DATE: JULY – AUGUST 2018
Schultz has been an active member of the Bay Area arts community for several decades. A graduate of the California College of Arts and Crafts and former aircraft mechanic for the Navy, Schultz moved his toolbox from the warfield to the playground, designing the sets of Children’s Fairyland along Lake Merritt in Oakland and doing design work for the (in)famous and ultra-exclusive Bohemian Club. He later played a foundational role in what would become a working artist’s playground along 5th Avenue Marina in the Oakland Estuary.
His whimsical, hodgepodge style has gotten him shows at the Oakland Museum of California and Shakey Hand Gallery, but his most important work has been right in his workshop, where for over 30 years he has turned the once-crumbling alley into a colorful, exuberant arts community. His work almost always engages with movement, the idea of innovation, and an impish delight in blurring boundaries.
An energetic, carefree tinkerer, Schultz plays with the modern reverence for machines by unabashedly mixing together the functional and decorative, the mechanical and the supernatural, historical tidbits and poetic fancy.