Our two glass mosaic fish sculptures glisten in the early morning haze at the new Ortega Branch of the SF Public Library

Wowhaus was honored yesterday when our Abundance project was officially unveiled to the public at the opening of the new Ortega Branch of the San Francisco Public Library near Ocean Beach. Commissioned by the San Francisco Arts Commission, the two monumental, glass mosaic fish sculptures took over a year to design and fabricate, and we were thrilled to see the pieces working so harmoniously with the building and landscaping on a sunny morning so rare to this part of the City.

The ‘Rock Fish’

The ‘Anchovy’

To learn more about the development of this wowhaus project over the past couple of years, please click here and scroll down.

Tagged: california coast, deep craft, public art, san francisco arts commission, san francisco public library, wowhaus

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

‘Rockfish’, one of two monumental fish sculptures to be installed at a new library in SF

Ene and I have been preparing to install two major wowhaus public art projects we’ve had in development over the past year. ‘Abundance‘, which consists of two monumental, ceramic tile mosaic sculptures honoring the significance of ‘feeder fish’ to the marine ecosystem, will soon be installed at the Ortega Branch of the San Francisco Public Library, sited near Ocean Beach, within view of the Pacific. Ene recently met on site with Mary Chou of the San Francisco Arts Commission, who commissioned the project, to finalize location of the sculptures as the new building nears completion.

Community members help Ene determine the location for our two large fish sculptures

materials used to make patina at Berkeley’s Artworks Foundry

Having selected final sites of significance to Oakland‘s urban watershed, we’re nearly ready to install our ‘Stepping Stones‘ project, commissioned by the City of Oakland Public Art Program funded through Measure DD Bond Program, which was approved by voters for Oakland watershed improvements. We have been working in collaboration with the Environmental Services Department of the City of Oakland. The project consists of five relief sculptures, cast in bronze, depicting ’stepping stones’ one might encounter when crossing a stream. The individual sculptures vary in size, but each one features animals native to the region seeking refuge on or around the stone, which has water flowing around it. The stones will be installed in various configurations on sidewalks with heavy pedestrian traffic, where creeks have been diverted underground. Ene recently met with the incredibly skilled artisans of Berkeley’s Artworks Foundry, who cast the sculptures, to discuss patina before the sculptures are installed.

a sampling of patinas to consider for the ‘Stepping Stone’ sculptures

the artisans of Artworks Foundry cast the sculptures and are now adding patina

Tagged: contemporary art, deep craft, Oakland, ocean beach, public art, san francisco arts commission, scott Constable, wowhaus

Ene and me reflected in Anish Kapoor’s ‘Bean’ sculpture, Chicago, earlier this summer

Before I launch full bore into documenting A Year in Surf I wanted to update current wowhaus projects. I will maintain a running log of projects as they accumulate, but will soon shift the focus of deepcraft to my active pursuit of surfing. I think you’ll agree that surf culture is in many ways a unifying theme to the thrust of past and present wowhaus projects, which increasingly focus on watershed ecology, structural invention and making beautiful things and places.

Our fish sculptures (’Abundance‘) are coming to life as they are skinned with tile

Our wax ‘Stepping Stones’ are ready to be cast in bronze for our Oakland Watershed Marker Project

We’ve selected sites to install our ‘Stepping Stones’ relief sculptures, drawing attention to Oakland’s many hidden creeks comprising a complex, urban watershed

Conference Table for the managing offices of  ‘Marin County Mart’ (photo taken when the conference room was under construction)

I recently designed this conference table for the offices of Jim Rosenfield, owner of Marin Country Mart. The design developed collaboratively from concept sketches by Jim, with proportional and color consultation from Greg Turpan, who has been instrumental in defining the look and feel of the innovative shopping center. The table is 10 feet long and 34″ wide with 4 x 4 legs in solid Claro walnut. The top is lightweight for its size, being a hollow ‘torsion box’ with a honeycomb core of 1/4″ plywood making an internal grid of 3″ squares. To make a seamless surface on all six sides, the top is skinned with full length panels of MDF, with ‘folded miter’ corners. The top is finished on all sides with six layers of catalyzed urethane, hand-polished to a high gloss. I borrowed from hollow surfboard construction when conceiving the table. I’ve enjoyed working with Jim and Greg on the project and am honored to contribute to Marin Country Mart, which is fast becoming a major Bay Area icon.

Meanwhile, I’m nearing completion of a residential interior I’ve designed and built in Marin County, and permits are in place and construction is underway on an ‘Observation Tower’ I recently designed for a rural property in Sonoma County. Photos to follow soon!

Tagged: deep craft, furniture design, greg turpan, innovation, marin country mart, Oakland, public art, scott Constable, wowhaus

Our hand-printed wedding invitations were an auspicious omen of the fish theme

Chance is always powerful. Let your hook always be cast; in the pool where you least expect it, there will be fish. -Ovid

The theme of fish has been a constant touchstone for Ene and me since we first met over twenty years ago, when Ene wore fish earrings and we lived in a one room house cantilevered over the Hudson River. We decorated our first Christmas tree with foil-covered chocolate fish, and printed our own fish themed wedding invitations from a woodcut I made one winter, the ice floes buckling and cracking with the changing tides beneath our feet. As Peace Corps volunteers in West Africa, we subsisted on a diet of dried fish and fufu, then soon after, as deckhands on a salmon seiner in Alaska’s Alexander Archipelago, our boat hauled in over 250,000 pounds of fish in a single season. It’s just like that with us and fish. We never consciously decided that fish would be the theme, it just seemed to fit.

trowel in hand, Ene skins the anchovy

Needless to say, we were pretty excited when the San Francisco Arts Commission funded our proposal for two monumental, ceramic mosaic-skinned sculptures honoring the importance of ‘feeder fish’ to the ecosystem, to be installed at the new Ortega Branch of the Public Library, near Ocean Beach. The project has been an ideal collaboration between Ene and me, and combines our skills more evenly than other projects, giving Ene more of an opportunity for hands-on, full scale fabrication. Ever the intuitive baker, Ene has a feel for doughs and plasters, and seems supremely in her element with trowel in hand.

the rockfish is almost ready for its golden mosaic skin

To read more about the progress of the wowhaus public art project, ‘Abundance’, please click here and scroll down.

Tagged: california coast, contemporary art, deep craft, ocean beach, public art, wowhaus

After Kevin Cherry welded up the steel armatures for our two fish sculptures, they were hot-dip galvanized and delivered to our studio compound for final shaping and completion. We have hired our friend Tami Stewart, a Berkeley-based sculptor/artist, to help ’skin’ the armatures with expanded metal lath and then apply layers of resin-impregnated, fiber-reinforced concrete, the substrate for a ceramic tile mosaic. Tami has been building natural science exhibits with Academy Studios for over 20 years, and we’re grateful to have her on board at this critical phase.

the anchovy sculpture’s galvanized steel armature, before the metal lath skin is applied

To follow the development of the wowhaus Abundance Project, commissioned by the SF Arts Council to be installed at the Ortega Branch of the San Francisco Public Library, please click here.

Tagged: academy studios, deep craft, public art, scott Constable, tami stewart, wowhaus

With minor revisions, the San Francisco Arts Commission has approved our clay/wood models of fish sculptures for the new, Ortega Branch of the San Francisco Public Library, and we are rapidly proceeding with full scale fabrication. Using templates generated from sections of the models, we had discs cut from plate steel, and steel tubes bent to form the ’spines’ of the two fish sculptures. We’ve hired Sonoma-based metal artist Kevin Cherry of Steel Cherry to fabricate the welded steel substructure, which will be hot dip galvanized once the longitudinal stringers are in place, before we ’skin’ the skeleton with fiberglass mesh, impregnated with a cementitious resin.

Petaluma, CA based Van Bebber Brothers bent the 4″d steel tube ‘fish spines’

-To learn more about the evolution of the wowhaus project, ‘Abundance’, please click here and scroll down.

Tagged: contemporary art, deep craft, public art, scott Constable, steel cherry, van bebber, wowhaus

After tracing sectional contours for full scale fabrication in steel, I’ve reassembled the wooden parts of the two 1/4 scale models of fish sculptures for our Abundance project. Next I build up a layer of clay over the wooden substrates to approximate the outermost surfaces, which will be ceramic tile mosaic on the finished pieces. Next week I will present the clay covered models to the San Francisco Arts Commission for final approval.

The layer of clay will also help when we’re fabricating the full size sculptures, enabling us to measure the depth of the outer tile substrate, which will be fiberglass-reinforced gypsum. Building the sculptures will be a little like forensic anthropology, in reverse.

model of the Vermillion Rockfish, skinned in clay

To follow the story of our Abundance Project for the Ortega Branch of the SF Public Library, click here and scroll down.

Tagged: contemporary art, deep craft, innovation, public art, scott Constable, sculpture, sf arts commission, wowhaus

Boat-Building on the Stour, oil on canvas by John Constable, 1814-15

People who know me well are not surprised by my obsession with wooden boatbuilding. Though I’ve completed just one actual boat, each year I’m gripped with boat fever, especially during the winter months, when I scan plans and dream of the perfect cruise, surveying piles of timber for hints of the unformed hull. Over the years, I’ve accumulated a respectable knowledge of traditional boatbuilding, having read everything from Howard Chapelle to Phil Bolger on the subject. It doesn’t really matter that I have yet to produce the boat of my dreams- I get as much satisfaction applying my knowledge in other ways, particularly in designing and making furniture and sculpture.

traced sections from my 1/4 scale fish sculpture model to be lofted up to full scale

I recently carved 1/4 scale models of our 2 fish sculptures for the Ortega Branch of the San Francisco Public Library. To loft the models to full scale, I’ve borrowed a half-hull technique familiar to boat-builders, where the hand-shaped wooden form is cut into regular sections, from which lines are drawn. Next I will loft these sections to full scale and make templates that will be sent to a steel fabricator. The steel substrate for the fish sculptures will be built on a jig very much like a boat, with longitudinal ‘stringers’ welded to the steel sections, making the final shape, to be skinned in layers: steel lath, fiberglass-reinforced gypsum/epoxy, then ceramic tile mosaic.

I’m lucky to have developed a venue for my ideas that gives me an outlet for experimentation within tradition. In my experience, innovation in craft is often the result of hybridizing tools and techniques between disciplines.

To follow the story of Abundance, our fish sculptures commissioned by the San Francisco Arts Commission, please click here and scroll down.

Tagged: contemporary art, craft philosophy, deep craft, innovation, public art, scott Constable, traditional craft, woodworking, wowhaus

1/4 scale, schematic model of the Vermillion Rockfish, carved from pine and redwood

Between meetings for new wowhaus projects over the past week, I’ve completed two 1/4 scale models of our mosaic fish sculptures for the Ortega Branch of the San Francisco Public Library, commissioned by the San Francisco Arts Commission. I’ve borrowed a few techniques from boatbuilding to visualize the forms in 3d and consequently loft the structure to full scale. Traditionally, a marine architect would carve a ‘half hull’ model in wood to test a new shape, from which all sections and measurements would be made for full scale construction. The model would literally be cut into sections, which translate directly into construction plans and building jigs.

Ene made a lovely sample panel of the reflective, tile mosaic for the ‘anchovy’ sculpture (photo: Genevieve Masse)

To make the models, I laminated scraps of pine and redwood and roughed out the shapes with a bandsaw. Using small spokeshaves and rasps, I then shaped the contours of the fishes, knowing I would later add a layer of clay for surface details. Next I will cut the models into sections to make templates for the interior steel armatures, to be cut and welded at full scale, after approval by Artur Tan, our structural engineer. I’ve been enjoying working subtractively with wood in this way, and would love to do more purely sculptural work in wood, which lends itself so forgivingly to precise carving. The entire process has also been great practice for designing and making my radical board boat and shapes my thinking about future sculpture projects in general.

schematic sketch showing steel armature for the fish sculpture(s)

Tagged: contemporary art, craft, deep craft, public art, scott Constable, sculpture, woodworking, wowhaus