Steel, Fire and Rainbows

We took off in a cold rain for a tour of Oakland's art scene. Mimi spoke of some giant statues. In a desolate muddy landscape of more or less vacated industrial hangars, outside against the gray sky, immense rust red primitive peoples raised their arms in primal prayer, bowed to the earth, led their children. Every inch a tangle of aged industrial metal, their gigantic feet alone were studies of medieval armor and the folly of the industrial age. A vast sort of hangar contained yet one more huge female kneeling.

We entered the former American Steel Factory. Inside were men at work on stripped down cars for the $500 LeMans (stock car racing, where each vehicle costs no more than $500). Another man welded parts for an old Airstream trailer, his retirement home. A somewhat wild-eyed but pleasant old hippy, he pointed out: 1) a worm farm, 2) a work area for making robots, 3) a trapeze artist's practice space, and other big art. 4) An actual frontier cabin stood along one wall, with the sign "Anarchitecture", Building Fabrication Art and Design Sustainability Salvage & Deconstruction Innovation Reuse. 

Walking further in we saw a small tough lady with a cigarette hanging out of her mouth welding, huge cylinders mounted, perhaps to become limbs. The sign said FLUX. Later we saw a wild little pickup in Alameda, with the license plate FLUX (Don't forget to FLUX), covered with steel statues, Buddhas, rubber reptiles and horse heads. FLUX made the Burning Temple for the 2010 Burning Man.

Don't Forget to Flux

This is where the Fire Art of The Crucible is made. The Crucible is a metal foundry/welding school in West Oakland that specializes in setting its spectacular works on fire, especially at its Fire Circus and Fire Opera. Mimi has friends, former prim housewives, who have discovered themselves through fire. The giant people, who are rented out all over the country, are also flamed with propane.

We went back out in the rain to a Taqueria on the safest block in Fruitvale, otherwise known as the home turf of Latino gangs. 

Then we drove along the beautiful estuary (the Oakland Riviera) to Jingletown, named for Portuguese factory workers who jingled their money in their pockets. Now there is an Institute of Mosaic Arts. The dog walk along a mural of beloved dogs of the town is called Rue de Merde.

The skies, as we drove past downtown Oakland, were purplish black with a bright sun glaring down on isolated steeples and street corners. And then there were enormous, complete rainbows, doubled, with intense hues that reached down to the earth. beaming directly on our neighborhood in Oakland where Dizzy the border collie waited, alone. By the time we arrived she was, indeed, nearly hysterical. Huge clouds sailed right toward us (the wrong direction for these clouds), as if we were on an airplane. Either the massive cumuli approached, or all the landscape backed up and shrank. The Apocalypse had sailed right over our heads, a few days later than predicted. 

In the end, we were Left Behind.