As a longtime fan of interactive gallery shows and general flights of the imagination, I always get excited for a Mike Shine opening. On Saturday, Shine’s third installment of his ongoing Flotsam narrative, Der Wilden Mann: THUS SPRACH FLOTSAM; METAMORPHOSIS 3 opened at Copro Gallery in Santa Monica. Outside the gallery, a band played and the line for cans of Tecate and wine served in small plastic cups hugged the right side of the ramp leading up to the entrance. Inside, the air was sharp with fresh sod and varnished wood, comforting smells that together with the honky-tonk rock music wafting in through an open window, gave the gallery a bucolic feel.
      Shine is notorious for mixing it up and this show is no exception: Nordic mythology, carnival oddities, hand-painted signs and whirling wheels of fortune cover the brown and mint green walls in an impressive array of framed paintings and painted objects. At the center sits a large, Norse style longhouse (with a grass roof, the source of that wonderful earthy smell) you can enter and explore. Later, talking to Shine, he shows me a photo of close friend, skateboarding legend and filmmaker, Stacy Peralta sprawled across this very roof, laying sod.