action at Mavericks portends the arrival of spring to the N. Pacific (public domain)

In West Sonoma County, early signs of spring are typically in sync with the arrival of a huge south swell, epitomized by the epic surf at Mavericks, about 100 miles down the coast. With more daylight and warming temperatures over the past few weeks, our hens have begun laying eggs, the acacia trees are in flower, the willow’s catkin is giving way to leaf, and the wild plum trees are beginning to blossom along exposed slopes. Yellow mustard flowers fill grazing meadows, vineyards and apple orchards, the clover beginning to recede. As we pack for the coming week of vacation on the beach north of Puerto Vallarta, I anticipate returning to a flood of fruit trees in full flower.

the acacia trees are in bloom along the Sonoma Coast

the willows are looking lively along the streams

To read more of my postings on cyclical, seasonal events, please click here and scroll down.

Tagged: aesthetics, california coast, california flora, deep craft, longboard, mavericks, phenology, skateboard, sonoma coast

With enough rainfall, Estero Americano drains to the sea, becoming seasonally tidal

My favorite chair, by far, is an ocean kayak. To unwind after an intense week of new projects, I spent a quiet afternoon idly paddling down Estero Americano, my favorite local slough, now flooded to the coast. The marshy, seasonally tidal estuary is like a living almanac of coastal California birds, evidenced by my encounters with numerous cormorant, dowitcher, egret, snipe, willet, loon, night heron, bufflehead, black skimmer and, closer to the beach, a flock of white pelican.

It’s coming up on two years since I created this site, whose first post was inspired by a paddle down the same stream. This time around, my voyage taught me less about the material provenance of my chair design, and more about the simple pleasures of sitting with nature.

The white pelican takes flight over Estero Americano

Tagged: aesthetics, birding, california coast, craft philosophy, deep craft, furniture design, phenology, scott Constable, sonoma coast

the underside of this pallet reminds me of a Mayan city

At some point when making a sculpture or piece of furniture, my job is simply to convey a load to the ground. The perennial challenge is to invent or interpret a structural program that gets the job done but adds something new in the process. I usually begin by looking to natural forms- to the structural properties of a material, or to the material’s source- the tree in the case of wood. But I also find inspiration in engineered forms, like the pallet pictured above, whose underside resembles a Mayan city. The pressed form has me trying to make connections between the mundane task of conveying a load and the magical cosmology of Mesoamerica.

my chair for Becoming Independent conveys a load on two levels both laterally and vertically

Tagged: craft philosophy, deep craft, innovation, inspiration, mesoamerica, scott Constable

I doubt the rancher who owns this tiny roadside outbuilding shares my enthusiasm for the patterns of blistered paint on its corrugated walls. He’d probably agree that it needs repainting and was a poorly executed job to begin with, or that the galvanized steel was best left exposed to the elements without any paint at all. By the time it took the paint to blister, the wall would have developed a lovely patina of blotchy moss and pitted corrosion, given the proximity to the oft-fog-shrouded coast.

Regardless, the wall got me thinking about how much I like seeing how man-made structures find equilibrium with their environment, all the more so when the decay resulting from use and exposure is anticipated. Entropy only ever increases over time. Or, as the German physicist Rudolf Clausius wrote in 1862:

The algebraic sum of all the transformations occurring in a cyclical process can only be positive, or, as an extreme case, equal to nothing. (second law of thermodynamics)

So, my digressive conclusion is that any hand wrought thing works best when the aesthetic of its own decay is considered a design requirement.

Tagged: aesthetics, contemporary art, craft philosophy, deep craft, entropy, scott Constable, vernacular architecture

One of three ’seed heads’ of stainless steel and crystal, fabricated by Jeff McCann

After a year of planning with the City of San Jose’s Public Art Program, we’re excited to be finally installing our Wishing Wands sculptures at Berryessa Creek Park. The latest Wowhaus project consists of three 12′ high sculptures depicting ‘dandelions’ in their parachute ball stage, rendered in stainless steel and Austrian crystal. The concept was inspired by the universal practice of children blowing on the plant’s downy-dry seed head and making a wish, which is what we found the neighborhood children to be doing during our exploratory site visit to the park last year. While the sculptures were under fabrication, Ene conducted a wishing workshop with the children who frequent the park, where they made wishes on the 120 crystals to be mounted on the three seed heads. Like magic wands, the sculptures will cast cascades of tiny rainbows when the sun refracts through the prismatic crystals.

a neighborhood boy makes a wish on one of the 120 crystals; early concept rendering

The common dandelion (Taraxacum officinale) is one of the world’s most prolific weeds, whose English name is a corruption of the French dent de lion (lion’s tooth). In many languages, the flower’s name reflects the universal appeal of blowing on the seed head during its parachute ball phase; the flower is variously called pusteblume (German for “blowing flower”), soffione (Italian for “blowing”; in some northern Italian dialects), dmuchawiec (Polish, derived from the verb “blow”), одуванчик (Russian, derived from the verb “blow”).

The First Dandelion, by Walt Whitman

Simple and fresh and fair from winter’s close emerging,

As if no artifice of fashion, business, politics, had ever been,

Forth from its sunny nook of shelter’d grass–innocent, golden, calm as the dawn,

The spring’s first dandelion shows its trustful face.

Tagged: contemporary art, deep craft, flowers, invention, public art, scott Constable, slow design, wowhaus

Perseus cluster (image by Ken Crawford, Rancho Del Sol Observatory)

I do my best to court coincidence, but would not consider myself superstitious. Like anyone, I just find it reassuring when cosmic events complement the task at hand and try to pay attention to patterns as they emerge. I did not plan to make the first, ceremonial cuts in my deodar cedar logs during the Perseid meteor showers this week, it just worked out that way.

grain of the freshly cut, deodar cedar

My head was literally in the clouds yesterday as I drove down the coast to Evan Shively’s mill, groggy from a night of star-gazing. I munched early apples from our Gravenstein along the way, and watched the whispy mares tails over Tomales Bay on a crystal clear afternoon, eager to meet my client and inspect the cedar logs. I’ve been commissioned to design the interior of a new guest house in Marin, which will feature the air-dried wood milled from over 7000 board feet of deodar cedar salvaged from the local urban forest.

I thought of Perseus slaying the Medusa as we watched Evan and his crew work in concert to finesse the massive logs onto the bed of the mill to cut the first cant of deodar for the project, the air infused with the wood’s sweet perfume.

detail from Perseus Rescues Andromeda, by Piero di Cosimo (1515)

Tagged: craft philosophy, deep craft, scott Constable, woodworking

A section of the fabric from Christo’s ‘Running Fence’ (1976) is used as a backdrop for the Salami Toss at the Occidental Fire Department’s annual summer barbecue.

When Christo and Jeanne-Claude realized their seminal Running Fence project in West Sonoma County in the mid-1970’s, they traded materials used to construct the 24 mile long fence with ranchers in exchange for use of the land. Learning more about the project from first-hand knowledge when our family moved to the area about three years ago, I thought it would be interesting to investigate what remains of the original materials and how they have been put to use by ranchers and others over the past 30 years.

Ene and I wrote a proposal for a project we called Running Fence Revisited (click to see original proposal), for which we are still seeking funding to produce a publication. Meanwhile, I’ve begun to research and document the project on these pages and invite anyone interested in helping to participate by leaving a comment below. The first artifact we’ve discovered related to Christo’s original Running Fence is a section of the fabric still used by the Occidental Fire Department as a backdrop for the Salami Toss concession at their annual summer barbecue, which we attended yesterday.

If you have any information about what remains of Running Fence, would like to learn more about Running Fence Revisited or help us to conduct research, please leave a comment below. Thanks!

Tagged: christo and jeanne claude, conceptual art, deep craft, land art, occidental, running fence, scott Constable, west sonoma county, wowhaus