short-tailed albatross skull, found at Doran Beach

One of the delights of daily beach-combing is how the tides always seem to churn up something new to suit the mood, especially after a storm surge. The other day I discovered the decomposing carcass of a large sea bird I did not recognize. I removed the skull and took it home, macerated it in water, and after scrubbing it clean with a toothbrush was able to identify it as an short-tailed albatross, a species I did not know migrated over Bodega Bay. I’ve been thinking a lot about migratory birds as I sculpt a large whooping crane for our Tsuru Project, and this latest discovery reminded me how vulnerable these creatures can be to the perils of migration.

I’m adding the skull to my Tsuru-related research archive, a visual database I’m building of forms and images relating to my crane sculpture.  As the global population of whooping cranes hovers at around 250, it’s difficult to see them first hand, so my sculpture will be a hybridized interpretation of cranes and their metaphoric associations. One of my favorite references is a book called Cranes of the World I found recently at an antiquarian bookstore. Published by Winchester Press, the book was written by the dentist and amateur birdwatcher Lawrence Walkinshaw in 1973, when the population of whooping cranes was thought to be around 50. The book is chock full of Mr Walkinshaw’s photographs from his travels around the world on birding vacations with his family.

sandhill cranes, photo by Lawrence Walkinshaw (Cranes of the World, 1973)

whooping cranes, photo by Lawrence Walkinshaw (Cranes of the World, 1973)

Tagged: albatross, birding, deep craft, public art, scott Constable, whooping cranes, wowhaus

The crane, roughed-out in layers of basswood, almost ready for shaping

I’ve been laminating layers of basswood to shape into a large crane sculpture, to be cast in bronze as the feature of our Tsuru Project in Denver. With a specific gravity of 0.32 and non-directional, knot-free grain, the wood is lightweight, stable, and carves easily, making it the perfect material to shape into a stylized bird at this scale. Of equal significance to me, basswood comes from the linden tree, a species that thrives in regions where crane historically migrate.

I always like to find congruence between the forms I make and their material origin, however oblique or obscure. Since pre-Christian times, the tree was thought to have divine, healing powers throughout Northern European cultures, and its wood has since been carved and painted into panels and alters for religious iconography. In late spring, the linden tree produces a blossom that famously attracts honeybees, who make a distinctive monofloral honey with the nectar. The tree has always been associated with love, and is the subject of countless romantic poems:

Under the Tilia Tree

On the open field,
where we two had our bed,
you still can see
lovely both
broken flowers and grass.

On the edge of the woods in a vale,
tandaradei,
sweetly sang the nightingale.

Walther von der Vogelweide (c. 1170–c. 1230)

Tagged: aesthetics, craft philosophy, deep craft, public art, scott Constable, tsuru, wowhaus

the great white egret flock in the marshes around Bodega Harbor as they migrate south

The Dungeness crab season officially opened in Bodega Bay over the past weekend and the beaches have been teeming with life just after dawn- fishing boats on the bay, surfers on the south swell, pelicans skimming cresting waves, geese wedging overhead, sanderling and dowitcher combing the shoreline, suddenly strewn with bull kelp and crab carcasses. Ene and I typically walk a stretch of Doran Beach each morning with our dogs as the sun comes up, so we’ve developed a good feel for the patterns of migration, tides and seasonal shifts, most of our weather originating offshore.

Lately I’ve been drawn to the marshes around Bodega Harbor, where the great white egret takes seasonal shelter on the journey south. The birds typically cluster in large groups at the harbor’s shallow edge, where bulrush protects against wind and wave. Just as the sun rises over the hills to the east, the egret take flight in small groups and circle back, drying their wings and warming up in the sun, sometimes landing remotely to forage for breakfast. It’s a great place to study how these elegant birds move in flight; they take off, climb to soaring height and land within about 30 seconds, and the process takes about an hour, when the flock begins to disperse for a more substantial meal.

I’m preparing to carve a slightly larger-than-life sculpture of a whooping crane for our Tsuru project in Denver, and have been enjoying my morning field research before committing to a final form in wood. My sculpture will combine additive and subtractive techniques. I’ll laminate layers of basswood to approximate the shape of a soaring crane, then carve the form with chisels, rasps, adzes and draw-knives, probably adding a final layer in clay for texture. The wooden form will eventually be cast in bronze and, measuring about 8’ x 9’, will need to break down to transport to the foundry, so I’ll engineer a joint to allow for the wings to be separated from the outstretched body.

Tagged: california coast, california flora, deep craft, egret, public art, sculpture, sonoma coast, tsuru, wowhaus

My friend Sean Gavin mills logs on site with his portable Wood-Mizer

I spent an action-packed weekend milling my first tree, a mature pecan (Carya Illinoensis) that grew in the sandy soil of a nearby horse pasture. The tree was beginning to die and had been dropping large branches, threatening the safety of the horses. The property owner decided to take the tree down and I worked with my friend Kevin Paul, a local arborist, to devise a cutting strategy to optimize the wood for on-site milling. I then hired Sean Gavin’s portable mill and worked closely with Sean and a few friends milling sections of the trunk and large diameter branches to my specifications.

Kevin felled the pecan tree into a neighboring pasture for ease of access

Belonging to the hickory family, pecan is notoriously hard, even when green, and the cutting was tough on Sean’s blades. To make matters worse, we hit pockets of nails embedded in the main trunk on several occasions, probably the remains of a treehouse early in the life of the sixty year old tree. Despite the challenges we managed to mill well over one thousand board feet of wood in two short days, and I have a goodly stockpile of pecan wood ready to sticker up in the barn to dry.

We brought in the heavy guns to load the main trunk, weighing about 6000 pounds

I plan to use the smaller branch stock for a project I’m developing for Shed in Healdsburg, and will save the large slabs for future experiments in furniture-making. Measuring up to 16′ long and 2.5″ thick, the large slabs will take over two years to air-dry, which will give me ample time to develop a new line of tables and other furnishings that take advantage of the material’s inherent attributes. Like most hickories, pecan has a pale, creamy sapwood with streaks of honey and light brown, and a dark brown heartwood. Known for its extreme hardness, strength and durability, pecan is prized for making utilitarian items like tool handles, baseball bats, crates and pallets.

the upper trunk, boule cut to 2.5″ slabs

dark brown heartwood contrasts with the tree’s pale sapwood

The process of milling and curing my own material brings me one step closer to realizing my dream of managing a true, artisan scale, craft production, optimizing the capabilities of our rural studio compound. The next step will be to develop a marketing strategy to sell my wares in sync with the Deep Craft ethos. What’s most exciting to me is the challenge of reverse-engineering ‘design’ around the constraints of scale, site and local relationships, and enjoying every step of the process.

leaf and fruit of the pecan tree (Carya Illinoensis)

Tagged: aesthetics, california flora, craft philosophy, deep craft, furniture design, green woodworking, scott Constable, sonoma coast, watershed, wood-mizer, woodworking

Stored in a cool place, these freshly picked pears will ripen in a few days.

“There are only ten minutes in the life of a pear when it is perfect to eat.”

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

We’ve been harvesting our pears in phases over the past week; the fruit seems to ripen unevenly on our trees, depending upon the amount of sun exposure. I begin to check them for ripeness when I notice one or two fall to the ground, usually in early September. If the fruit detaches easily when tilted sideways, it’s ripe enough to pick. We’ve learned that it’s best not to let the pears ripen fully on the tree- the fruit becomes coarse and bruises easily. Stored in a cool spot or refrigerated, the pears release ethylene and form sugars more slowly, yielding better texture and flavor. It’s still a challenge to know how best to put them to use with such a tiny window of perfect ripeness, especially when we’ve had a bumper crop like this year.

Waverly Root recommended eating ripe pears with a spoon!

Tagged: california flora, deep craft, pear, slow food, waverly root

Front and back of my last box of Blue Band Velevet #5572

As a daily comfort I prefer quality, vintage pencils, which I use in the course of drawing, writing and working with wood. I’m in a bit of a panic, down to my last box of Blue Band Velvets, manufactured by the American Lead Pencil Company in the 1920’s, that I inherited from my grandfathers (not sure which one), along with some drafting tools and hand planes of the same vintage. Luckily, I’ve discovered Bob Truvy’s website dedicated to the historic archive of pencils from around the world. Unfortunately, his collection is not for sale, so I plan to continue my search, knowing that contemporary pencil manufacture is not up to snuff. I’m even considering making my own as we prepare to fell a pair of incense cedar trunks on our property, the best wood for making high quality pencils.

our twin trunk incense cedar, limmed and ready to be felled

Tagged: aesthetics, bob truby, deep craft, furniture design, green woodworking, pencils, woodworking

Two views of an unidentified bone, presumably from a large fish or a sea mammal

While running on the beach early this morning I was surprised to find a large, C-shaped bone in the sand, measuring about 8″ x 4″. My first thought was that it resembled part of a skate, a familiar inhabitant of the surf off Doran Beach. I don’t know much about bones, but its symmetrical shape suggests either part of a jaw or pelvis, and the tapered ends imply connection to some flexible part or hinge. I’d love to hear if anyone knows what it is.

Doran Beach is often loaded with colorful sand dollars at low tide this time of year

Tagged: beachcombing, california coast, deep craft, phenology

Freshly harvested kelp drying on the garden fence

For a while after the recent tsunami in Japan, Californians were aflutter about iodine, the primary antidote to radiation exposure. In researching sources of the element I discovered that the Japanese consume about five times more than most of the rest of the world, largely because seaweed and fresh fish figure so prominently in their daily diet. Interestingly, there is a strong correlation between the Japanese consumption of iodine with both their decreased rates of cancer and increased lifespan. I also learned that the production of the chemical element, iodine, was a cottage industry in Ireland and other coastal regions in the nineteenth century, where kelp was prevalent and abundant throughout the year.

Because our local beaches yield heaps of kelp, I’ve experimented over the past few years with using it as a material for making things, with varying degrees of success. I’m now more interested in kelp as a food source, and have been foraging the flat strands and drying them in the sun for cooking. Eventually, I’d like to make a batch of pure iodine as an experiment, perhaps as a way of staining/preserving wood. Historically, iodine has be extracted from kelp by reducing it to ash, boiling and filtering the ashes, and extracting the pure element by mixing it with hydrogen peroxide.

Tagged: appropriate technology, deep craft, iodine, kelp, tsunami

Looking towards Ocean Beach from the new Ortega Branch of the SF Public Library

Ene and I spent the early part of this week installing our Abundance project at the new Ortega Branch of the San Francisco Public Library, just up the hill from Ocean Beach. We had been living with these sculptures while making them over the past two years, so it was very exciting to finally see them in situ. While the grounds have yet to be landscaped, the new building is nearing completion and we were thrilled to see the color, proportions, and general siting of our sculptures work so harmoniously with the library, a Green Building LEED Silver project. We hired Atthowe Fine Art Services to transport and install the two fish sculptures, and were impressed by their professionalism and efficiency.

Ene and I were pleased at the public reaction to the sculptures; everyone stopped and commented how beautiful they thought they were, and many made the connection between the importance of libraries and that of forage fish to the marine ecosystem. The larger sculpture is our heroic depiction of a hybrid anchovy/sardine/herring/grunion, honoring its role in sustaining the food chain; the smaller fish is based on the Vermillion Rockfish common off the coast of San Francisco and once a significant food source for native peoples and early immigrants. Forage fish have been in the local news recently, as a bill has been proposed to require the sustainable management of forage fish along the entire California coastline. You can read more about the development of our Abundance project by clicking here.

Please join us for the official ribbon cutting ceremony at 11 AM, Saturday, September 10.

Atthowe Fine Arts loads the sculptures on to a flatbed truck at the wowhaus studio

Tagged: atthowe fine art, california coast, forage fish, public art, san francisco public library, sculpture, wowhaus

It’s been a bumper year for wild plums, and our few trees, bent to capacity with ripe fruit, have been feeding the birds, raccoons and a solitary bobcat, who harvests from our rooftop at night. We’re eating our share as well, and Ene has already prepared a few gallons of ‘plum brandy’ that should be ready for Christmas.

On or way to the beach we pass the Pozzi Ranch, some of Straus Creamery’s grazing meadows, and several smaller family farms, all of who have been cutting hay over the past few weeks. Just as the grasses turn gold, they’re cut into rows where they sit for a week or so before being baled. I love the haphazard architecture of the bales as they cure before being collected and loaded into barns. The ride to the beach smells of sweet cut grass drying in the sun.

Salmon Creek and the Russian River are still feeding the Pacific at high tides, so the surrounding beaches are loaded with driftwood. This year I’ve discovered some surprisingly sophisticated structures built of driftwood. I’m not sure if it’s due to an abundance of good material after later than usual rains, or to an increase in leisure and anxiety given the current joblessness crisis.

Tagged: aesthetics, california coast, deep craft, phenology, pozzi ranch, slow food, sonoma coast, straus creamery, wowhaus