Ene’s hat and scarf complement ‘Suddenly’s late 1970’s vintage.

Ene and I spent our first afternoon together aboard ‘Suddenly’, which Ene has been calling our ‘pied-a-mer’. It was a blustery day after a long overdue rainfall, so Ene sat in the cabin reading while I replaced the dock lines and installed a portable head. We picked a color for the cabin’s interior, aired out the damp seat cushions, and thought through the logistics of spending our first night on board next week, when we return from Denver after scoping out our Tsuru Project.

Thinking about cruising and spending time on board I’ve been enjoying reading one of my favorite books, ‘The Rudder Treasury: A Companion for Lovers of Small Craft’, a compilation of the best writing from The Rudder magazine, published from the late 1800’s until the late 1940’s. I especially love the recipes included and hope to modify a few to suit our tiny galley and weekend larder, which will combine canned and dry goods stowed on board with fresh ingredients we bring along. I look forward to developing a few signature dishes when we invite friends for a sail or just to hang out aboard ‘Suddenly’. If you have any ideas for elegant, one pot meals, please send them along. Meanwhile. here’s a sample recipe from The Rudder:

I found just the right necktie to leave on board for the inevitable emergency.

Tagged: deep craft, phenology, pied-a-mer, sailing, scott Constable, wowhaus

A barn full of beautiful wood, carefully laid up to dry, is better than money in the bank.

I’ve never really studied economic theory, but imagine there’s an odd relationship/kinship between miserliness and greed. Suffice it to say I learned firsthand over the past week how one might give way to the other, in predictable order.

In the course of single-handedly stacking over 1000 board feet of premium wood I had recently milled, aided only by gravity, levers and rolling bars, I loaded my barn and felt a sense of pride bordering on prosperity. I’ve never been interested in money or accumulation, but the simple act of loading the barn with my own hands shifted my perspective. My new pile of wood drying in the barn might as well be bars of gold, and will likely increase in value at an exponentially greater rate.

Tagged: aesthetics, appropriate technology, craft philosophy, deep craft, economics, scott Constable, woodworking

A glimpse of the deck and cockpit of ‘Suddenly’, our 1978 Hunter 25 sailboat.

Suddenly is the name of our new sailboat, a 1978 Hunter 25 docked at a convenient slip in the Berkeley Marina. The boat is aptly named, for like so many things worth the wait, no matter how well-reasoned and researched the quest, the decision to take the plunge often happens quite suddenly. We’ll be using her as an urban extension of the wowhaus studio, as a family sailing lab for excursions on the Bay and into the Delta, a place to meet with friends and clients and as a tiny apartment for the occasional overnight.

The cabin is ample but minimal, and sleeps five in spartan comfort.

Most significantly, Suddenly will function as a kind of muse for the wowhaus studio and our ever-increasing range of work in art and design in the public sphere. As we continue to build out our studio compound on the rural Sonoma Coast, our over-lapping projects require a near constant flow of new ideas. Experience has taught us that in order to maintain focus and to keep things fresh and fun, sometimes innovation requires a muse.

Tagged: aesthetics, deep craft, innovation, sailing, scott Constable, wowhaus

Shawn trims the ends of the felled trunk before quartering the log.

I met my friend Shawn Gavin at the old Felta School near Healdsburg the other day to mill a Valley Oak. I had purchased the log from the school after it was felled for safety concerns last September, and have been eager to see what the wood looks like. I plan to make a batch of my Deep Deck from the wood after it air dries for about a year, having successfully prototyped a small production run in American Elm. The plan is to make different versions of the deck in different woods from locally-grown, hand-milled logs, each tree telling a different story whose provenance is reflected in each series of decks.

Section of an oak showing medullary rays.

The Valley Oak (Quercus lobata) is a true white oak native to California’s hot interior valleys. Like its eastern cousin Quercus alba, the Valley Oak has large medullary rays that make an interesting pattern while adding strength to the wood when it is ‘quarter sawn’ from the log. The medullary rays radiate from the center of the tree to the sapwood to carry nutrients, so they run across the wood’s annular rings. When boards are cut from the log with the annular rings perpendicular to the face, they are called ‘quarter sawn’, and the medullary rays, or ’silver rays’ are exposed. If the milled boards are carefully stickered in stacks with good air circulation, the grain orientation and slow curing will add to the strength and stability of the wood, ideal for my innovative Deep Deck design.

The ends are trimmed and sealed with wax.

The log is cut in half lengthwise along the log’s primary ‘heart shake’.

The quarters are cut perpendicular to the heart shake, along the center of the tree.

Quarters are loaded onto the mill to be squared and milled into boards cut perpendicular to the annular rings.

Milling goes fast with Shawn’s expertise and hydraulic Wood-Mizer. The two of us processed a 4′d x 10′l log into about 1100 board feet of quarter-sawn lumber in just 13 hours, including loading and delivering the material to the wowhaus studio.

Even when rough-cut, the medullary rays are visible, so characteristic of quarter-sawn white oak.

Tagged: california flora, deep craft, longboard, milling wood, quarter sawn, scott Constable, skateboard, traditional craft, white oak, wood-mizer, woodworking, wowhaus

Ene builds towers for her peas to climb.

With help from friends we’ve been reviving our vegetable garden over the past few weeks. It’s been about 5 years since we built the raised beds, and with the demands of projects and travel over the past couple of years, the garden has been sorely neglected. The grounds are now weeded, paths mulched, beds topped off with close to ten yards of compost, and Ene has been busy planting. By spring we’ll start to see lettuces, spinach, peas, strawberries, blueberries, asparagus and greens. Meanwhile, we’ll enjoy the bounty of kale that survived our neglect.

Kale and other cabbages thrive in the cool maritime climate of the Sonoma Coast.

Scott’s Sake Greens:

Pick and rinse a few handfuls of dino kale, collard or other leafy cabbage. Shake off most of the water. Remove the spines if they are too tough and chop the leaves into 1″ strips. Heat olive oil in a large skillet or wok over a medium-high flame and toss in the greens, mixing them constantly as they cook, about one minute. Salt the greens, add a little more oil and toss in a few cloves of finely chopped garlic. Continue mixing over a medium flame for another minute and sprinkle in a little chili pepper (I like nanami togarashi) and/or dried seaweed (I like nori komi furikake). Pour about a half cup of dry sake into the pan and deglaze it by mixing the ingredients with a large spoon or spatula. Add a little water if the greens seem too dry. Lower the heat, partially cover the greens and let them simmer a few more minutes until they are tender but retain their glossy green color. Serve as a side dish with rice and black-eyed peas or with grilled fish.

Tagged: california coast, gardening, kale recipe, sonoma coast, wowhaus

A section of the texture I’ve been carving into my crane sculpture.

I’ve learned a lot from studying sand patterns at the beach over the past few months. I’m always astounded at how such beautiful formations result from the erosive interactions of just a handful of elements- the density of different sands, slope of the beach grade, the continual play of surf and drying effect of sunshine.

I try to apply these lessons as I texture the fared contours of my wooden crane sculpture for our Tsuru project, cutting parallel channels that follow the arc of the grain over compound curves. The process takes concentration but is easy going with my very sharp 1.5″ Japanese gouge. When the wooden form is finally cast in bronze, the ridges of my chisel marks will be slightly highlighted with burnishing and their line patterns will recall the feathers of a large soaring bird while remaining true to the inherent tautness of the mother material.

Beauty becomes intrinsic to a thing only when its pursuit is incidental to the process.

Beauty becomes intrinsic to a thing only when its pursuit is incidental to the process.

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

For the past several years, our preferred way to greet the New Year has been to indulge in a few days’ soak in the Calistoga hot springs at the tip of Napa Valley, just 30 miles east of the wowhaus studio on the other side of the Mayacamas Range. The annual ritual gives us a chance to recalibrate and slow down, modulating our body temperatures as we shift from pool to pool and follow the sun on its low arc across a clear winter sky. The days pass in pace with the conduction of heat and the evaporation of mineral-rich water, leaving us feeling like much simpler, happy organisms.

Tagged: calistoga, hot springs, napa, new years, wowhaus