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REFUGE IN REFUSE
HOMESTEADING ART AND CULTURE
Robin Lasser
REFUGE IN REFUSE
Danielle Siembieda
Barbara Boissevain
Robin Lasser
Aerial photograph of Albany Bulb Landfill, 2013
REFUGE IN REFUSE
homesteading art and culture
ALBANY BULB LANDFILL
First Edition 2015

REFUGE IN REFUSE
HOMESTEADING ART AND CULTURE
ORIGINALLY EXHIBITED AT
SOMArts Cultural Center
in San Francisco, California
USA, 2015
PROJECT WEBSITE
www.refugeinrefuse.weebly.com
PROJECT LEAD
Robin Lasser
Oakland, CA, USA
+1.510.282.6993
rjlasser@earthlink.net
www.robinlasser.com
PUBLISHED IN CONJUNCTION
with SOMArts Commons
Curatorial Residency Program
San Francisco, CA, USA
DESIGNERS
Hedieh Davari
Antony Ngo
Barbara Boissevain
EDITING AND SEQUENCING
Barbara Boissevain
Robin Lasser
COPY EDITOR
Patricia Sanders
THANKS TO
FRONT COVER PHOTOGRAPH

Robin Lasser
Danielle Siembieda
with F3 & Associates
Osha Neumann, Susan Moffat, Andy Kreamer, Amber Whitson,

Jim Gold, Danielle Evans, Boxer Bob, Tamara Robinson,
F3 and Associates, General Graphics, and San Jos State University
BACK COVER PHOTOGRAPH

Robin Lasser
SOMArts | Melorra Green, Jess Young, Lex Leifheit, and Matt McKinley|
REFUGE IN REFUSE
homesteading art and culture
SOMArts Exhibition Curated by:

Robin Lasser (Lead Artist)
Danielle Siembieda
Barbara Boissevain
ESSAYS
pg
11
Full List of Participating Exhibitors:

Dore Bowen
The Last of the Landfillians:
Art, Romanticism, and the Albany Bulb
17
Robin Lasser, Danielle Siembieda,

and Barbara Boissevain
Refuge in Refuse:
58
Greg Kloehn
Danielle Evans
Greg Kloehn
62
Tomas McCabe
66
Danielle Evans
Andy Kreamer, Amber Whitson,

Chester Mounten, Jimbow the Hobow,
Katherine Cody, Phyl Lewis
Amber Whitson
Excerpts From Street Spirit
84
pg
25
Robin Lasser
40
Danielle Siembieda
Judith Leinen
Randi Johnsen with Berkeley Landscape Architecture students:
Karly Ann Behncke, Emanuel Oliver Gonzales,
74
EXHIBITORS
Robin Lasser, Barbara Boissevain, and

Danielle Siembieda (curators and participating artists)
Homesteading Art and Culture
104
April Anthony
90
Jonathan Marc Heyneman Hallet, Sara Harmon,

Penelope Louise Leggett, Ruyang "Ivy" Xie, and Wenjie Yang
Andy Kreamer with Jimbow the Hobow,
Chester Mounten, Phyl Lewis, and Amber Whitson
Tomas McCabe
April Anthony
Susan Moffat with student collaborators: Heather Bromfield,

Miin Choi, Annie Danis, Daniel Gonzalez, Christina Gossmann,
Katie Kinkopf, Kushal Lachhwani, Sandra Lee, Christina Lew,
Sniff (Scott Hewitt, Bruce Rayburn,
Scott Lyons, Eleanna Panagoulia, Lana Salman, Alyssa Scott,
David Ryan, and Scott Buddy Meadows)
Julia Tierney, and Kelan Stoy

Other collaborators: James Lee Bailey, Larry Cabrera,
46, 56, 64, 72, 76, 82, 88, 94
42
Robin Lasser & Judith Leinen
48
Susan Moffat
96
100
Randi Johnsen
Katherine Cody, Patty Donald, Dawn Kooyumjian,

Marc Mattonen, Patricia Moore, Osha Neumann,
Stephanie Ringstad, Tamara Robinson, Linda Rugg,
Doniece Sandoval
Steve Thrush, Amber Whitson, and Laurie Willkie

Doniece Sandoval
Sniff a collaborative team of four:
106
Index
Scott Hewitt, Bruce Rayburn, David Ryan,

and Scott Buddy Meadows
THE LAST OF THE LANDFILLIANS

Art, Romanticism, and the Albany Bulb

I must have been a child in the back seat of a station wagon,
but I remember with stark clarity the sculpture located off the
highway in the formerly barren strip of land that lay between
the Bay Bridge and Berkeley. It was an art free of the usual trappings:
no names; no titles; no extravagant materials. Just cast-off board
and recycled trash crafted to look like animalistic forms rising from
the marshy landscape. One couldnt stop to examine it though.
This was drive-by art, expressive of its time and place only; it was
not intended to speak truths other than its own. Ephemeral, it would
disappear either from the natural elements or from poaching. The
next time one passed by it was gone. This strange and wondrous
art spoke to my impressionable mindit suggested other ways
of being in the world.

The exhibition Refuge in Refuse: Homesteading Art and Culture
resonates with this earlier era of junk art, eco-art, and assemblage.
It speaks to the California of the 1960s and 70sa California that
hatched communal experiments in living and birthed the defiant art
of Jay Defeo, Bruce Conner, Robert Arneson, Wallace Berman, the
feminist Womanhouse, and, of course, Nancy and Ed Kienholz.

But this 2015 exhibition does not seek to place the work it
presents on an art historical continuum. Rather, it brings together
artists inspired by a placean area of land known as the Bulb
that juts into the San Francisco Bay. This unique site was used as a
construction dump by the City of Albany from 1963 until 1983. After
it closed, individuals migrated to the Bulb seeking shelter: ultimately
over sixty came to live there, calling themselves the landfillians. Many
of the landfillians have hard life-stories that include mental illness,
deprivation, prison, addiction, and broken homes. Add to these
misfortunes an indifferent government, as well as an increasingly
corporate environment, and it is easy to understand how this
community came into being. What is remarkable is that instead
of dwelling on the circumstances that led them to the Bulb the
landfillians created homes, a library, sculpture, an elaborate

kitchen, literature, political tracts, and a gym.

Aside from erecting architecture and sculpture from
recycled materials, the landfillians fabricated narratives from
recycled myths. They took names, forged characters, and
developed storylines from the detritus of Western culture. If this
sounds like the American dream, it is: as did the pilgrims, the
landfillians created their own foundational myths. Tamara,
for example, describes herself as the Wicked Witch of the
West; there are hints of Robinson Crusoe and Lemuel Gulliver;
there is a cat named Sugar Ray. In one photograph, Boxer Bob
punches the air atop his mansion. He looks heroic and he knows it.

I never visited the Bulb community and, unfortunately, its too
late. The residents of the Bulb were evicted in April, 2014 when the
City of Albany voted to transfer the land to the California State
Park System. The homes, residents art, and architectural sites were
dismantled. Consequently, as an art historian, the exhibition
materials are my primary sources. This decisive event lends sharp
poignancy to this exhibition, for it now speaks of a community past.
The exhibition includes work by former landfilliansApril Anthony,
Catherine Cody, Danielle Evans, Jimbow the Hobow, Andy Kreamer,
Phyl Lewis, Chester Mounten, and Amber Whitsonas well as
representations of the architectural and sculptural works that no
longer exist. Here, the documentaries help preserve the memory of
the Bulb and the artists who lived and worked there. On the other
end of the spectrum, the exhibition includes the participation of
those interested in mapping the Bulb community for posterity, as
well as work inspired by the Bulb, such as paintings and sculpture
by the Sniff artists. Other participants in the exhibition have created
mobile showers and shelters for the homeless in San Francisco.

The curators are aware of the diversity of work in the exhibition,
and their outsider position as well. In their curatorial statement
left side
Robin Lasser and Judith Leinen
10
Grimm Salutes the Sunrise Mandala, 2013
11
Robin Lasser, Danielle Siembieda, and Barbara Boissevain, who are

also participating artists, lend order to this array of work by using the
Bulb topography as a metaphor for collective participation. They
write, we are connecting and gathering vantage points from those
who have a stake in the Bulb. We include ourselves in this ebb and
flow. Having said that, the former residents of the Bulb had the most
at stake, they made community, they considered this landfill their
home.

Those who love the Bulb are romantics in the historical sense of
the term. They seek the sublime in spite of it all. One sees this in the
work of landfillian Danielle Evans. Her paintings are filled with colorful
flowers rising to meet a blue sky, suggesting a harmonious nature that
is, at the same time, punctuated by the artists rough brushwork on
raw board. The sense of beauty in the midst of scarcity is echoed
in a diptych titled Boxer Bob Wanders in Mansion Ruins (2014) by
Lasser. In the first image Boxer Bob wanders amidst his demolished
mansion, only a blanket adorning his bare shoulders. In the second
image he is gone, but his possessions and a gorgeous sunset remain.
In another diptych by Lasser we see Boxer Bob posing with Danielle
on an escape dock that looks for all the world like Gricaults Raft
of the Medusa. Such works offer a way to imagine living against the
grain with dignity. Other works in the exhibition pierce the gossamer
fabric of fantasy, thus emphasizing the fate that will ultimately
embrace the Bulb. For example, Lassers and Siembiedas signage,
which places quotations from former Bulb residents on official-looking
California State Park system plaques, operates as testament and
warning. Mad Marcs words are prophetic: You are only as real as
your dreams are. This net by the window, it went up to heaven, it was
the size of a freight truck. It went around and around and caught
all these fairies. That is why I call it the Fairy Castle and that is why
no one can sleep in the castle.

The large 3D images of the once glorious sites at the Bulb that
Robin Lasser and Danielle Siembieda created with F3 and Associates
have an oneiric feel as well, like spirit photographs depicting the
passing of the Bulb from living site to memorial.
Like the 19th century romanticssuch as the British poets

Wordsworth and Coleridge, who expressed a sensual relation
to a natural world that was disappearing under assault from
industrialisman intentional ambivalence imbues the art in
this exhibition. The Bulb is shrouded in mystery while its sense
of impermanence remains. And romanticism, mystifying as it
may be, allows those who once lived at the Bulb to embrace
the notion of unleashed naturea term that crops up frequently
in writing about the Bulbwhile engaging in self-invention; and
romanticism allows non-resident artists to take inspiration from
such intrepid acts.

The disparate works in Refuge in Refuse: Homesteading Art and
Culture coalesce around their common theme in a kaleidoscopic
manner. Each artist contributes. No voice dominates. The artworks
refract one another. This structure is symbolized by the mandalas
by Judith Leinen and Lasser. Arranged portraits of the landfillians
are repeated around a circular periphery. The mandalas take on
a second life as discs for a zoetrope that sits atop a bicycle with
plastic water bottles for feet. When the discs rotate, the images
become visual stories. Tamara Melts at Mad Marcs Castle Window,
Boxer Bob becomes Noah on his Ark, Grimm Salutes the Sunrise.
The bicycle, perhaps the same bicycle used to gather scrap
metal at the Bulb, becomes a dream machine waiting for its rider.
While this artwork cant bring the Bulb community backnor can
the maps, photographic images, oral histories, documentaries,
paintings, signage, and textsit retains the same spunky sensibility
as the community that settled a small plot of land that lies
sandwiched between an expanding city and a western sky.
below
Robin Lasser
Grimm Salutes The Sunrise, 2014
Dore Bowen | January 1, 2015

Dore Bowen is a writer, curator, and associate professor at
San Jos State University. Forthcoming texts include On the
Site of Her Own Exclusion: Strategizing Queer Feminist Art History
in Sexual Differences and Otherwise: Imagining Queer Feminist
Art Histories, eds. Amelia Jones and Erin Silver, Manchester
University Press, and Perils of Illumination in the 1825 Diorama
in Intermdialits. She is currently writing a book on the diorama.
12
13
Robin Lasser and Danielle Siembieda

with F3 and Associates
Osha Neuman and Jason DeAntonis
Landfill Sculpture, 2013
15
REFUGE IN REFUSE
Homesteading Art and Culture
The Refuge in Refuse project is about placemaking and how
2014, the residents, then numbering more than 60, were evicted from
human imagination, in its varied forms, creates meaning. Its about
the place, where they had created and lived their dreams, to make
how people form connections with place and with each other. The
way for a to-be-built California state park.
place in question is the Albany Bulb, a human-made spit of land on
the east side of the San Francisco Bay. For some twenty years this
the creative spirit of the former Bulb residents, who called
place was called home by a group of people who would otherwise
themselves the landfillians. The memory of the landfillians, with their
be homeless. This exhibition connects people to place, place to art,
fiercely alternative lifestyles and their unique art, is preserved in
art to life.
photographic documents (both prints and film), signs, and surviving
art works, while 3D scans and aerial photographs help preserve
Nature and humans have shaped and reshaped the area now
Refuge in Refuse: Homesteading Art and Culture commemorates
occupied by the Albany Bulb over the ages. Once it was only
the landfillian moment in the Bulbs history in accurate detail. The
water, home to fish and birds just offshore from Ohlone land. Then
Atlas of the Albany Bulb incorporated oral history and archeological
came the Gold Rush and sediment released by hydraulic mining
techniques to map the Bulb. Looking beyond the recent past, a
in the Sierra Nevada found its way along rivers to the Bay mudflats,
group of landscape designers have created visions of possible future
creating a base for the Albany Bulb built on dreams of gold. In 1963,
uses of the Bulb, very different from what came before. All these
it was transformed into a spit when it became a construction dump
exemplify diverse forms of placemaking within the context of the
that welcomed rebar and concrete slabs as well as marble from
Albany Bulb.
Richmonds demolished City Hall and Berkeleys former library. This
dumping stopped in l983 and only green debris, such as soil, tree
placemaking into a different, more urban locale. It weaves together
trimmings and other yard waste, was allowed and plants began to
the various strands of human culture and the Bulb in the displays. But
take root. Today the landfill looks rather lush. Meanwhile other, less
it goes beyond this by offering small mobile homes for the homeless
appealing, signs of human-landscape interaction, oil, lead paint,
and by inviting one of Lava Maes MUNI buses repurposed with
asbestos, and other toxins, arrived at the shores of the Bulb.
services for the homeless to park outside the exhibition space.
In later years, renegade artists erected fantastical sculptures,
In a way, the SOMArts exhibition also extends the idea of
There are also virtual components to this new placemaking:
dog-walkers strolled with their pets, and, in the 1990s, people with
a website (www.refugeinrefuse.weebly.com) and augmented
nowhere else to go settled in and called it home. They evolved
reality applications. These applications allow Bulb visitors to use
their own small community where a kind of creative anarchy held
a smart phone with GPS capability to view real time displays of a
sway. They built fantastical dwellings and community structures for
particular site with some of its previously existing features and to see
enjoying life on their termsa Gym, a Library, a Castle for fairies.
stories, presented on official-looking park signs, told by former Bulb
These diverse denizens of the Albany Bulbresidents, recreationalists,
residents. Visitors can experience simulations of objects viewed
artistsco-existed side-by-side for some twenty years, but on April 25,
on a smart phone screen merged with the real landscape. These

17
Timothy Andrew Photography

Refuge In Refuse
Opening Reception, 2015
18

Refuge In Refuse
virtual experiences, created by Danielle Siembieda for the Refuge
Hobow, Katherine Cody, Chester Mounten, Phyl Lewis, and Amber
in Refuse project, allow for a sort of historic marker to remain at
Whitson. This unscripted film depicts the indomitable spirit of the men
the Bulbbringing past into present, ensuring that history is not
and women who lived at the Bulb. The filmmakers hope that viewers
erased. Structures can be torn down, people removed and sea
will be moved to legalize being alive on planet earth by watching
levels may engulf waterfront gardens, but the stories of this transient
this glimpse of daily life at the Albany Bulb. Tomas McCabes
village will remain. A layer of reality, seen only through the lens of
documentary film, Bums Paradise (2002), depicts the lives of the men
cybernetic technology, may become a destination point for cultural
and women who lived in the ten-year-old Albany Landfill community
anthropologists of the future, for descendants of residents, and for
prior to the first eviction in 1999. The film emphasizes their concepts
whomever or whatever chooses to dig into the layered archive of
of community as well as the amazing art that they created.
the Albany Bulb.
are themselves part of the cultural production that was the Bulb
Refuge in Refuse is not simply about the Albany Bulb and the
The collaborations between non-resident artists and landfillians
landfillians who lived there during a portion of its history; it is also
community in its latter days. The curators did not so much curate
of and by the landfillians. They made the art that hangs alongside
the artworks included in Refuge in Refuse as connect and gather
work by non-resident artists and they were frequently collaborators.
vantage points from those who had a stake in the Bulb. Robin
April Anthony wondered as a child why the art in the museums
Lassers film, Refuge in Refuse, which picks up where Kreamers
and galleries her father took her to did not move; as an adult she
film ended, was a collaborative effort with the landfillians living at
created art that does move, mobiles, using materials reclaimed
the Bulb during the final year prior to their eviction in 2014. The film
from dumpsters and other places. Danielle Evans started painting
highlights the stories and performative actions of residents who chose
two months after she arrived at the Bulb. Her paintings express her
to live creatively on the cusp of impending doom. The film draws
dreams and feelings, they are a way of meditating, of relaxing.
us into the creative interior lives of the residents and documents the
Jimbow the Hobow created paintings on wood as well as poetry
protests, the community, and city hall meetings leading up to the
(which he wrote at the Landfill Library he built with Andy Kreamer).
eviction.
Sniff, a group of four artists (Scott Hewitt, Bruce Rayburn, David Ryan,
and Scott Buddy Meadows) met once a week at the landfill to
collaborations where the former residents co-created and starred
apply latex paint to whatever was already there or to what the tide
in a landfill fashion show, boxing matches at the Bulbs Gym and
had just brought in. The Sniff artists did not intend to create public
a drama with Tamara Robinson as Elphaba Thropp, the Wicked
art, to beautify the neighborhood or to get paid, but it was important
Witch of the West melting at Mad Marcs castle window. Such
to them nevertheless.
creative responses to life in the landfill on the brink of change are
the subject of the mandala and zoetrope photographs by Lasser
Through personal effort or collaboration, the landfillians also
Even Lassers large-scale photographs were the result of
captured their dreams and stories on film. Andy Kreamer created
and Judith Leinen. The zoetrope photos create the illusion of motion
a digital film, Where Do You Go When It Rains?, which was written,
when gallery visitors pedal the bike, made, incidentally, from metal
produced, directed, and edited collectively with Jimbow the
scraps provided by Bulb residents. In the zoetropes, an old form of
19
Robin Lasser | Lead Curator

animation, residents can be seen performing and organizing their
made their homes here, but to explore small things forgotten
community just before they were forced to move. To record their
in the course of modern life.
thoughts and words Danielle Siembieda and Robin Lasser created
official-looking signs made as if for the very state park destined to
Johnsen, visiting instructor in the Department of Landscape
replace the landfillian community. The proposed plan is to someday
Architecture at U. C. Berkeley, and her landscape design students
install the park signs at the Albany Bulb. With these signs, the voice
have responded to the site in terms of its possibilities for future uses.
of authority, usually assigned to institutions, is given back to the
The students researched the creation of the landfill, the history of its
landfillians in commemoration of their lives at the landfill.
use, the local ecology and policy and, from this, created drawings
of their visions of a place with sculptural earth forms, universally
The exhibit also included participatory documentary approaches
and is an active artist/producer, who creates public art

dealing with environmental issues, social justice, and citizen-
Looking beyond the recent history of the Albany Bulb, Randi
in excerpts from the Atlas of the Albany Bulb, a project of the
accessible pathways, and gathering spaces.
interdisciplinary U.C. Berkeley Global Urban Humanities Initiative.
Susan Moffat, project director of the Atlas, states: Every story
the Refuge in Refuse exhibition to assist other houseless people in the
happens in a place, and every map is a narrative with a point of
gallerys neighborhood. Greg Kloehn makes small mobile homes
view. Our Atlas engages in spatial storytelling by using the spoken
from found materials and has given away over twenty of these so
word, sounds, and images to capture local knowledge.
far. After the SOMArts exhibition two homes, made specifically for
this show, and two others made during a workshop held at SOMArts
The Atlas project distributed disposable cameras to Bulb residents
Robin Lasser is a Professor of Art at San Jos State University
to-citizen global diplomacy. She often works in a collaborative

mode with other artists, writers, students, public agencies,
community organizations, and international coalitions
to produce public art and promote public dialogue.
She exhibits her work nationally and internationally.
www.robinlasser.com
Expanding on the plight of the landfillians, efforts were made at
Danielle Siembieda | Curator and Alter Eco Artist

Danielle Siembieda is an art service provider and creative
Barbara Boissevain
Refuge In Refuse
Exhibition Overview, 2015
entrepreneur in the San Francisco Bay Area. She works at

the intersection of Social Practice, Institutional Critique,
Intervention and New Media. Most of her work includes
an emphasis on the environment and technology.
and asked them to shoot photographs and then narrate slide
were distributed to persons in need nearby. The individuals receiving
shows about what was important to them. The residents also helped
the small mobile homes also participated in the one-day workshop
create detailed maps of the Bulbs public and spiritual spaces. At
and wheeled the homes away at the end of the day. At the
the exhibit, visitors were encouraged to draw with felt-tip pens on
opening reception, Doniece Sandoval, founder of the Lava Mae
DIY Bulb maps. Students also created interactive online maps of the
project, provided a curbside chat in one of the repurposed MUNI
Barbara Boissevain | Curator, 2015
sites ever-changing art. These evolving materials can be viewed at
buses retrofitted with showers and toilets, which are available to
Barbara Boissevain is a photographer and visual artist
albanybulbatlas.org.
those who might not have sufficient access to necessities most take
based in the San Francisco Bay Area, who uses her art
for granted.
to explore and document environmental and social justice
Graduate student Annie Danis led a team of 25 that carefully
issues. Boissevain received her M.F.A. from San Jos State
catalogued the public spaces, foundations of homes, and artifacts
inspired this exhibition, offer important lessons in what it means to
University in 2013. In 2009 she received the Best of ASMP
left by recently evicted residents. Writes Danis: Conventionally,
live life creatively and with spirit. They also raise another important
Award from the American Society of Media Photographers
archaeology is the study of humans in the past. But what counts as
question: who owns the right to do what with public spaces?
for her documentary work highlighting humanitarian issues
Contemporary archeology is an important part of the Atlas.
www.siembieda.com
The recent residents of the Albany Bulb (the landfillians), who
in Peru. Currently, she teaches photography at Academy
the past and who counts as human? This project appreciates the
speed at which the past and present collide at the Albany Bulb
Note: The language utilized to describe the artworks in this exhibition
and the layers of human connection on a landform that is itself an
is drawn directly from statements provided by each artist in the
artifact. Danis says that the project aims not only to document
exhibition.
the ingenuity, perseverance, and humanity of the people who

20
of Art University.
Barbara Boissevain
Robin Lasser Spins Zoetrope, 2015
www.barbaraboissevain.com
21
Barbara Boissevain
3D photograph by Lasser and Siembieda
Refuge in Refuse Exhibition Overview, 2015
paintings on right wall, left side by

Jimbow the Hobow, paintings on right side Danielle Evans
22
23
24
left side
below
Robin Lasser
Robin Lasser
Boxer Bob Punches at the Wind, 2014
Boxer Bob With Sugar Ray, 2014
ROBIN LASSER
25
26
left side
below
Robin Lasser in collaboration with Amber Whitson
Robin Lasser
Ambers Discovery - Buried Landfill Nifties, 2013
Amber in Overhang, 2013
27
Robin Lasser
Boxer Bob Wanders in Mansion Ruins, 2014
diptych
28
29
Robin Lasser
Boxer Bob and Danielle on their Escape Dock
known by Landfillians as Vinnies Floating Dock, 2014
diptych
30
31
Robin Lasser
Danielle Painting and Mansion Bedroom, 2014
diptych
32
33
Robin Lasser and Danielle Siembieda with F3 and Associates

Boxer Bobs Mansion West Side, 2013
35
Robin Lasser and Danielle Siembieda with F3 and Associates

Boxer Bobs Mansion East Side, 2013
37
Robin Lasser
Refuge in Refuse, 37 minute video, 2015
Tamara Melts at Mad Marcs Castle Window Mandala, 2013
www.youtube.com/watch?v=dUEdJGHutns
39
40
left side
below
Danielle Siembieda and Robin Lasser
Robin Lasser
Landfill Kitchen, 2015
KC and Tamara in Landfill Kitchen, 2014
41
bottom
right side
Exhibition View with video,
Amber Works at the Visitor Center Mandala, 2013
ROBIN LASSER & JUDITH LEINEN
zoetrope bike sculpture, and mandala, 2014
42
43
44
Boxer Bob as Noahs Ark Mandala, 2013
Tamara on High Heel Mandala, 2013
45
46
left side
below
Robin Lasser
Home Is Where The Heart Is, 2015
Amber in Mad Marcs Castle, 2013
47
48
below
right side
Annie Danis, Alyssa Scott, Katie Kinkopf, and Scott Lyons
Susan Moffat and Kushal Lachhwani
Archeology map
with Amber Whitson and Christina Gossmann
Site R22-Carrie and Pat
Map of the Albany Bulb, 2014
EXCERPTS FROM THE ATLAS OF THE ALBANY BULB

P roject D irector S usan M offat
49
50
Susan Moffat and Christina Lew
with Eleanna Panagoulia and
Dawn Kooyumjian
Dawn Kooyumjian
Tree Houses/Tree People, 2014
51
52
Dawn Kooyumjian
Dawn Kooyumjian
53
below strip left to right

Amber Whitson with Susan Moffat,
Susan Moffat, ed. Sandra Lee
ed. Sandra Lee
Albany Beach Cleanup and Art Event
My Life on the Albany Bulb
2:06 minute video, 2014
6:38 minute narrated slideshow, 2014
Stephanie with Susan Moffat, ed. Sandra Lee
Living with Nature on the Bulb
Albany Bulb Environmental Education
Docents on Art and Animals
Interviews with Patty Donald and others

Us and Them: The Homeless

People of the Albany Bulb
Interview with Steve Thrush
Music at the Bulb
1:38 minute video (trailer), 2014
Tamara with Christina Gossmann
James Lee Bailey with Susan Moffat,
Life Outside Common-Day Life
ed. Christina Gossmann
My Life on the Albany Bulb So

That Others May Understand It
54
55
right side
Barbara Boissevain
Mad Marc In His Castle, 2014
left side
Mad Marcs Castle, 2015
56
57
right side
Greg Kloehn
Homeless Homes Project, 2015
GREG KLOEHN
left side
Greg Kloehn
Photograph: Barbara Boissevain
Landfillians Tamara Robinson with
daughter Emmy, Mam-A-Bear, and
Jimbow the Hobow
58
59
60
Greg Kloehn
Greg Kloehn
61
TOMAS McCABE
Tomas McCabe
Bums Paradise, 2002
57 minute video
www.bumsparadise.com
62
63
64
left side
below
Robin Lasser
Painting, 2015
Danielle with Spirits, 2013
65
Danielle Evans
Landfill Paintings, 2013-2014
66
DANIELLE EVANS
67
68
Danielle Evans
Danielle Evans
Untitled, 2013-2014
Untitled, 2013-2014
69
70
Danielle Evans
Danielle Evans
Untitled, 2013-2014
Untitled, 2013-2014
71
72
left side
below
Robin Lasser
Boxer Bobs Mansion, 2015
Boxer Bob at the Landfill Gym, 2013
73
It is important to recognize that without a

subject of a film there would be no film; the
characters are the authors, and since this film
is unscripted, every time someone speaks,
they are writing, producing, and directing
the film by overseeing their own actions. All
participants viewed hours of footage and
decided what to include and exclude.
Andy Kreamer
ANDY KREAMER
AMBER WHITSON
CHESTER MOUNTEN
JIMBOW THE HOBOW
KATHERINE CODY
PHYL LEWIS

Katherine Cody, and Phyl Lewis
Where Do You Go When It Rains?, 2009-2014
1 hour 5 minute video installation
Film Stills of Where Do You Go When It Rains?

refugeinrefuse.weebly.com/where-do-yougo-when-it-rains-feature-length-film.html
74
75
left side

Home of the Brave, 2015
76
below
Robin Lasser
Crazy Steve and Jimbow the Hobow, 2013
77
The library was built from abandoned boats that
Countless people visited the library over many
had washed ashore mixed with trash found at
years, some expressed their love of the place
the Albany Bulb. Before construction began, the
in a guestbook started by Jimbow the Hobow,
building was dedicated to all homeless people
for which a traveling Canadian later made the
who have passed on. It has served as a home,
beautiful cover. Jimbow and Andy made the
bar, community center, movie theater, concert
library together in a location where Jimbow had
hall, and homeless shelter for new arrivals to the
lived off and on for the past 20 years.
left side
below
Photographer Unknown
Ashely from Canada
Jimbow the Hobow in the Landfill Library, 2009
Landfill Library Guest Book, 2007

Library Favorite Quote Book, 2007-2012
Bulb while they built a camp of their own.
78
79
James Lee Bailey (aka Jimbow the Hobow)
Jimbow the Hobow and Painting, 2009
Dancing Landfillians, 2009

Ocean, 2013, and Fog in Water, 2007
80
81
82
left side
below
Robin Lasser
Homesteading, 2015
April at Home, 2014
83
April Anthony
Mobile Installation, 2010-2015
APRIL ANTHONY
a.p.r.i.l.designs@hotmail.com
84
85
left side
below
April Anthony
April Anthony
Mobile, 2011
Homesick Community Mobile, 2015
87
88
left side
below
Robin Lasser
Wicked Witch of the West, 2014
Tamara at Landfill Library Flags, 2014
89
Robin Lasser editor, Mike Kann archived footage

Landfill Art at the Albany Bulb
15 minute video, 2002-2006
90
Sniff
(Scott Hewitt, Bruce Rayburn,
David Ryan, Scott Buddy Meadows)
SNIFF
Untitled, 2003
91
92
Roadtrip, 2002
I Got Sniffed, 2003
93
94
left side
below
Robin Lasser
Dumpster Ettiquette, 2014
Chester at Home, 2014
95
RANDI JOHNSEN
Randi Johnsen
(L to R, row 1, 2, 3)
Landfill Garden, 2004
Landmakers Garden, 2004
Encampment Garden, 2004
Parkmakers Garden, 2004
Artists Garden, 2004
right side
Randi Johnson
Plan Study, 2004
96
97
98
Karly Behncke
Jonathan Marc Heyneman Hallet
Weaving Through Space: Intertwining Experiences at the Albany Bulb, 2013
Unfilling the Albany Bulb, 2013
99
below
right side
Doniece Sandoval
Doniece Sandoval
Lava Mae Repurposed Muni Bus, 2014
Lava Mae Repurposed Muni Bus
Photograph by Henrik Kam
Opening Reception Curb Side Chat
DONIECE SANDOVAL
Photographs by Robin Lasser, 2015
100
101
102
Greg Kloehn
Danielle Siembieda
Build Small Mobile Homes
Augmented Reality Tour of the Albany Bulb Post-2014 Eviction
for the Homeless Workshop, 2015
Tour guides: Danielle Siembieda and Robin Lasser with Amber Whitson
103
Excerpts from Street Spirit

by Amber Whitson
www.thestreetspirit.org/
home-is-where-the-heart-is
Life Before Eviction

While we lived on the Bulb, we never fell asleep to the
sound of nearby gunfire. Members of our community who

had always been at odds with each other were not forced
to dwell in cramped quarters together, in order to live
free from fear of police harassment.

We enjoyed the luxury of being able to afford
to buy groceries. Many of us had more positive interactions

(far more interactions, in general) with other members
of society.

We were in better shape (riding our bikes to and from
town). We were in better health, eating healthier food and
Persecuted on the Streets

Those of us who still live on the streets are under
It is heartbreaking to go out to the Bulb and see
constant persecution due to the inhumane laws
what has been done to our former home. Now
and ordinances that effectively criminalize our
that nobody lives there, trash receptacles have
very existence.
been installed, as have dispensers with bags for
people to pick up after their dogs.
In Albany, one must acquire a special permit
to park an oversized vehicle (which must be
registered to an Albany address) on any city
has been left in place (more cost-effective for the
street. Even then, that vehicle can only park in
City and the Parks District, to whom they are trying
one spot for up to 72 hours.
to transfer the land). Paths have been widened
and turned into roads that vehicles now travel
Berkeley and Richmond also have ordinances
Every improvement that we made to the land
against parking a vehicle in one spot for more
upon.
than 72 hours. Every city in the area has laws
Life After Eviction
against camping.
being removed as graffiti. Soon, only the
sculptures will remain (if that).
the commons is hardly for the common people.
Maybe it should be renamed the privileges?
originally suggested that people with nowhere
else to live should live on the Albany Bulb, is
breathing healthier air, with our minds more at peace.
After the mass eviction of people from the Albany Bulb,
as a result of the assistance we received, some of us were

housed in the poorest areas of Richmond and Oakland.

One resident experienced their first drive-by shooting
less than four days after they left the Bulb, and the outside
of the building that they were placed in was pockmarked
with bullet holes.

Another residents daughter was robbed when she went
to the corner store. That same household (the family was

housed in Richmond) had the unpleasant experience
of someone being murdered on the sidewalk directly
outside their house.

Yet another household (also in Richmond) had
a 30-person gang riot occur in the street, directly in

front of their house. Not one police officer responded
to the incident.
Now, we have better lives!?...
Despite the growing occurrence of poverty,
While roughly half of us remain homeless,
The beloved Wild Art of the Bulb is slowly
The City of Albany, whose police officers
there are many of us (even those who live indoors)
effectively trying to erase nearly all evidence of
who long for our homes out on the Albany Bulb.
our community having ever existed.
INDEX
Robin Lasser in collaboration

Robin Lasser
Aerial photograph of
Grimm Salutes the Sunrise Mandala, 2013
Albany Bulb Landfill, 2013
archival infused pigment on metal, 36 x 36
Robin Lasser
with Amber Whitson
Amber in Overhang, 2013
Ambers Discovery: Buried
archival inkjet print, 30 x 50
Landfill Nifties, 2013

archival inkjet print, 30x50
pg 27
pg 26
pg 3
pg 10
diptych | archival inkjet print, 22 x 68
Osha Neumann and Jason DeAntonis
pg 18
Boxer Bob Wanders in Mansion Ruins, 2014
Grimm Salutes the Sunrise, 2014
pg 14-15
pg 13
Robin Lasser
Robin Lasser
Landfill Sculpture, 2013

Point Cloud 3D Image
pg 28-29

Barbara Boissevain
Refuge in Refuse
Refuge in Refuse Exhibition Overview and
Robin Lasser Spins Zoetrope, 2015
pg 21
3D photograph by Lasser and Siembieda
Refuge in Refuse
paintings on right wall, left side by
Exhibition Overview, 2015
Jimbow the Hobow, paintings on
pg 23
Boxer Bob and Danielle on their Escape

Dock known by Landfillians as Vinnies
Floating Dock, 2014
Barbara Boissevain
pg 22
Robin Lasser
pg 30-31
right side Danielle Evans

Robin Lasser
Danielle Painting and Mansion Bedroom, 2014
Robin Lasser
Robin Lasser
Boxer Bob Punches at the Wind, 2014
Boxer Bob With Sugar Ray, 2014
archival inkjet print, 39 X 43
archival inkjet print, 30 X 50
pg 25
pg 24
pg 32-33
pg 34-35
Robin Lasser
Home is Where the Heart Is, 2014
Amber in Mad Marcs Castle, 2013
Boxer Bobs Mansion West Side, 2013
Boxer Bobs Mansion East Side, 2013
aluminum print, 24 x 18

pg 36-37

Robin Lasser
pg 47
pg 46
Tamara Melts at Mad Marcs
Refuge in Refuse, 37 minute video, 2015
Castle Window Mandala, 2013

backlit archival ink jet print, 36 x 36
pg 38
pg 39
Robin Lasser
Landfill Kitchen, 2014
KC and Tamara in Landfill Kitchen, 2014
archival ink jet print, 30x 50
pg 48
pg 41
pg 40

Amber Works at the
Visitor Center Mandala, 2013
Exhibition View with video,
pg 42
zoetrope bike sculpture,

and mandala, 2014
Susan Moffat and Kushal Lachhwani
Katie Kinkopf, and Scott Lyons
with Amber Whitson and
Archeology map
Christina Gossmann
Site R22-Carrie and Pat
Map of the Albany Bulb
ink on canvas, 16.5 x 23
pg 49
print, 24 x 36, 2014
Dawn Kooyumjian
Dawn Kooyumjian
print, 24 x 20
pg 51
print, 24 x 26
pg 50
pg 43
Boxer Bob as Noahs Ark Mandala, 2013
Tamara on High Heel Mandala, 2013
archival infused pigment on metal, 36 x 36
archival infused pigment

on metal, 36 x 36
pg 44
Annie Danis, Alyssa Scott,
pg 45
pg 52
Dawn Kooyumjian
Dawn Kooyumjian
print, 24 x 20
print, 24 x 20
pg 53
Amber Whitson with Susan Moffat,
ed. Sandra Lee
Albany Beach Cleanup and Art Event, 2014
My Life on the Albany Bulb, 2014
2:06 minute video
Living with Nature on the Bulb, 2014
Albany Bulb Environmental Education
8:48 minute narrated slideshow
Interviews with Patty Donald

and others, 2015
4:11 minute video
Us and Them: The Homeless

People of the Albany Bulb
archival Inkjet print, 50 x 30
pg 57
Barbara Boissevain
Greg Kloehn
Landfillians Tamara Robinson
with daughter Emmy, Mam-A-
found objects, nails, screws,
Bear, and Jimbow the Hobow
glue, and wheels, dimensions vary
pg 59
pg 58
Interview with Steve Thrush, 2014

6:49 minute video
Music at the Bulb, 2014
Tamara with Christina Gossmann
1:38 minute video (trailer)
Life Outside Common-Day Life, 2014
James Lee Bailey with Susan Moffat,
My Life on the Albany Bulb So
Mad Marc In His Castle, 2014
imaged with Greg Kloehns
ed. Christina Gossmann
Mad Marcs Castle, 2014
pg 56
Stephanie with Susan Moffat, ed. Sandra Lee

Docents on Art and Animals
Barbara Boissevain
pg 54-55
above images left to right
Greg Kloehn
Greg Kloehn
pg 60
pg 61
That Others May Understand It, 2013

Tomas McCabe
Bums Paradise, 2002
57 minute video
pg 62-63
110
www.bumsparadise.com
Robin Lasser
Robin Lasser
Painting, 2014
Danielle with Spirits, 2013
Boxer Bobs Mansion, 2014
Boxer Bob at the Landfill Gym, 2013
pg 65
pg 64
pg 72
Danielle Evans
Danielle Evans
Landfill Paintings, 2013-2014
Untitled, 2013-2014
pg 73
Katherine Cody, and Phyl Lewis
paint on wood, 30 x 23
Where Do You Go When It Rains?,

2009-2014
pg 74-75
1 hour 5 minutes digital video
pg 68
pg 66
Robin Lasser

Danielle Evans
Danielle Evans
Home of the Brave, 2014
Untitled, 2013-2014
Untitled, 2013-2014
Crazy Steve and Jimbow the Hobow, 2013

pg 77
pg 76
pg 69
pg 70
Danielle Evans
Untitled, 2013-2014
Ashely from Canada
Jimbow the Hobow in
Landfill Library Guest Book, 2007
the Landfill Library, 2009
cardboard and paper, 10.5 x 16

Library Favorite Quote Book, 2007-2012
photograph, 11 x 14
pg 71
pg 78
paper and pen, 4.5 x 3.5
pg 79
James Lee Bailey (aka Jimbow the Hobow)
Jimbow the Hobow and Painting, 2009
Dancing Landfillians, 2009
photograph, 11 x 14
pastel and pens on plywood, 12.5 x 27

Ocean, 2013
Sniff (Scott Hewitt, Bruce Rayburn
Landfill Art at the Albany Bulb
15 minute video, 2002-2006
Untitled, 2003
acrylic on wood, 8 x 16
pg 80
Fog and Water, 2007
pg 71
acrylic on wood, 8x 11
Robin Lasser
Homesteading, 2014
April at Home, 2014
pg 90
pg 91

I Got Sniffed, 2003
Roadtrip, 2002
pg 92
April Anthony
(L to R)
Mobile Installation, 2010-2015
Mobile, 2011
pg 87
(Scott Hewitt, Bruce Rayburn
(Scott Hewitt, Bruce Rayburn

pg 82
pg 84
Sniff
Sniff
pg 83
acrylic on something
acrylic on old dock, 6 x 8
pg 93
washed ashore, 7 x 5
Robin Lasser
Dumpster Etiquette, 2014
Chester at Home, 2014
Homesick Community Mobile, 2015
pg 86
pg 95
pg 94
Daniel Siembieda and Robin Lasser
Robin Lasser
Wicked Witch of the West, 2014
Tamara at Landfill Library Flags, 2014
Randi Johnsen
(L to R, row 1, 2, 3)
Landfill Garden, 2004 Landmakers
pg 89
pg 88
Robin Lasser editor, Mike Kann archived footage
pg 96
Encampment
Parkmakers
Garden, 2004
Garden, 2004
Garden, 2004
Artists Garden, 2004
inkjet print
inkjet print
inkjet print
inkjet print
inkjet print
15.75 x 19.75
15.75 x 19.75
15.75 x 19.75
15.75 x 19.75
15.75 x 19.75
Randi Johnson
Karly Behncke
Plan Study, 2004
Weaving Through Space: Intertwining
inkjet print, 15.75 x 19.75
Experiences at the Albany Bulb, 2013

pg 97
pg 98
Jonathan Marc Heyneman Hallet
Unfilling the Albany Bulb, 2013
pg 99
Doniece Sandoval
Doniece Sandoval
8 x 40 Muni Bus
Opening reception curb side chat
Photograph by Henrik Kam
Photographs by Robin Lasser
pg 100
pg 101
Greg Kloehn
Danielle Siembieda
Build Small Mobile Homes for
Augmented Reality Tour of
the Homeless Workshop, 2015
the Albany Bulb Post-2014 Eviction, 2015
Tour guides: Danielle Siembieda

and Robin Lasser with Amber Whitson
Photographs by Robin Lasser
pg 102
pg 103

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REFUGE IN REFUSE

HOMESTEADING ART AND CULTURE

ALBANY BULB LANDFILL

First Edition 2015

FRONT COVER PHOTOGRAPH

Osha Neumann, Susan Moffat, Andy Kreamer, Amber Whitson,

BACK COVER PHOTOGRAPH

SOMArts Exhibition Curated by:

Full List of Participating Exhibitors:

Robin Lasser, Danielle Siembieda,

Andy Kreamer, Amber Whitson,

Robin Lasser, Barbara Boissevain, and

Homesteading Art and Culture

Jonathan Marc Heyneman Hallet, Sara Harmon,

Susan Moffat with student collaborators: Heather Bromfield,

Sniff (Scott Hewitt, Bruce Rayburn,

Scott Lyons, Eleanna Panagoulia, Lana Salman, Alyssa Scott,

David Ryan, and Scott Buddy Meadows)

Julia Tierney, and Kelan Stoy

46, 56, 64, 72, 76, 82, 88, 94

Robin Lasser & Judith Leinen

Katherine Cody, Patty Donald, Dawn Kooyumjian,

Steve Thrush, Amber Whitson, and Laurie Willkie

Scott Hewitt, Bruce Rayburn, David Ryan,

THE LAST OF THE LANDFILLIANS

landfillians created homes, a library, sculpture, an elaborate

Grimm Salutes the Sunrise Mandala, 2013

Robin Lasser, Danielle Siembieda, and Barbara Boissevain, who are

Like the 19th century romanticssuch as the British poets

Dore Bowen | January 1, 2015

Robin Lasser and Danielle Siembieda

human imagination, in its varied forms, creates meaning. Its about

way for a to-be-built California state park.

place in question is the Albany Bulb, a human-made spit of land on

the creative spirit of the former Bulb residents, who called

place was called home by a group of people who would otherwise

themselves the landfillians. The memory of the landfillians, with their

be homeless. This exhibition connects people to place, place to art,

fiercely alternative lifestyles and their unique art, is preserved in

photographic documents (both prints and film), signs, and surviving

art works, while 3D scans and aerial photographs help preserve

Refuge in Refuse: Homesteading Art and Culture commemorates

the landfillian moment in the Bulbs history in accurate detail. The

Atlas of the Albany Bulb incorporated oral history and archeological

came the Gold Rush and sediment released by hydraulic mining

techniques to map the Bulb. Looking beyond the recent past, a

group of landscape designers have created visions of possible future

it was transformed into a spit when it became a construction dump

exemplify diverse forms of placemaking within the context of the

that welcomed rebar and concrete slabs as well as marble from

Richmonds demolished City Hall and Berkeleys former library. This

placemaking into a different, more urban locale. It weaves together

appealing, signs of human-landscape interaction, oil, lead paint,

and by inviting one of Lava Maes MUNI buses repurposed with

asbestos, and other toxins, arrived at the shores of the Bulb.

services for the homeless to park outside the exhibition space.

In later years, renegade artists erected fantastical sculptures,

In a way, the SOMArts exhibition also extends the idea of

There are also virtual components to this new placemaking:

a website (www.refugeinrefuse.weebly.com) and augmented

nowhere else to go settled in and called it home. They evolved

reality applications. These applications allow Bulb visitors to use

their own small community where a kind of creative anarchy held