‘Barnacle Goose’ : Statue Takes Wing in Minds of Its Observers

Just before leaving for Borneo five years ago, Bill Cook and Bob Cole bought a 17 1/2-foot-high metal bird that looks as if it flew out of a nightmare.

The two men have long shared a penchant for trips to unusual places, untraditional objets d’art and the rare cacti and carnivorous plants that they sell from their house on Topham Street in Reseda. So this purchase was not out of character. Perched in the middle of suburban Reseda, it has received its share of attention. A Tarzana truck driver recently recited a rumor that it was an ancient god, carries a curse and was stolen during a long-ago expedition to Mexico.

Cole tells of a couple who determined several years ago that the sculpture sprang from a satanist’s mind. They drove up and started praying before the giant bird, trying to combat what they saw as its diabolic presence, he said.

‘A Kind of Private Joke’

The truth has less to do with the devil than with the quirky sense of humor of sculptor Peter Fels, who once lived in Sherman Oaks but has moved to Big Sur. He built the piece 10 years ago “as a kind of private joke.” Since then, lore surrounding the spiky-headed sculpture has included a reportedly outraged reaction from the wife of a former Los Angeles mayor, some subsequent delicate surgery and an appearance on the television program “Laugh-In.”

Fels said he intended the beast, which he refers to as the “Giant Chicken,” as a form of protest. “It was directed at the Renaissance Pleasure Faire,” said the 40-year-old artist from his seaside retreat, where he is currently building himself a concrete house in the shape of a giant rock.

Referring to the annual crafts and amusement fair in Agoura, Fels continued, “I thought it was getting over-commercialized. They traded in their ideals for a mass audience, more money than heart. They used to be more risque. It was a burlesque of the fair.”

Modeled After a Goose

The sculpture is formally titled “Goose Barnacle Goose.” The goose barnacle attaches itself by a long fleshy stalk to rocks and ships’ bottoms. The name derives from a fable that geese grew from the barnacle. The sculpture is Fels’ conception of such a goose.

Fels can’t say when he created the giant bird. He says he mostly abandoned dates 20 years ago. He can remember easily, however, that the cancer he says he has survived entered various parts of his body about five years ago. He can tell you that he dropped out of school 20 years ago to begin to create metal sculpture.

But he can’t say what year the goose had its debut at the Renaissance Pleasure Faire, or when he sold it to a Studio City potter named Chris Christiansen for “some pottery, some metal and some bucks when he had them.”

Christiansen lashed it to the roof of his Studio City shop. Fels says that former Mayor Sam Yorty drove by with his wife, Elizabeth, who noticed sizable and ungooselike genitals protruding from the work. Yorty sent police officers, Fels says, who ordered Christiansen to tone down the work’s sexual element. Fels says Christiansen complied over his objections.

Yorty, reached at his home in Studio City, said that he doesn’t remember Goose Barnacle Goose. “I have a very good memory, and I’d remember if that happened,” he said.

Fels says he has also received media attention for other pieces of work, including a giant metal brassiere that he keeps on his property near Big Sur.

Fels, who says he makes a living building fireplaces and weather vanes, speaks with disdain for what he calls “the business of art,” the salesmanship needed to make a reputation. He has sold some pieces, but says his buyers would not want their names publicized. Asked about his artistic influences, Fels says he’s generally tried to avoid them. He did talk about making experiments with drugs in the 1960s. “It led me to ask a lot of questions about the nature of my reality,” he says. “Objective reality is, in fact, a hypothesis, no matter how well confirmed.”

Cook and Cole said they bought the sculpture because they knew Fels and because it was falling through the roof of Christiansen’s shop and needed a new home. They won’t say how much they paid for it.

“We think it has validity as a work of art,” Cook said of the work that today stands with its wings lifted high over Topham Street.

“We’ve never liked the ordinary,” said Cole, pointing to a small sculpture in the shop of a carnivorous plant swallowing a baby-sized arm.

Added Cook, matter-of-factly, “This is just bigger than the rest of what we have. That’s all.”