Bill Dan is a

sculptor Sculpture is the branch of the visual arts that operates in three dimensions. Sculpture is the three-dimensional art work which is physically presented in the dimensions of height, width and depth. It is one of the plastic arts. Durable sc ...

and

performance artist Performance art is an artwork or art exhibition created through actions executed by the artist or other participants. It may be witnessed live or through documentation, spontaneously developed or written, and is traditionally presented to a pu ...

specializing in

rock balancing Rock balancing (also stone balancing, or stacking) is a form of recreation or artistic expression in which Rock (geology), rocks are piled in balanced stacks, often in a precarious manner. Conservationists and park services have expressed con ...

. He creates seemingly impossible, temporary balanced sculptures from un-worked rock and stone in public spaces near his home in

San Francisco San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is a commercial, Financial District, San Francisco, financial, and Culture of San Francisco, cultural center of Northern California. With a population of 827,526 residents as of ...

. Dan was born in

Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania, between the Indian Ocean, Indian and Pacific Ocean, Pacific oceans. Comprising over List of islands of Indonesia, 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, ...

, and worked as a warehouseman before discovering the artistic possibilities of rock along the

San Francisco Bay San Francisco Bay (Chochenyo language, Chochenyo: 'ommu) is a large tidal estuary in the United States, U.S. state of California, and gives its name to the San Francisco Bay Area. It is dominated by the cities of San Francisco, California, San ...

shoreline and his emergent skill in manipulating them. Bill was initially inspired by rock piles he had seen on the Big Island of

Hawaii Hawaii ( ; ) is an island U.S. state, state of the United States, in the Pacific Ocean about southwest of the U.S. mainland. One of the two Non-contiguous United States, non-contiguous U.S. states (along with Alaska), it is the only sta ...

, the

cairn A cairn is a human-made pile (or stack) of stones raised for a purpose, usually as a marker or as a burial mound. The word ''cairn'' comes from the (plural ). Cairns have been and are used for a broad variety of purposes. In prehistory, t ...

s of the

Inuit Inuit (singular: Inuk) are a group of culturally and historically similar Indigenous peoples traditionally inhabiting the Arctic and Subarctic regions of North America and Russia, including Greenland, Labrador, Quebec, Nunavut, the Northwe ...

, and later by the work of

Andy Goldsworthy Andy Goldsworthy (born 25 July 1956) is an English sculptor, photographer, and environmentalist who produces site-specific sculptures and land art situated in natural or urban settings. Early life Goldsworthy was born in Cheshire on 25 July ...

. In 2004, he was featured on

public television station KQED as one of the artists in a show entitled "Collaborations with Nature". Since then, he has been the subject of interviews and shows on TV stations in Japan, Korea, and the Philippines, as well as other U.S. stations. Photos of his art have appeared in "Coast and Ocean", the magazine of the

California Coastal Commission The California Coastal Commission (CCC) is a state agency within the California Natural Resources Agency with quasi-judicial control of land and public access along the state's of coastline. Its mission as defined in the California Coastal Ac ...

, where he was the subject of a lengthy article, and have been used for book, magazine, and educational materials. He has been a featured presenter with the

California Academy of Sciences The California Academy of Sciences is a research institute and natural history museum in San Francisco, San Francisco, California, that is among the largest List of natural history museums, museums of natural history in the world, housing over ...

and the

Zeum The Children's Creativity Museum is an interactive museum for children aged 2–12 years, located in Yerba Buena Gardens, in San Francisco, California. It offers workshops and exhibits that allow children to produce their own media through vario ...

exploratory space in San Francisco. A DVD compendium of video clips taken of Bill Dan at work by himself, by a professional filmmaker, and by a local amateur, entitled "The First Bill Dan Collection" is currently sold-out. Bill Dan has frequently been asked about the "meaning" of his work, and he often replies that "Some people try to make things too complicated. This is the opposite."

See also

External links