plane of the canvas.  He was criticized by some at Kansas for this tendency.

My interest in Hoare’s work has a personal dimension as well.

Robert Regan was my most beloved professor at the University of Pennsylvania.  I took several American literature classes from him.  Boy did he inspire!

I visited him in Philadelphia in 2015.  He talked of his time in Berkeley in the late 1960s studying at Cal, working on his dissertation on Twain.  While here, he met and became friends with Hoare, who gave him this sculpture.  Small world!   Dr. Regan died in the summer of 2016.  I remember him.

So there it is – a glimpse into four decades of relentless creativity.  Tyler Hoare is enjoying the greatest commercial success of his career now.  He has waited, he deserves it.

If you would like to schedule a visit to Hoare’s gallery, call him at 510-527-1885.  He can also tell you where he is showing at the moment.  

I asked my friend about the draft post, the photos of the sculpture.

“I know someone.”  (The way he said “someone” was kind of a tip off that this “someone” was not just any “someone.”)  “She remembers family drives in the late 70s and early 80s and loving the Red Baron.”

Okay.  Good.  My friend has a friend!  But what about the post?