Chrissy Williams
During the warm months of the year, a man makes bamboo flutes by the arboretum.
Peter Stanford, 55, has been coming to Pierce College for 20 years, although he has never taken a class on campus.
He found the place because a friend told him that the horticulture area had bamboo.
Richard “Dick” South, Chairman of the Agriculture Department and Farm Manager, gave him permission years ago to take all the bamboo he wanted.
Stanford has been taking him up on the offer ever since.
“He said I could take all of it.
“I said ‘I’ll see what I can do…’ 20 years later I’m still trying.”
Stanford busses to Pierce from Lankershim Boulevard.
“There is peace of mind here,” he said. “You can concentrate and meditate.”
It is quiet by the campfire area where Stanford sits.
Only chirping birds and rustling leaves permeate the silence.
“Back in the day,” Stanford said, “students actually had campfires in the pit.”
It appears to be unused now, except to dry Stanford’s socks.
His feet, he said, were sweaty and he wanted to air them out.
Barefoot, he carved into the bamboo flute.
Along with making, selling and playing his “Peter Dean flutes,” (Dean for his middle name) Stanford is an artist on Venice Beach.
His unique “mushroom characters,” as he called them, which are strange psychedelic mushroom people playing musical instruments, have been sold to tourists and are all over the world.
According to Stanford, his art is in Amsterdam, Australia, Austria, Brazil, Canada, Costa Rica, France, Germany, Jamaica (he said this with a smile and a pause for remembrance), London, Panama, Norway, New Zealand and every state of the United States.
He has also visited every state in the U.S. while he toured with the Grateful Dead.
This insight may explain the mushrooms.
“I know every inch of this country,” Stanford said as he reminisced.
“Every state park, bridge and river.”
Stanford uses heated nails to bore holes into the bamboo from the precisely measured marks he has made.
Other than the flute, Stanford also plays the cello, bass, guitar and drums.
Stanford comes to campus once or twice a month.
If you frequent the horticulture area of campus often, keep an eye out.
There is a slight chance you may see him there, in a brightly colored shirt carving chutes of bamboo.
If you ask, he will show you his mushroom characters.
They are worth seeing – very unique, to say the least.
And if you like it enough, he will sell you one for $15.
If he likes you enough, he may come down to $10.
“I should be rich and famous from my art. But not here.
“Someday I will be famous.
“You wait.”
Peter Stanford makes a flute using the bamboo offered to him at the Pierce College campus. He also spends his time making ‘mushroom characters.’ ()