BULWINKLELAND CALIFORNIA USA
Mark Bulwinkle: My Life as an Artist
"The Christmas Tree" by Wally Hedrick.
Created sometime in the mid 1950s in the
City of San Francisco, California. What does
this have to do with me? Well click on the link
and read on, friends, and you will find out.
"Juggernaut" 1975 - 2010 With a tip of the hat
to Wally Hedrick's "Christmas Tree"
from "The Thrilla on Manila" (1981)
But Bulwinkle is still barking. RRRRwoof!
At John Natsoulas Gallery in Davis, Ca.
Installed in and created in December 2022, 3' x20'
"FREEDUMB"
Damn! Feedumb crashed in cyclonic winds.
"Gone With the Wind"...so to paraphrase.
FreeDumb repurposed as a border fence at my
place in the Mojave Desert of California
Gate to Harrison House, Joshua Tree, California
at night in the winter of 2023
But, we have small woodcuts from 2022!
Instead of a crashed out "Freedumb,"
which has to make the city engineers in
Davis, California deleriously happy.
OK. He tried, so you can't make all of
the people happy all of the time. Paraphrasing
another paraphraser of paraphrases.
And, oh yeah, you can try to challenge nature,
but you will lose, sooner or later.
Onward and inward!
Marky B. in 1992 at Manila St. in Oakland's Rockridge.
It has seemed to me that artist's have always had a starting
point. For me, Wally Hedrick's Christmas Tree which stood
unexplained in the window of a small store front in San Francisco's
Inner Sunset district in 1971, was, at least with welded steel
sculpture, my starting point. The thing never left my mind,
and later, in 1975, when I began to weld, it was still there, like a
virus, waiting to attack me. And it did.
Wrong!
This is why all palm trees should be strung with lights all year long.
"The Aminals Go Golfing"
(My thanks to John Abduljaami for proper pronunciation)
!!!Yikes!!!
First be sure you are wrong, and then go ahead.
!!!YES!!!
"The Aminals Go Golfing"
Hand cut steel with flintstone wheels somewhere in the
Great Mojave Desert in Californa, USA
Enrico's Band Stand makes it to Pioneer Town in
the Mojave Desert. The new owner smiles deleriously.
Happy Birthday, Beautiful!
And thanks so much to Mal Sharpe! Too also!
Yahoo!!
Photo by Eva Soltes of Harrison House in Joshua Tree, California
Santa's Tam by Agnes Rettie of Alameda, California
Bulwinkleland in 1967 (woodcut) 24" x 30"
Printed with a wooden spoon on Sekishu rice paper.
Copies created, signed, and printed with a wooden
spoon by the artist are available by contacting
the John Natsoulas Gallery in Davis, Ca. $3500 ea.
Model for 12 x 27 foot relief painting completed in 2018
I love this thing. Sometimes a person can make art
without ever trying. Maybe that is our best work.
Without ever trying.
Somewhere in California Halloween seems alive forever.
Pvt Hardy's sketches/Vietnam 1969/1970
My front yard in the Mojave Desert
Photos, above and below, by Eva Soltes of Harrison House M,A,&E in Joshua Tree, California
When the temperature goes above 110 degrees in California,
kick back and let heaven flow
Marky B. in the White Water River
Over 6500 thrilled customers and counting
(Discontinued due to nudity portrayed on
small woodcut on the cover of the box.
Well, that took the heart from the lion.)
Just up the road from me in 29, a poem to desert varmints - 2021
1988 - Flame cut Sailor Screen - 8'x33', Oakland, Ca.
Just gimme the leftovers
Dare to be Dumb
Saint Bully
Thanks to Laurel Bellon for these two pics from the early 70s
From 5333 Manila St., Oakland, Ca. 1975
From "Fine Homebuilding" issue 10, 1982
That fine home builder himself in 1992...
Wooly Bully amputating the heart from Bulwinkleland in 1992
Pharoah Marky
Biker Boy Bulwinkle in 1949
Out there, weight is a factor
Please do not doubt the veractity of my re-orting here, but I did
too seen this drone way out there in the wilderness of California.
For this biker boy things really have not changed that much
Some stuff from Bulwinkleland in 2020
"What happens to all your stuff when you die?" - Andy Warhol
Wish I was that kid. Maybe I am. Just a kid.
The Sexy Star in Joshua Tree
So long, Clayton. It 's a lot lonelier without you on the planet.
You and Betty, and the rest, you were the best.
Me and doggies at Perry's Desert Rat Club in Wonder Valley
Truly a WONDER OF WONDERS
Serving irrational thoughts to the public since 1967
I welcome you to the website of Mark Bulwinkle,
the inventor of rust. Proceed with caution.
As a teacher, it is so nice to hear the excitement in a students voice when they are discovering how to work with clay. That is what art and craft is for. To lift our spirits, if only momentarily, is enough to carry us through the doldrums of daily life. It is for many what art and craft is for.
And this:
"I don't want to be a millionaire. I just want to live like one." - Pablo Picasso
"The trouble with you is you want to do whatever you want to do." - Former art dealer
"Once you have worked in a sausage factory you will never eat sausage again" - Mark Bulwinkle
"What is an artist? That's some fool with too much time on his hands." - Joseph Stalin
"You know what it takes to be an artist? Hypersensitivity and the will of the devil. To never give up." - Alice Neel
"I have always depended on the kindness of strangers." - Blanche DuBois
"BlaBlaBlaBla, Bla." - George Edward Bulwinkle Jr.
"You will be an artist." - George Edward Bulwinkle Sr.
"Instead of wasting money buying a house, you could buy a Corvette and live in it." GEB 3rd
The rusty old dog himself, Mark Elliott Bulwinkle
Photo by Jon Rosen
11" x 16" / woodcut printed with a wooden spoon on rice paper (1967)
Fifty-five years ago that rusty old dog, above, created this woodcut
print and began a life of trying to be an artist. Many, many
thousands of images later the stubborn old fool is still trying
to be an artist, just because that is what we do.
Latest painting, 9' x 25' x 1'- 2018 - wood,acrylic,aluminum
My patron, John Hamilton, Me, and Libby Schaaf, the Mayor
of Oakland, California, standing in front of
"My Song of Oakland." 2019
Oh dear, my old neighborhood is gone forever. Again.
Whoops!
And so is he.
Que Serra Serra...
Two dogs playing chew
What's in that coffee?
See Windwinkles in Joshua Tree, California
Boilermaker welding students wearing virtual reality masks
Hey. Shit happens.
"The Clients"
Sometimes people ask, "Who buys this stuff." Me, I says, "Just regular people."
They buy my stuff. They support this artist. Just like it should be.
Two old boilermaker-welders 2018
Picture taken at Danny Macchiarini's historical studio in North Beach, San Francisco
Old welders never die. They just shut their power off.
The last of the Mohicans, welder Mark MacDonald, in front of his shop
on Blake Street in Berkeley, California. His power is still on in 2020.
Life can be good if you let it. This be a fine car to drive after, during, and before a war.
Who's more beat up, me or the car? This car will indeed outlast dear me.
God's Plants
Rafflesia pricei, photographed with an i-phone by Richard Ward at the end of July,
2012, not far from Kola Kinabalu, Borneo. Not to copy, not to imitate, but to attempt to
emulate the way of nature is so often the artist's calling. This curious habit in itself
can make one's life, which can sometimes seem so hollow and meaningless, instead
sumptuous and worthwhile. For some of us, that is why we attempt to do art and craft.
Bulwinkleland in 2014 in Oakland, California.
"Well, bein' there is no other place around the place, I reckon, this must be the place, I reckon.
Nyuk nyuk nyuk! " - Curly Howard of The Three Stooges
The Neighbor Kids
Above - the neighbor kids back in the old days practicing their moves in front of Bulwinkleland
They be all growed up now - kids a their own! Life goes on, yes it does.
Jim Hardy
The man centered in the picture below, at the left, is Jim Hardy. Jim first got me interested
in welding as an occupation after art school. He told me you could cut steel with a torch
and paint it with enamel. That's one of Jim's old pieces pictured at right. I credit Jim with
getting me into the mess I am in now. Always give credit where credit is due, I say. Jim's bridge
is also pictured below. Life can be OK if you can take the punches and savor the rest.
Sadie Hazelkorn and me on top of Jim Hardy's Big Red Bridge in 2015. Never look down.
Tall Paul (Rest in peace, TP)
Tall Paul Brown, a neighbor, and his homemade tall bike. If an artist can't make
his own work, he shouldn't make it. All else is not art but propaganda for a you who is not.
You can find Mr. Brown riding his art most days and nights in and around the streets
of west Oakland hunting down some stray money, just like all the other artists in the world.
A dominant culture can do its damndest to crush another physically weaker culture,
but it can never repress the spirit of that culture. Live long, Tall Paul Brown!
Left to right - Mark Bulwinkle, Briana Kaufman, and Peter Neufeld - Telegraph Ave. 2017
Below, Bulwinkle Plaza, Emeryville, California. Art in a public place. 1993.
Below, some Photos of the Show in Joshua Tree, California, spring 2012
Birds over Birds at Harrison House, spring 2012
Music for Birds
Full moon over Joshua Tree, Ca.
Mark Bulwinkle and his two assistants, Bouncer and Doo Dah, in 1998
Centered at dawn in hot water is Barbara Gregory in Shoshone, California.
Agua Caliente Woman. It seems important in life to like life,
at least once in a while. There will come plenty of
reasons to despise it.
Red Rock Beach. Dan Ellsberg's favorite beach. Mine too. End of summer/fall, 2014.
"Art is just another name for reorganized debri" - Howler Cat
"The Bureaucrats' Nightmare"
Morning fog with orange cat at Bulwinkleland, 2011(click on The Steel Nursery, below)
Early August is sunflower time in California. Too soon the celebration always ends.
The Great California Italian Pizza Plant, 2012
Ms Opposum and Ms Doggie dancing in Napa, California in 2013
Only in art will the lion lie down with the lamb, and the rose grow
without thorn. - Martin Amis, from Isaiah 11:6.
Thick Boy moves to the suburbs
"Blood Money," an autobiographical poem to a well squandered life,
in rust. 1975 - 2010
Late fall, above, at Bulwinkleland, in Oakland, and below,
The Land of Broken Promises.
I can fix a lot of stuff but these, and a broken heart, I cannot fix.
Ever.
Click on The Land of Broken Promises (above)
Windwinkles at Joshua Tree 2013
A Brief Artist's Autobiography
Bulwinkle Plaza, Emeryville/Oakland, Ca
Children's Subway Tiles in Boston
A walk around the garden in August
All contents copyright Mark Bulwinkle, first publication, 2009
Click on each picture below and above to see what that picture is thinking!
"Everybody wants to have a goal: I gotta get to that goal, I gotta get to that goal,
I gotta get to that goal. Then you get to that goal, and then you gotta get to
another goal. But in betweeen goals is a thing called life that has to be lived
and enjoyed - and if you don't, you're a fool." - Cid Caesar, 1922-2014
The Charlie Bukowski MeToo Dancers
Brunhilde Bulwinkle arriving in America...
Shortly before two people in this picture(below)
got together in the State O' Maine
some 100 years ago and decided to
create more Bulwinkles
Dooh-Dah, best friend and most valued art critic I have ever known.
"No government or corporate sponsored person or committee will ever have any
interest in finding or establishing the truth about anything. They will only ever be
interested in inventing truth. If you want to find out the truth about anything,
you must think your truth up yourself and be satisfied with it. Woooof."
"Oh no, another random thought."
A dishonest bar tender is more useful than an honest doctor any day.
Hearts my garden grows hearts for me.
Bouncer the big boned gal . Such a fine and
beauteous face. She don't need no lipstick to
stoke my boiler, no. RRRwooof!! Rrrr.
Life Against Death in California - for Brother Bill Holst
In the land of the blind, the one eyed man is king.
Trust, unlike a shattered ceramic tile, can always be repaired.
Someday.
Recent steel screens, 2014
Photo by Richard Whitaker
It ain't nothin' if it ain't free. Maybe.
I think really I am too young to be restored. Really?
As much as I have tried to out run the clock, it has still caught me.
My song of innocence. My song of experience. Life has run me down.
At every turn in the trail time awaits. Patient as a cat. Good for life.
L'chaim
MB - 1965 - 2018
"Your ongoing courtesies are deeply appreciated"
Try this nail in your coffin
Click on the above links for more of Bulwinkle. Thanks!