I have friends visiting from all over, as I feel like every mid-twenty-some-year-old does at any given day of the week. The best part about people visiting is: they usually show you some awesome part of your town that you had never heard about. Thus, last weekend, I perused the Albany Bulb.
The week prior, I'd been working on an image for Deb's writings. The drawing depicts a sullen transvestite and a solider in cameo on a teeter toter, obviously defining a broad spectrum of mid-twenty-some-year-old identities that of course, at one point in time, lived under the same roof of a run down historic Southern home. As men we find solace in our ability to fight, the positions that allow us to choose, and the challenge of construction: we create with a stick. As women we find faith in ourselves, the ability to contain, and the challenge of perseverance: we create from within. As persons, we consume with perception, expunge with communication, and falter between creating and destroying within the same breathe.
Upon arriving at the Albany Bulb, we found an enormous make shift teeter toter grandly stretching across 20 feet of beach. Far across the bay, the San Francisco skyline jutted into the air, the Transamerica building marked the highest point. The cargo cranes that inspired George Lucas' star wars characters curved along the Oakland border to the south. The day was brilliant and the teeter toter waited patiently to be scaled. I hadn't seen one of these in years- since playground equipment became a liability and risk took on the meaning of not wearing a seat belt. I jumped on one side, a lesbian on the other. The long beam that constituted a seat for each, balanced underneath us as we struggled to avoid shifting our weight around, struggled to confine our movements to up and down. I knew I was supposed to be here. Even if it was a silly teeter toter that reminded me I'd visited in the dreams persuading to be drawn.
Albany bulb is refuse. A landfill, a trash dump that grew into the SF Bay, extended Albany's city limits until the land extensions ceased and lay dormant waiting for the next freeze followed by the Spring. But, there are no freezes in CA. That's why all the homeless adopted their homes here. Tons of concrete, rebarb, iron, clothes, shoes, bottles, dirt, berry bushes and seven methane gas vents blanket the surface of this surrealist fairyland.
The week prior, I'd been working on an image for Deb's writings. The drawing depicts a sullen transvestite and a solider in cameo on a teeter toter, obviously defining a broad spectrum of mid-twenty-some-year-old identities that of course, at one point in time, lived under the same roof of a run down historic Southern home. As men we find solace in our ability to fight, the positions that allow us to choose, and the challenge of construction: we create with a stick. As women we find faith in ourselves, the ability to contain, and the challenge of perseverance: we create from within. As persons, we consume with perception, expunge with communication, and falter between creating and destroying within the same breathe.
Upon arriving at the Albany Bulb, we found an enormous make shift teeter toter grandly stretching across 20 feet of beach. Far across the bay, the San Francisco skyline jutted into the air, the Transamerica building marked the highest point. The cargo cranes that inspired George Lucas' star wars characters curved along the Oakland border to the south. The day was brilliant and the teeter toter waited patiently to be scaled. I hadn't seen one of these in years- since playground equipment became a liability and risk took on the meaning of not wearing a seat belt. I jumped on one side, a lesbian on the other. The long beam that constituted a seat for each, balanced underneath us as we struggled to avoid shifting our weight around, struggled to confine our movements to up and down. I knew I was supposed to be here. Even if it was a silly teeter toter that reminded me I'd visited in the dreams persuading to be drawn.
Albany bulb is refuse. A landfill, a trash dump that grew into the SF Bay, extended Albany's city limits until the land extensions ceased and lay dormant waiting for the next freeze followed by the Spring. But, there are no freezes in CA. That's why all the homeless adopted their homes here. Tons of concrete, rebarb, iron, clothes, shoes, bottles, dirt, berry bushes and seven methane gas vents blanket the surface of this surrealist fairyland.
In the late nighties, the Bulb acted as a home to some and an outdoor studio for others- a bramble of reusable materials and a dust filled, trail tangled gallery space open 24/7, posed as an artist's dream scape. As a result of endless days of creation out on the Bulb, sculptures, billboard style paintings, a skate park, hot tub, and small living structures remain to be explored by leash-less dogs and observers like myself. My favorite of the driftwood sculptures is "Man Sitting" assembled by Osha Neumann.
Presently, the Bulb has been a bright spot in public debate. Designated at a recreational park, this chunk of land has been thrown into the sea of grappling developers. Some groups would like to "restore" the land by leveling it out, removing non- native plants (and people), installing boardwalks and a polished "Dogs on Leash" sign. Hmmm...."restoring" a waste heap back to its "natural" state. "NICE."
I must say, the human feces, syringes, the homeless man screaming, "Get the FUCK outta here, what the FUCK you are?!" like he's been repeating those phrases to the bay waters since 4am that day, were disarming. Intimidating. The air of revolt, survival, and abandonment threaded sharply through a salty silk of carefully hung wind chimes, strategically places wheel spokes- spinning with the ocean breeze. What do we do with this space? Compostable toilets and a small 20' x 20' reservation for those already living there? Go ahead and renovate so the suburbanites can ride their weekend Marin hybrid bikes along the whole bay? Of course this puts me in a strange position- teetering a top of the point: not what is art, but what does art do? I would like to come back and make art here. Am I beautifying? With this intention, am I creating, respecting, or destroying? How we claim what is ours without scoffing at history or denouncing the future? Do I need another tetanus shot?
An informative culture blog at SFgate: http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/sfgate/detail?blogid=3&entry_id=298
