Around the corner from Doug Heine’s sculpture studio and house with an airplane crashing into the roof, and just south on Fifth Street from the home of Rob Garross with a caboose in the driveway, is a collection of balanced rocks and a trapezoid-ish raised gravel bed small world.
Tom Dalzell
Freelancer Tom Dalzell has lived in Berkeley since 1984. After working for Cesar Chavez and the United Farm Workers for 10 years as a legal worker and then lawyer, he went to work for another labor union in 1981 and has been there since, first as an attorney, and, since 2006, as its elected leader. In his free time he walks the streets of Berkeley, street by street and block by block, recording and photographing the quirky material culture that he finds. Dalzell, who is an expert on slang, writes the Quirky Berkeley blog and contributes to Berkeleyside about his finds, both in the present tense and with an occasional foray into Berkeley’s non-conformist past.
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How Quirky is Berkeley? Conny Bleul’s non-public art
Photo: John Storey You probably know at least some of Conny Bleul’s public art. You probably have seen the folk art in front of her home on Marin, just below Colusa, and you may have seen her murals at the Berkeley Marina. Berkeleyside published a story I wrote about her public art in 2014. Here I […]
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How Quirky is Berkeley? Post-it art at the Tioga Building
2020 Milvia St. (Tioga Building). Photo, taken in the summer of 2016, by John Storey As the Stonefire building rises from the dust of the Firestone tire dealership on Milvia Street, just south of University Avenue, young people in tech companies on the fourth and second floors of the office building at 2020 Milvia gifted […]
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How Quirky is Berkeley? Stefen’s murals
2000 University Ave., at Milvia. Photo: Stefen 2000 University Ave., at Milvia. Photo: Stefen From 1974 until 1977, the mural shown above was on the long wall (25′ by 90′) at the southeast corner of Milvia and University, then a Dutch Boy Paint store, now Au Coquelet. The design and execution were by Stefen. Jeff Dayton painted some […]
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How Quirky is Berkeley? Recently lost murals
1340 Martin Luther King Jr. Way. Photo: John Storey The “Welcome to the Lorin District” mural is no longer visible. It is now obstructed by a new building on the north. Murals are intrinsically temporal – they come and they go. We seem to be in no danger of losing our mural identity but, over […]
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Photos: The early days of Berkeley’s now-gone Print Mint
Don Schenker (far left) co-owner of the Print Mint, which became Reprint Mint — a fixture on Telegraph Avenue for more than 50 years. Allen Ginsberg (with beard) is in center of photo. Photo: Courtesy San Francisco Chronicle/Peter Breinig, 1965 When the Reprint Mint closed in late November, Telegraph Avenue and Berkeley lost another portal […]
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How Quirky is Berkeley? Rainbows!
1717 Cedar St. Photo: John Storey Editors — Berkeleyside readers have been sharing some wonderful photographs of rainbows with us recently, so we thought it was timely to publish this Quirky Berkeley post. Tom Dalzell: I roughly divide my posts into two groups. First, a major manifestation is a collection of photos taken at a […]
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Quirky Berkeley: Eni Green’s Harper Street Doxie temple
3026 Harper St. Photo: John Storey The large Doggie Diner head peeking over the driveway gate is the largest piece of dachshund art in Eni Green’s Harper Street front yard. Doxie lovers — this is for you. Quirk lovers — this is for you. Eni Green. Photo: John Storey Green has loved dachshunds since she […]
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How quirky is Berkeley? DIY quirk on Peralta Avenue
680 Peralta Ave. Photo: John Storey I often feature quirky yards with high production values — collectors or professional sculptors or painters who are gifting their art to the street. They are fine and good, but there are other types of quirk. Quirk is not one-size fits all. There are the high-produced examples, and then there […]
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How Quirky is Berkeley? Art Ratner’s miniature buildings
Art Ratner. Photo: John Storey Art Ratner has been fixing Japanese cars in Berkeley for more than 30 years. His energy, intelligence and humor make him liked. The best-in-the-Bay work done by his shop, Art’s Automotive on San Pablo between Russell and Oregon, make him sought-after. Many know him, but not many know of his […]
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How Quirky is Berkeley? Magic (sculpture) garden on Heinz
729 Heinz Ave. Photo: John Storey In the 1980s and 1990s, 729 Heinz Ave. was home to Magic Gardens, a wonderful and, yes, magical nursery. It is long gone now, and after some years of farrow fields, the Magic Gardens space is once again a fertile garden, now housing a changing cast of sculpture. The Artworks […]
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How Quirky is Berkeley? Bumper stickers still and more
In Berkeley, we love our bumper stickers. We wear our beliefs and humor on our bumpers. Longtime residents may lose sight of our bumper sticker population, but Mykael Moss has not.
