After years of shunning kitsch, I recently did a big old pivot and embraced kitsch fully and without qualification as an acceptable manifestation of Quirky Berkeley. I have published five posts directly or indirectly about kitsch, condensed here.
The front yard at 1106 Colusa Ave. is remarkable. There are two beach-trash sculptures by neighbor Mark Olivier, and there are dozens of little examples of kitsch.
A block north on Colusa is La Escuelita.
It is a pre-school run by Carlos Baraza. The front yard is kitsch on steroids.
This place really rocks quirky kitschy on holidays.
Wandering around Berkeley, here are a few more examples of lovely kitsch.
Lastly, I did entire post on artificial flowers, which are quintessential kitsch.
Aren’t we glad that I went for Big Tent Quirky Berkeley, seeing kitsch as a legitimate expression of quirk? I think that I largely shied away from the embrace of kitsch for fear of appearing judgmental. I welcome kitsch to the family.
For a fuller version of this post with many more photos, see the posts of kitsch at 1106 Colusa, 1017 Colusa, a kitsch combo, Olivia Hunter’s pink and purple house and artificial flowers.
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 8,000 photographs of quirky objects around town as well as posts where the 30-plus-year resident muses on what it all means.
