PFC Jim Hardy greets the New
World Odor in 2016 and yet
again! in 2024?
YUP
Bulwinkleland, California, USA
Ruthie and her two boys in 1946,
Weston, Massachusetts, USA
Click on the many, many, many links
and they will take you to other
places in Bulwinkleland.
Bulwinkleland now and Bulwinkleland then.
All set for war in 1942 and... war hero
big George home from his war.
"NEVER THROW YOUR TOOLS AWAY
UNTIL YOU ARE SURE IT IS OVER"
- Rake Boy Bulwinkle -
"God bless the child that's got his own."
- Billie Holiday -
And the "toy" that helped make me me.
"Shandra knows"
"Art" an enamel silk screen from 1974
Something old now from the old days
of 1984 at Jamison Thomas Gallery
in Portland, Oregon. William Jamison,
best dealer I ever had, sold this screen
to someone back there. Well kept and
much loved piece from back when no
one had any idea of how to cut steel
graphically. Woooof, indeed. 2024
"Pracila Dog on her Bonecycle" 2024
Hand burned 1/2" plate steel
"A Happy Boy Dog" 2024
Hand burned 1/2" plate steel
BULWINKLELAND
Ca.USA. Welcome!
Just add water and the plants will figure it out.
A big red sun and an upsidedown coyote as
photographed by Eva Soltes (above)
and Giacomo Fiore, (below).
Beauty Supplies in the Mojave
Taking some sculptures out for a Sunday ride.
The Bulwinkleland Zoo in Oakland, Ca.
A medium rare Mojave Desert aminal
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.
Where do bicycles come from?
Like fish do they spawn?
"Juggernaut" 1975 - 2010 With a tip of the hat
to Wally Hedrick's "Christmas Tree"
From "The Thrilla on Manila" (1981), and a bigger
tip of the hat. 15 years in the making before I tore it
down and left that life behind. And no, everybody, the
"City" did not "make" me take it down. Nobody made
me make it and nobody made me take it down. It was
just time to move on to somewhere else. To another
"Site specific installation piece" somewhere else and
at some other time.
Him and Her who lived in the Thrillah on Manila - 1982
Her got the house and him got the trailer
It was meant to be
"Zooks Lucretia" - etching, 1968, edition 20
and 56 years later, below, a selection of recent
paintings from 2024 created in my studio in
the Mojave Desert of California.
"A Woman" - oil crayon on shellacked craft paper - 4' x 6'
"Gecco Thing" - oil crayon on shellacked craft paper - 4' x 6'
"Big Fish" and "Snakey Wakey" 4'x6' each
Oil Crayon on shellacked craft paper - 2024
Silver Woman and Silver Fish, 4' x 6'
craft paper oil stick drawings
with aluminum paint / May of 2024
"Silver Fish" 4' x 6', oil crayon and silver paint on
shellacked craft paper, 2024
"Bobette" 4' x 6' oil and silver paint on shellacked craft paper
"Heart" 4' x 6' oil and silver paint on shellacked craft paper
"2 Women" 4' x6' oil and silver paint on shellacked craft paper
"Crazy Bones Dress", 4' x 6' ,
oil crayon on shellacked craft paper, 2024
"The Dirty Blonde" 4'x6' oil crayon on shellacked craft paper, 2024
But Bulwinkle is still barking. RRRRwoof! -1980 -
And in 2023, below,
Some things you just can not fix, Doctor Dog
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 - 2023
29 Palms in 2017 (the front yard)
29 Palms in 2023 (the front yard)
29 Palms in 2023 (the back 40)
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.
"Life is hard. And then you die." - Johnny Winter
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 professionally, it was still there, like a
virus, waiting to attack me. And it did. In fact, it still lives inside me.
The Smoke Eaters Club of San Francisco. Picture taken back when
men and women did something for work other than key boarding.
The stoner on the far right lower row is Jim Hardy, to whom I am deeply
indebted for not only getting me into being an artist on the West Coast,
but for further getting me into being a very accomplished smoke
eater myself. Happiness is where you find it. Or shall I say
that happiness is where you hid it, but forgot where you put it.
"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 at the Retreat Center
Joshua Tree 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 the dearly departed 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 door to desert varmints - 2021
1988 - Flame cut Sailor Screen - 8'x33', Oakland, Ca. This
thing created for Elsa Cameron of Comunity Arts traveled
here and there around the USA before finding a resting place
in Woodside, California. Who knows where it is now. Maybe
at some sex worker rancheria in Nevada? I hope so.
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 in Weston, Massachusetts
Out there, weight is a factor
Please do not doubt the veractity of my reporting 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
Gotta love that eco friendly CAT in back. Neither one of these
machines do I ever want to take apart.
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 bestest.
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 websites 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 in Portland, Oregon.
Words I live By.
"Once you have worked in a sausage factory you will forever eat sausage, again"
Mark Elliott Bulwinkle
“How would you feel if people were really nice, and then, suddenly, on a dime... they turn on you?
You would never believe it unless it happens to you.
That’s why you get hurt, because you can’t really believe it’s true.”
- Shelley Duvall -
"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."
Brother George Edward Bulwinkle 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)
This one took me a week to cut out. I had no idea what I was doing.
And you know, I still don't. And that is the joy of being an artist.
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...
Great. So now what??? It was meant to be?
Two dogs playing chew
What's in that coffee?
See Windwinkles in Joshua Tree, California
Boilermaker welding students wearing virtual reality masks
Isn't that sculpture pretty?
The wheel and the rudder
Dry dock one, San Francisco, Ca. Where I spent a lot of my life.
Just dickin around on ships.
Hey. Shit happens. Then you gotta fix it. It's just a hole. Fun.
Boiler Man
"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,
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
The little warriors in 1962, preparing to learn
how to make men free and make things cheap.
Number please?
Try this nail in your coffin
In the land of the blind the one eyed man is King.
Click on the above links for much more of Bulwinkle. Thanks!
"Life is hard. And then you die." - David Gerrold / Johnny Winter
