Tag Archives: metal

SF Shout Out!

I zipped into San Francisco early Saturday morning to pick up my new Canon G11 from Calumet.  Have you guys been there?  It’s a great professional photography store with really just about everything… cameras (of course), studio & lighting equipment, seamless supplies, printers with a wide assortment of papers, a fantastic equipment rental department, and an art gallery upstairs.

The G11 is the first camera I’ve bought in over three years since buying my 5D (except for my Holga), and I am very excited! Nearly all of the photos I’ve posted on this blog were taken either with a 8 year old camera (which isn’t particularly pocket-sized) or with my iPhone, because I am too lazy to carry my big camera everywhere. With this new smaller camera, I plan to take my photo-documentarianism to the next level! (And yes, I do believe I made up that word.)

While waiting for the camera store to open, I spotted CELLspace across the street. I haven’t been there in a few years (sadly), and I definitely don’t remember it being quite this amazingly cool outside…

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Recognize the hand above? The same stencil exists in Oakland… have you seen it? Check back for the Oaktown version, and hopefully a bit more info about the artist who created it.

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The one above reminds me of a cool poster slapped up in multiple parts by Ashby and Telegraph. It’s Berkeley, not Oakland, but peeps keep mentioning it to me so I think I’ll throw that up later this week too. Please visit again. We’ll be headed to the cemetery at the end of the week for a properly spooky Halloween!

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The Crucible

How can I write about metal art in Oakland and not speak of The Crucible? It’s an institution, and one of my favorite things about Oakland. This is what makes Oakland cool. That you can throw a festival of fire next door to BART, in which a column of fire is sprayed 80 feet into the air, with the bart tracks & trains running right by. What do the people from Walnut Creek think?!!

This multi-disciplinary non-profit facility is responsible for a good chunk of art at Burning Man, the annual Fire Arts Festival in Oakland (which moved to a new location near Fruitvale this past summer), and a slew of classes at their West Oakland Bart oriented location… everything from blacksmithing (of course), to ceramics, fire-dancing, moldmaking, and much more. Please check out their links, because I simply can’t tell you enough to truly do them justice.

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The word ‘crucible’ refers to a vessel or container used for heating substances to high temperatures. Below is an example of one they have sitting out front… It’s comprised of thick steel wrapped around an interior of concrete, and it is huge!

Another meaning of the word is “a place, time, or situation characterized by the confluence of powerful intellectual, social, economic, or political forces.” (dictionary.com) The Crucible truly is this, for they define themselves as a collaboration of Art, Industry, & Community, and rightfully so.

Their location in a historically depressed part of West Oakland rejuvenates the area with art, commerce, and education, accessible to all through classes, community events & service projects, and more..

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They recently received an NEA grant that allowed them to install a new ramp, making the facility wheelchair accessible. See below all the intricate metal work adorning it, icons of bay area history, glossed in fire-engine red enamel … our current city logo (the oak tree), the Port of Oakland, the Fox Theater, the Tribune Tower, the Bay Bridge, the Black Panthers, Rosie the Riveter and more.

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Metalmania in E-ville…

The incredibly ornate and decorative metalwork on this building has mystified me for years.  I now know that the man responsible is Daryl Rush.  He is a builder/contractor/magician with metal.

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What I love about his style is how organic it is… check out the copper “vines” on these windows… Are these not the coolest security bars you’ve ever seen?!?

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And he works with a wide variety of metals, unlike the pieces we saw earlier in the week that were mostly made out of steel and hence, have rusted uniformly. Daryl mixes copper, bronze, steel, and stainless, and plays with texture, grinding and polishing some areas smooth and shiny, while hammering patterns reminiscent of carved wood or chipped stone into others.

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So as you may have noticed from the title of this post, this workshop is actually in Emeryville, but just a stone’s throw from the Oakland border, literally (I’ve got a good arm). Note the soldier on the corner of the building in this shot… recognize it? This is the Suits & Soldiers mural from my first post, and I’ve since connected with the artist and will be posting my first artist interview in the next week or two. Please check back!

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This last one is the back door to his workshop, a truly incredible piece of sculptural art. It’s hand-formed out of three kinds of metal with slumped glass incorporated (the green areas). See more detailed photos here. All I can say is, “WOW!”

Automania continued…

So I had planned to move on to something else today, but since my dear devoted reader asked (thank you Rattlebox), I will talk about Automania a bit more. However, please note that I do go to a bit of effort to set up links to all the wonderful artists and studios I mention, and though I try to highlight as much information in my posts as I can, you will undoubtedly be better served by using these links and going straight to the source!

Having said that, Automania is a supplier of picture cars and props to the film industry. Their warehouse spans a full block, and apparently houses an incredible number of historic cars, as well as auto-related props, sets, and backdrops. Check out their picture car photo gallery and imagine the implications of their insane parking scenario… 

It reminds me of those puzzles we did on long car drives when I was a kid, where a square with 16 square slots was filled with 15 tiny square pieces that slid either horizontally or vertically within the larger square… you could only move one piece one square at a time, and the goal was to rearrange all the pieces to form a picture. Needless to say, those puzzles were fun for all of about 5 minutes. I can’t imagine being Automania’s parking lot attendant. Yikes!

The company was founded by car enthusiast Bill Silveira, and I am assuming he is the creator of many of the metal sculptures featured in and around the property.  You can see more of his artistic creations here.  And here are a few more shots I took as I tooled around his warehouse in Jingletown…

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Check out the cool cactus planter created out of a couple slabs of metal above.

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