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Wes Modes packs up some of his favorite artistic gear to take along to the Burning Man Festival in the Nevada desert. Sentinel Photo by Dan Coyro

By WALLACE BAINE
Sentinel Entertainment writer

First-time visitors to the notorious Burning Man festival in the remote Black Rock Desert of northern Nevada may be surprised — even appalled — when they first see it. Some may even consider it a sacrilege.

If Burning Man is anything, it’s a sanctuary from the rampant commercialism that characterizes contemporary life. There are few rules there, but one of the strictest is no corporate profiteering.

Yet, there it is — there it has been for five years:

Costco.

Yes, there is a Costco outlet on the Playa at Burning Man, with the Costco logo and the helpful folks in the name tags and Costco vests.

If your outrage demands confrontation, you’ll doubtless be led to a grinning guy in a straw hat and retro-chic eyeglasses, the kind high-school principals used to wear in the 1940s.

His name is Rico Thunder and he’s the CEO of the Costco Soulmate Trading Outlet, which you quickly learn is all just a grand joke, not an extension of Costco, but a spitwad in its eye.

Rico Thunder is the nom de guerre of Wes Modes, a restless Santa Cruz artist and Web geek who spends his days engaged in one sort or other of what he calls "creative mischief," which is as good a way as any to describe his Costco outlet.

"Originally, it was just out on the Playa and who would know, right?" said Modes, who’ll be up at Burning Man next week. "It’s not like there are Costco lawyers out on the Playa looking for trademark infringement.

"But our second year, we established a Web site, which showed up number two on Yahoo. And that got their attention."

What followed was heavy-handed cease-and-desist orders from Costco attorneys.

Modes and his crew (which this year will number 33) neither ceased nor desisted. They knew they were protected by First Amendment parody laws. Besides, the Soulmate Outlet wasn’t selling anything. What could Costco seize in court?

It’s a mark of Wes Modes’ personality that the Outlet didn’t exist solely to tweak Costco. Its larger purpose?

"We are the leading supplier of soulmates on the Playa, because we offer the lowest prices and best selection," he says with a smarmy leer to let you know he’s giving you a mock pitch. "We have no competitors, no morals or scruples, which keeps our overhead down."

In fact, the Outlet exists to hook people up, to help people wandering the desert find a compatible "soulmate" (you can take the term ironically or not), for romantic purposes or otherwise.

The Outlet does jumping business at Burning Man. Once you’ve been convinced that Costco has not in fact invaded the Black Rock Desert, you sit down and fill out an application and have your picture taken (which will then be part of your Costco membership card). Then the friendly staff will produce a potential soulmate who shares one or more of your interests, personality traits, perversions or whatever.

"What we wanted," said Modes, dropping the act, "was to make it so that people can meet other people in a way that feels comfortable and non-corny and fun."

Modes is telling me this in his comfortable, non-corny and fun studio behind what’s known as the Big Yellow House on North Branciforte Avenue in Santa Cruz.

The Big Yellow House is another Rico Thunder production. It’s a co-op, a community center, a living space, a center of activity for like-minded individuals. Artists or artistically inclined non-artists, normal people or not quite normal people — all gather at the Big Yellow House for dinner, art projects or just a dose of creative energy.

The Big Yellow House also serves as the "corporate parent" for the Costco Soulmate Trading Outlet, as well as last spring’s Million Clown March, a tongue-in-painted-cheek protest march down Pacific Avenue in Santa Cruz that generated international media attention. Rico Thunder was, naturally, the lead Clown.

"Wes operates at a higher frequency of energy than most people," said Bonnie Jean Primbsch, who lives in the Big Yellow House and tag-teams with Modes on a late-night radio show.

"We call him ‘Sparky.’ Because when he gets an idea for something, he scrunches up his arms and his face lights up and it’s like he’s throwing off sparks."

Primbsch will often see Modes in the back yard, or more accurately, his shadow thrown up in outsized dimension against the house by the light given off by his welding torch. If he knows he’s being watched, he might give his best mad-scientist cackle.

"I don’t know if you want to print this," said Primbsch. "But he’ll come home with all this ... junk! Rusty metal, driftwood, whatever."

The "junk" is proof that Modes doesn’t live solely for smart-aleck performance-art stunts.

Yet to call Modes a sculptor is to call his artwork sculptures and that doesn’t quite capture their unique magic.

He creates strange new, often perfectly practical art pieces out of other people’s discards. In the vernacular, he’s a "found-art" artist.

Over at the Felix Kulpa Gallery and Sculpture Garden, on Elm Street between Streetlight Records and Caffe Pergolesi, Modes’ modus operandi is in full view. Modes is part of the Gallery’s latest exhibit, "Ars Felix Externus," which runs through Sept. 30.

On display at the Kulpa are selections from Modes’ "Strange Machina" series, a collection of odd machines made out of parts of other machines. There’s a telephone (yes, it works) made from a rusty muffler and tail pipe. There’s a enormous pencil sharpener powered by an old washing-machine motor.

And then there are the "prayer machines," bizarre contraptions that look like props from the film "Brazil."

The prayer machines act like Fed Ex delivery systems to the Almighty. You write a prayer on a piece of paper and put it inside the machine. Push the red button, and a propane torch burns it.

In another machine, which is built to resemble a welded cathedral, the prayer is burnt with matches and incense cones.

He’s made a lot of these sculptures: old manual typewriters partially buried in concrete, a cowboy made from bullet-riddled metal parts found in the desert.

As you might expect by looking at his art, Modes knows his junk yards. Outside his studio, behind the Big Yellow House (from which he recently moved out, buying his own home in Felton), is a "SHACK" half of a Radio Shack sign he found at a sign graveyard (the "RADIO" part is inside).

"I’ve always like the idea of discovery," he says. "These things are things you’ll find in someone’s basement somewhere, and you’ll just hold them up and go, ‘What the hell is this thing?’"

Most of the time, Modes will draw an idea in a sketchbook and then go find the parts he needs to make it. Some creations wait months, even years, for the right part to complete them. Often, he’ll have to educate himself on wiring, for example, or electronics to finish a piece.

"My latest dream is a speed toaster. I want to make a toaster, something you stick the bread in and it goes KA-CHUNG and then it would go ..." at this point, Modes makes a sound of a giant flame-thrower with the uncanny realism that only 10-year-old boys can master, "with propane at about a billion BTUs. And then, SPROING, it would throw these flaming pieces of bread a hundred yards."

Then, a pause, savoring the image. "I just have to figure out how to make the catapulty part."

Modes grew up on the coast of San Luis Obispo County and has lived in Santa Cruz for 16 years.

He’s done all right for himself as a Web designer — his personal Web site, www.thespoon.com, is an art piece in itself.

With two others, he hosts a dreamy, hallucinatory weekly three-hour radio show on KUSP called "Night Ride," a sound collage of music and stories which airs from 2 to 5 a.m. Sunday mornings.

His other artistic obsession is what he calls "shadow boxes," small scenes behind glass. One, called "Murder Mystery," is a metal filing drawer covered with a sheet of glass. Inside is a collection of old thrown-away photos he found, from which he created a story, fleshed out with mock newspaper articles.

"I’ve always been a frustrated diorama maker. I love these little boxes with their little contained universes."

His studio is filled with the detritus of a found-art obsessive: a rusty colander here, bunches of dirty baby dolls there.

"If somebody had given me a model railroad at the right time in my life," he said, "I probably wouldn’t be doing all this stuff."

Contact Wallace Baine atwbaine@santa-cruz.com.

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