As the old Cody’s bookstore building on the southwest corner of Telegraph Avenue and Haste Street rises from the ashes, Ken Sarachan’s vision for the Mad Monk Anachronistic Media Center has begun to emerge. When Sarachan moved his Rasputin’s records into the space that today is Bear Basics at Telegraph and Durant, he turned to Mark Bulwinkle and his steel sculpture. Bear Basics has taken the place of Rasputin’s, but the Bulwinkle sculpture remains. And, as Sarachan nurses the Old Cody’s project along, he has turned to Bulwinkle again.
The second story Bulwinkle balcony is powder-coated sheet metal depicting what Bulwinkle calls the flora of Telegraph Avenue.
Serving as corner vectors at each intersection of balcony railing and post is an unpainted, archetypical Bulwinkle manic creature made of unpainted steel.
The building’s interior will feature more Bulwinkle art — sheet metal portraits of iconic Berkeley figures and metal sconces in the style of Mexican papel picado.
For those who know Bulwinkle’s work, the new pieces at the Mad Monk Center are as welcome as the resurrection of the intersection of life at the corner of Telegraph and Haste. For those who don’t know Bulwinkle — check this out and then start looking around for other pieces.
Tom Dalzell, a labor lawyer, created a website, Quirky Berkeley, to share all the whimsical objects he has captured with his iPhone. The site now has more than 8,600 photographs of quirky objects around town as well as posts where the 30-year resident muses on what it all means. For a fuller version of this post and many more photos, see Quirky Berkeley.
Related:
How Quirky is Berkeley? Bulwinkle in Berkeley (09.26.14)
Berkeley history: Rocky and Bulwinkle (11.22.09)
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