José María Pérez Ruiz, La Casa Barco España / The house "Barco España"

this image and the next six courtesy of Jo Farb Hernandez
see Docementation 

Almuñécar is a Spanish city with some 27.000 inhabitants (2024), located along the Mediterranean sea, in the southwestern part of the coast of Granadina in the province of Granada.

This city was the hometown of José María Pérez Ruiz (1937-2025), also affectionately known as Pepe Pérez.

If you're wondering what the image of a ship has to do with where he lived.. .that ship was his home !

Life and works

Pepe Pérez' was conceived in 1937 when his father, who had a job as a barber, was on a short leave from military service during the Spanish Civil War.

At age twenty-two he joined the Merchant Marines, a choice that would have a major influence on the rest of his life.

In 1967, thirty years old, he married María del Carmen, who worked as a teacher, The couple would have two daughters and a son.

From his early years, Pérez was professionally connected with the shipping industry, a connection so strong indeed that it could be said that his heart lay in life at sea. 

His favorite saying was, “My ship is my treasure, my god is freedom, my law is strength and the wind, my only homeland is the sea.”

Pérez's dream was to build a house in Almuñécar that would always remind him of his connection to the sea..

He succeeded in realizing that dream, because in early 1970, with the help of a cousin, he began building a house. It was a unique construction in the shape of a 75-meter-long ship, full of nautical details, located along a road to the nearby popular beach of San Cristóbal.

The building is filled with maritime items, which Pérez bought here and there in ports, for example, when he heard that a ship was being scrapped. He acquired portholes, masts, ropes...... in short, all sorts of ship parts and instruments.

The interior of the ship that Pérez Ruiz constructed includes what you'd expect in a typical house: rooms, a kitchen, a bathroom, and so on.

It's not visible from the street, but behind the building there is a terrace with a swimming pool and a vegetable garden.

José Maria Pérez Ruiz passed away on January 9, 2025.

Documentation

* This art enviroment is introduced and analyzed in the book: Jo Farb Hernandez, Singular Spaces II: From the Eccentric to the Extraordinary in Spanish Art Environments. Milan: 5 Continents Editions, 2023 

* Article (January 2025) in Spanish newspaper Ideal

* Article (January 2025) in Spanish newspaper ABC de Granada

Video

* Video (2009, YouTube, 4'10#') by Canalsur, an interview with Pérez Ruiz

 

José María Pérez Ruiz

La Casa-Barco España 

Avenida del Mediterrano  34 

Almuñécar,  province of Granada, Spain

can be seen from the street

Google Streetview

Włodzimierz Rosłon, Udekorowane wnętrze i zewnętrze / Decorated interior and exterior

all images are screenshots from the video in the documentation

The image above shows a shelter located near the Brwilno Nature Reserve in Płock, a city in central Poland.

This shelter, established in 1963, has been funded by church funds. It has a capacity of 140 residents and it primarily housed adults with intellectual disabilities and people unable to work, who came from all regions of Poland.

In 1998, the facility was publicly funded, the province became the owner and the shelter was renamed as the Social House. It appears to exude a welcoming, positive atmosphere, with many activities focused on the well-being of its residents.

In conjunction with such a heart-whole approach the Social House also has a sculpture workshop, where pieces of pine and lime wood are waiting to be transformed into creative works.

Life and works

Wlodzimierz Roston is a resident of the shelter who frequently uses the workshop.. 

Born in Warsaw in 1953, he has lived in the social house since 1975.

In the image above, one likely can see him working in his own room, which is adorned with all sorts of art objects.

Roston began his artistic activities in the 1980s, working with great intensity. Most of his creations incorporate a variety of colors, from dark tones to vibrant colors, as can be seen in the images.

He not only created paintings to decorate the interior of his room at the shelter, but he also made a lot of wooden sculptures, some of which are incorporated into the chapel of the Social House and many others were added to its exterior fencing.

These wooden sculptures are finished in a variety of different colors, in the personal, artistic style that Roslan gradually developed and for which he became known, even outside Poland.

Several of the wooden creations are made on round poles, which were available in the workshop of the House or which Roston collected himself in its green surroundings. 

Some of these decorated poles were used to decorate the fence outside the Social House.

Individual pieces from his artistic output are included in various public and private collections in Poland, France, and the Czech Republic.

Włodzimierz Rosłon is one of three outsider artists who was launched in a project in 2021 aimed at raising awareness of the phenomenon of outsider art in Poland, a project with public events organized by Andrzej Kwasiborski and Radosław Łabarzewski.

Another artist in this project is Wacław Rędziński, whose work has previously been featured in an article on this blog..

Documentation

* Article (November 2021) by Radek Labarzewski on his website Znalezienie 

* Article (October 2024) on Plock Weekly by Alina Szatkowska about the shelter, with a passage about Wlodzimierz Roston

Video

* Video ( YouTube , 6'49") subtitled in English, produced in 2021 and published on website Znalezienie

Włodzimierz Rosłon

Decorated interior and exterior

Brwilno, Plock Municipality, dept Mazowieckie,  Poland

Zdzisław Syczewski, Ogród bajkowy / Fairytale garden

images are screenprints from the video in the documentation

The garden with all kinds of decorative elements, as shown above, is located in Hodyszewo, a village with about 140 inhabitants (2011) in the south of Poland, which is part of the municipality of Nowe Piekuty.

Life and works

This art environmend is a creation of Zdzislaw Syczewsk, who started the project in 2011.

He initially worked as a smelter, then as a steelworker, and after a few years, he started working at a factory that manufactured heating systems.

Meanwhile Syczewsk has retired.

Currently he has created a large variety of works, primarily fairytale figures, as can be seen in the surrounding images.

Syczewski doesn't consider himself an artist.

As he has said, he has been decorating the garden to pass the time. Although he also started working for the enjoyment of his grandchildren, that's no longer a motive now that they're grown up.

To make the creations, Syczewski uses willow wood as a material, which is easy to work with and readily available in the area.

Some of the fairytale characters he created are well-known, such as Pinocchio and the Smurfs, while others are primarily known in Eastern Europe, such as Masha and the Bear, the Wolf and the Hare, Matołek the Goat and Gargamel.

Documentation

* Article (November 2021) by Radek Łabarzewscy on his website Znalezienie

Video

* Video  (0'54", YouTube, November 2021) by Znalezienie

 

Zdzislaw Syczewski

Fairytale garden

Hodyszewo, municipality of Nowe Piekuty, dept of Podlaskie, Poland

can be visited

Anonymous, Art environment on Rousay Island

all pictures (2024) courtesy of Sophie Lepetit

The island of Rousay, part of the Orkney Islands, lies in the North Sea /Atlantic Ocean northeast of Scotland, approximately 53 kilometers away. from the mainland. 

tt covers an area of ​​46 square kilometers and has approximately 230 inhabitants.

Amidst the island's natural beauty, there are more than one hundred ancient archaeological sites. 

And then there's also a site, depicted in the surrounding images, that can be considered an art environment.

Thia art environment is located along the southern coast of Rousay, near a house called Giord.

It's quite possible that it was created by the owner of this house.

However, the house is currently for sale, and the advertisement for it doesn't mention the owner's name.

It does mention that Giord House has an outdoor space with a 1.37-hectare plot and a sheltered garden and this indicates that there was sufficient outdoor space to create an art environment.

The images in this post show that the creations in the art environment often include depictions of all kinds of animals.

But there are also other items on display, such as above left a figure made of iron bandages and above right a large anchor and a small-scale lighthouse.

The image below shows a ship on dry land, and it's questionable whether this ship is part of the art environment. 

In any case, the image gives an impression of the beautiful view one can have from the coast of Rousay Island.

Documentation

* Article and a variety of photos by Sophie Lepetit on her weblog

Anonymous 

Art environment on Rousay Island

Located along the southern coast of the island

Island of Rousay, part of the Orkney archipelago, Scotland, United Kingdom

Wacław Rędziński, Ogród z rzeźbami zwierząt / Garden with animal sculptures

images are screenprints from the video 
in the dcoumentation

 

Nowa Biała is a village, part of the Nowy Targ Municipality, located in southern Poland, not far from the border with Slovakia and 70 km south of the regional capital Kraków

This village features an art environment that has an entrance that, as can be seen in the image above, is flanked by a large giraffe.

Life and works

This art environment, filled with a variety of animals, was created by Wacław Rędziński, who was born in Nowa Biała in 1945.

As an adult, he would run a car repair shop in his hometown for forty years, retiring around 2010.

He then had plenty of time to pursue his hobby, which involved making concrete sculptures of life-size animals, such as the giraffe displayed next to the entrance and the horse below

The collection of animals he made for the most part is displayed in the backyard of his house in Nowa Biala.

To give an idea, there are sculptures depicting an elephant, a camel, a wild boar, a horse, an owl, a crocodile…all shown life-size......

Rędziński made his creations from concrete and succeeded in working this material in such a way that, for example, animals with a hairy skin are also modelled as such.

Waclawn Rędziński is one of three non-professional artists featured in a film- and educational project launched in 2021 by Andrzej Kwasiborski and Radosław Łabarzewski, both based in Płock, which aims to raise awareness of the phenomenon of outsider art in Poland.

The project is supported by the Cultural and Art Centre Themerson in Płock, which now has a crocodile in front of its building, tdonated by Rędziński's art environment (see the article in newspaper Wyborcsa in the documentation).

 

Documentation

* Article (November 2021) on website Znalezienie

* Article (May 2024) in newspaper Wyborcsa, with the story of the crocodil

* Article (May 2024) on the website Znalezienie, also about the crocodil

Video

* Video (December 2023, YouTube, 7;33") by Znalezienie 

 

Wacław Rędziński

Garden with animal sculptures

Nowa Biała, region Lesser Poland, Poland

can partly be seen from the road

Roland Mousquès, Créations de pierres empilées / Creations of stacked stones

this image, probably made by Roland Mousqués, as published
on Facebook

Vialas is a municipality with currently some 500 inhabitants, located in the Cevennes area in the Lozère department in southern France. 

Unlike in earlier timess, most municipalities in the Cevennes area no longer have a declining population. Also in Vialas, the number of inhabitants, permanent residents and owners of a single-family home, is fairly stable.

A special feature of Vialas, seen from the perspective of this weblog, is that walls along the public road have been decorated with creations as those depicted in the surrounding images.

this image and the next four, in all probabilty made by 

Roland Mousques,as published on Facebook by Mimi San

Life and works

These decorations were made by Roland Mousquès (1940-2018), who was born and grew up in Paris. 

In May 1968, during the student revolt, he fled Paris and went to live in the Cévennes, initially in a hippie community in Polimies, but soon he found his own home in a former farmhouse in Figuerolles, a hamlet in the Vialas region.

Once settled in Figuerolles, he began a career as a mason. He found work restoring old farmhouses, and, interested as he was in old traditions and heritage, he treated them with care. 

Practicing this profession, he also became involved in the restoration of the old Bonijol mill in Figuerolles.

Around 1970 he also began to engage himself in the sphere of artistic activities.

He had a passion for a very specific form of art, namaley stacking stones in such a way that an artistic creation emerged.

The artworks formed by stacked stones, resulting in walls with, for example, undulating granite snakes, all kinds of heads, rising pillars, as seen in the images around, attracted the attention of passers-by and motorists.

Mousques is not only one of several French specialists in drywall-construction, he is also one of the founders of the Association ABPS (Association des Bâtisseurs en Pierre Sèche), France's drywall association, founded in the early 2000s.

Drywall construction is a technique for stacking irregular stones without using any binding agent, such as cement.

The revival of this approach in the Cévennes in the 1970s and 1980s, was a significant contribution to preserving and beautifying the landscape.

Roland Mousqués passed away on November 14, 2018.

Documentations

* Website of the association ABPS

* Article (2013) about Roland Mesquès on the website Stine-Ideas, with a series of images

* Article (2018) at the occasion of the death of Roland Mesquès

Other French sites with tacked stones in this weblog

* Michel Rousseau, The lost stone garden

* René Morice, Alignments of stone strctures

* Auguste Bourgoin, Public ruins end of the century

Roland Mousques

Creations of stacked stones

Figueirolles, 48220 Vialas, dept Lozère, region Occitanie, France.

creations can be seen from the road

Todor Atanasov and partners, Музей на света / Museum of the creation of the world

images (June 2025) in this post published here in agreement 
with photographer Martin Besnard

The municipality of Novo Selo, with over 2,900 inhabitants (2011), is located along the southern bank of the Danube River in northwestern Bulgaria. The Danube also forms the border with Romania, located north of the river.

The municipality, which includes several wine-growing estates, encompasses a number of villages, including Novo Selo, which forms the administrative center.

A Museum about the Creation of the World

Novo Selo is a community that has existed since ancient times and when Todor Atanasov was its mayor, he was very interested in its history. 

This led him to the idea at some point of ​​creating an open-air museum depicting this history, also to attract tourists.

He shared the idea with several people in his circle, and it turned out they were also enthusiastic and wanted to contribute to such a project. And so a kind of an open air museum would indeed be realized on a four-hectare site near Novo Selo.

Among the people who volunteered to participate in the project, were a local librarian, a school principal and a former municipal official. They each contributed to the development of the project in their own way, based on their own knowledge and research.

The construction of what can be considered an art environment, based on substantive contributions from various interested parties, began in 2010.

As the construction of the art environment progressed, a problem arose because creating the buildings and decorative elements, realized in a protected nature reserve. was not based on an officially granted permit.

 

The national inspectorate in question assessed the existing violations and issued a fine, which was paid by the parties involved. 

It was then up to the Novo Selo municipal council to decide whether or not the site could further develop, .

The council apparently made a favorable decision  with regard to the site, as in 2015 the newspaper 360Mag (see documentation) referred to the art environment in Novo Selo as "one of the most successful projects in Bulgarian tourism."

When this article about the art environment was published in 2025, accompanied by photographs also taken in 2025, the mayor had retired, and the area where the site had been built was adorned with a variety of creations.

The connection between the somewhat isolated creations is not clearly visible in the images, but the underlying idea that the development of humanity is depicted in the sculptures and structures can, with a little effort, be discerned.

The images in this post provide a first impression of the creations on display in the site.

The dinosaurs, pictured above and below, are quite dominant and take the viewer back to times before humans began to inhabit the Earth.

The scenes presented in the four small-format images, further above and below, show how, during the early development of humanity on earth, people were housed in small, self-made shelters, 

These are clearly scenes related to the development of humanity, with which most people are familiar.

However, in addition to these scenes clearly linked to the development of humanity, the site also includes a number of smaller creations, such as various animals, Indians, a ship, a tree of life and also a kind of a tomb, scenes in which it is more difficult to see in which stage of humanity's development they fit. 

The massive gateway depicted in the very first photo can be associated with a medieval structure, a supposition more or less supported by the white rider riding a white horse,.

Todor Atanasov, portrayed in 2025 in the very first photo, now retired, devotes a great deal of energy to maintaining the art environment as it has developed thus far.

He does have ideas about expanding the site, for example with a replica of an Egyptian pyramid, but whether he should embark on such a project at his age, remains to be seen.

The video in the documentation shows how the art environment is situated in the area outside Novo Selo.

Documentation

* Article (2014) in regional newspaper btvnovinite 

* Article (2015) in newspaper 360Mag

* Website (2016) with a series of photos

Video

* Video (YouTube, February 2024, 3'31") by Dancho Yanakiev

Todor Atanasov and partners  

Museum of the Creation of the World

3784 Novo Selo Municipality, Vidin Oblast, Bulgaria