A backyard in Echo Park is broken (on purpose)
For most gardeners, a playful landscape accent might entail a ceramic mushroom staked in a geranium bed. For the intrepid artist-gardener, only a 7-foot naked chanteuse will do. “I designed her as an early, skewed Matisse with a bit of Gaudí and cubism thrown in,” says Larry Nichols of his sculpture-bench clothed in nothing but fractured pottery. “Fifi” reigns over a trio of functional statuary in Nichol’s garden fronting the 1913 Echo Park craftsman that he has shared with partner Rob Kibler for 32 years. “Fifi,” pictured here, is just the beginning. Keep clicking to see the rest of their mosaic landscape. (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)
Nichols, left, and Kibler stand in the middle of their Echo Park garden, where “Fifi” and other mosaic works are as bright and exuberant as the flowers. A fish fountain and pond were created a decade ago, followed by a dragon wall bench (“La Dragona del Jardin”), along with less fearsome grotto seating. The 1994 Northridge earthquake dished out the idea for the projects as well as the material: pottery shards that the couple stored in boxes beside their home. Smashed works by such renown artists as Beatrice Wood and Andrea Gill proved difficult to toss.
“I even went around the house and broke a few things that weren’t damaged,” says Kibler, former head of Glendale Community College’s ceramics department as well as past chairman of the visual and performing arts division. “I thought, break it now and it will last longer on the garden wall.” (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)
Nichols and contractor Craig Diehl worked from sketches and clay models. “I made line drawings on the mortar where I wanted certain details and color fields,” says Nichols, a former art director who takes commissions for similar projects. “Sometimes I penciled in numbered codes that matched pottery on the lawn.” Local potters contributed shards, and tile seconds from a building supply filled gaps, along with “fatal defects from my kiln,” says master potter Kibler, who in retirement teaches an earthenware class at the Glendale college. That’s Kibler, left, and Nichols by the dragon bench, with “Fifi” off in the distance. (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)
“I wanted the dragon to be glittery, even a bit sleazy,” says Nichols, who raked Moskatels craft supply in downtown
Part of a 1976 portrait plate that Kibler made depicting a young Nichols forms a fin on a fish-shaped fountain. (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)
The fountain. (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)
Contractor Diehl built footings laid with steel-reinforced concrete block, shaved to form basic contours. Concrete grouting filled empty spaces, and Diehl’s troweling achieved a final shape. “When we laid the final pieces, we had hundreds of pounds of broken pottery scattered across the yard,” says Diehl, who created river-stone bases for the fish, the dragon and other benches, including this one attracting Chula the cat. (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)
A small ceramic face created by one of Kibler’s students has been tucked into the crevices of a stone wall leading into the garden. (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)
Another mosaic bench. (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)
Kibler sits on the rump of “Fifi,” the 7-foot figure whose ample bosom is artfully tipped with teapot lids (and too naked for display here). Kibler and Nichols have hosted Easter Bonnet Brawls attended by local luminaries: Warhol superstar Holly Woodlawn, Joel Grey, Alan Sues of “Laugh-In” fame and Lily Tomlin. Party photos show guests in unhinged chapeaux -- a titanic hat in the shape of the Cathedral of Notre Dame, another composed of garden flats filled with pansies. With the puckish sculptures as backdrops, the down-the-rabbit-hole scenes become studies for a Tim Burton movie. (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)
Other secreted details: Nichols gave “Fifi” a diver tattoo on her bum. (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)
Another detail of the “Fifi” bench. (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)
Glaze test tiles are set in rows across Fifi’s seat. (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)
Chula takes her seat. (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)
Nichols and Kibler are planning one more installation, a riff on medieval and Renaissance paintings depicting the expulsion from the Garden of Eden. The freshly banished Adam and Eve will emerge from a side garden wall, clothed in more ceramic damage. Rendering the pair in Edenic rapture “seemed too precious, and I really hate precious,” Nichols said. “Eventually they screwed up. That’s where the humor is. I might put Eve in 5-inch heels and Adam in flip-flops. Always best to keep it light.”
For a look inside more unusual homes, check out our Homes of the Times gallery. (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)