Published Issue 151, October 2026
Photos courtesy of Mike Shine
Lennon had McCartney. Kerouac had Cassady. Bukowski had Cutty Sark. Me, I got The Shack. As muses go, it would turn out to be a strong one.
I first met 14 Old Bolinas Road 23 years ago, when it was a plain, old, grey, run-of-the-mill cabin. Like a sketchy mutt rescue, I think I saw something in it that others chose to pass by. It did have decent bones: a big deck, vaulted ceilings, a sleeping loft and an open floor plan. But it also had a lot of lame features like rickety aluminum windows, chipboard kitchen shelves, stained beige carpets and damaged floors. I really liked the location more than anything. I’d taken to the town of Bolinas, California after several years of steadily surfing weekday sunrises, and spending weekends with my young family in a funky, inexpensive hotel there. They loved the town too. So in 2003, we cobbled our savings together and put a down payment on the cabin that we named The Shack — a humble weekend escape that would come to change our lives, mine in ways I could never have foreseen.
It wasn’t a fiery relationship at first. We got off to an ordinary start. We were pretty broke after making the down payment, so my wife, Marianne, came up with the idea of decorating it ironically with inexpensive 70s furniture. We had fun, finding a rare orange 8-track deck, round JVC TV set and Apollo orb phonograph. And the Shack seemed to silently tolerate our odd initial aesthetic overtures. But soon it seemed to start putting ideas into my head. Like, Why not paint the outside orange? “Why?” I silently asked. It quietly answered. “Because you were formed in the 70s. It was a weird decade. Orange was the color. It’s a weird color. Clockwork Orange is your favorite movie. It’s a weird movie. So own it. Don’t be a chickenshit. Paint it orange.”
So that’s really how we began our true creative partnership, right there. The Shack wasn’t just an enabler, it was a provoker, a needler, and at times — an ass kicker.
In fact, it was the Shack that first convinced me to become an artist. Before our meeting, I had renovated houses, designed and built cabinetry and furniture, and was a creative director in my own advertising firm. But I had yet to truly pick up an artist brush. “What are you going to put on the walls?” the Shack seemed to be nudging me. I had to admit, it had me in a tough spot. The walls were bare, and so was our savings account. The Shack even provided me with my introductory art education — the comic books and record albums on our shelves. (Influences that still weigh heavily on me 25 years later).
Our artistic partnership would develop quickly. At first I made paintings for the walls, on chunks of driftwood I collected while surfing. I developed a style that sort of mimicked the comics in my collection, with the fonts on my LPs. Then, the Shack convinced me to mural directly on the walls, gently at first. Then eventually everywhere. Before long I was hooked on painting. Although my career as a partner in my own advertising firm required 50 plus hours of my time per week, I was painting for gallery shows and museum exhibits and installations within a few years. Don’t ask me how. I got by somehow on crazy passion and very little sleep.
In 2009 the Museum of Craft and Folk Art in San Francisco commissioned me to build a very faithful full-scale reproduction of the Shack inside its museum walls! Although I had three months to prepare for it, it nearly killed me. And we did it again the following year at the Laguna Art Museum. Then we built it again (in smaller form) at Art Basel in Miami. With the help of my late friend Tony, we were able to pull off these impossible building feats as well as continually renovate the “real” Shack with custom windows, heating, appliances, plumbing — the things we actually needed. (Tony, wherever you are today, you are a saint among saints.) I was also being pulled away from the Shack on large projects, doing gallery shows and installations at White Walls in SF, at Copro Gallery in LA.
Soon I began adding performances with my mephistophelian character Dr. Flotsam into the mix with even larger carnivalesque installations at galleries. Then for seven years I created an entire installation and stage show at the Outside Lands Festival in SF called Dr. Flotsam’s Hell Brew Revue, complete with games, folky bands, jugglers, sword swallowers, knife throwers and my own reverse funeral with valkyries, bagpipes and 25 carnies in kilts and droog makeup. Our entire “fairground” was a creepy, swampy 1800s-style carnival of banners and artwork I’d painted over the years.
During this time I also travelled nationally and internationally, doing murals and pop up shows at galleries, and writing travel articles for Juxtapoz Magazine. I did about a dozen trips to places including Nashville, Asheville, Asbury Park, New Orleans, Israel, Palestine, Belfast, Dublin and Berlin.
Oh yeah, I did in fact retire about 12 years ago from my advertising company to pursue all this full time. And I moved to live and work at the Shack full time also, when I’m not travelling. My kids have long since grown to become adults, each thriving in creative occupations: an actor, cinematographer and art director. All heavily influenced by our endless hours creating at the Shack.
It’s been over two decades since the Shack and I met. Today I’m sitting in a giant art studio workshop on the boardwalk in Asbury Park, going on hour 14. I’m working with another artist, Porkchop, preparing for a large installation called Dr. Flotsam’s Carny Island. We’ll be taking over an entire island. We’ve got a budget and a bunch of talented artist collaborators and five weeks to go. To me this is about as good as life can fucking get.
I often wonder what might have happened if the Shack wasn’t for sale that day. What if we’d settled on a different home — one that was more modern, or traditional, or normal, or whatever. One that didn’t speak to me. Shit. It’s crazy to think about. I’m lucky I don’t have to dwell on that too often. But I do wonder, Do we make our luck? Or does it find us?
See more by Mike Shine: Instagram | Website
Check out Guerrilla Painting with Mike Shine & Stacy Peralta from Issue 150 in case you missed it, and keep your eyes peeled for more future work by this talented artist.