Tag Archives: found objects

Episode 7: Tom Franco and Julia Lazar, the Firehouse Collaborative

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They’re a team in life, art and com­mu­nity build­ing.  Tom Franco and Julia Lazar are the co-directors and force behind the Fire­house Col­lab­o­ra­tive, a Berke­ley, Calif., non-profit that pro­vides space for local artists to live, work, sell, per­form and celebrate.

Franco, the mid­dle son of three from a highly cre­ative fam­ily (his broth­ers James and David are Hol­ly­wood actors, his mother is a writer and his father was an artist), is a sculp­tor who works with found objects.  Lazar, a for­mer chef from Aus­tria, is the food, design and visual cre­ator behind the col­lab­o­ra­tive, which will soon mar­ket a line of her custom-brewed kom­bucha, an effer­ves­cent fer­mented bev­er­age known for its health benefits.

Cur­rently, the Fire­house Col­lab­o­ra­tive oper­ates six loca­tions in the San Fran­cisco Bay Area that include three gal­leries, three micro store­fronts and a bazaar, four groups of stu­dio space, and two groups of shared apart­ments.  Add to that mix paint­ing and draw­ing groups, an edi­ble gar­den, a print shop, ceramic stu­dio, record­ing stu­dios, glass shop and wood shop plus social events and per­for­mance space for rent.

In terms of sculp­ture, Franco, a grad­u­ate of Cal­i­for­nia Col­lege of the Arts in Oak­land, Calif., col­lects every­day, dis­carded objects and then applies glue and brightly col­ored house paint, deliv­er­ing his mes­sage about the detri­tus of con­sumer cul­ture in which we’re all steeped.  He says his pri­mary art influ­ences are sculp­tors William D. Iac­ulla and Nancy Graves.

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Episode 1: Clayton Bailey, Sculptor

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Click the arrow below to hear Joe’s inter­view with Bailey.

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At the end of 2011 and early 2012, Clay­ton Bai­ley was hon­ored by the Crocker Art Museum in Sacra­mento, Calif., with a ret­ro­spec­tive show that cov­ered 50 years of his dis­tin­guished career as one of the country’s most inven­tive and humor­ous artists.  With tongue firmly in cheek, Bai­ley has tweaked the funny bone and social con­science of view­ers with his wildly imag­i­na­tive inven­tions.  Espe­cially known for his life-size robots, Bai­ley has built more than 100, most con­structed from found parts, includ­ing a robot cos­tume he used to wear to entice vis­i­tors to his “The Won­ders of the World Museum” in Port Costa, Calif.  The museum now fills his large home studio.

Bai­ley grew up in Wis­con­sin, where he earned under­grad­u­ate and grad­u­ate degrees in art and art edu­ca­tion at the Uni­ver­sity of Wis­con­sin.  He spent 32 years as a uni­ver­sity art pro­fes­sor, retir­ing from Cal­i­for­nia State Uni­ver­sity, East Bay, where he’s now a Pro­fes­sor Emer­i­tus of Ceramics.

His work is rep­re­sented in such col­lec­tions as the Los Ange­les County Museum of Art and the Smith­son­ian Insti­tu­tion, and has been shown through­out the U.S., at the Pom­pi­dou Cen­ter in Paris, in Bel­gium, Brazil and Greece.  Bai­ley is the recip­i­ent of numer­ous fel­low­ships and grants—two from the National Endow­ment for the Arts—and his own U.S. patent for a “nov­elty squirt­ing cup.”

Another Bai­ley distinction—his mous­tache, untouched by a razor for 34 years, stretches two feet from tip to tip when fully waxed.

To see more, visit Bailey’s web­site.

Click here to sub­scribe to Sculpt­cast Con­ver­sa­tions in iTunes.

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