Wishing Wands

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 […]

In the Studio with Donald Fortescue

Donald Fortescue with one of two identical parts of his latest sculpture, ‘Nio’. Donald Fortescue was preparing to join the last of the coopered sections of his latest sculpture yesterday afternoon when I dropped by his home-based studio in West Oakland for a chat. I arrived just in time to help him and his talented […]

Bioneers

Ene and I will be speaking at this year’s Bioneers Conference at the Marin Civic Center, October 15-19, 2009. We have been invited to “present an in-process, imagined work of art inspired by a breaking environmental news story” along with fellow ‘eco-artists’ Susan Leibovitz Steinman, Anne Katrin Spiess, Doug Buis, Susanne Cockrell, and Ted Purves. […]

Polished

polishing the Dining Commons tables at MLK Jr Middle School in Berkeley You might be surprised to find well-polished, handmade wooden furniture in a public middle school dining commons, let alone any lunch to serve upon it. You might be equally surprised that the tables, benches and stools of Martin Luther King Jr Middle School […]

The Week in Bloom

“There’s nothing that keeps its youth, So far as I know, but a tree and truth.” -Oliver Wendell Holmes, The Deacon’s Masterpiece, 1858 After last year’s bumper crop of apples and the disarmingly early drop of the Gravensteins, we vowed to do our best not to let any go to waste this season. Our Gravensteins […]

Expedition Cabinet

sketch/proposal for the Expedition Cabinet I have nothing against Fine Furniture, except that I typically favor the opposite. Give me a scavenged roadside pie safe over a Biedermeier sideboard any day. It’s not that I’m into ‘outsider art’ per se, or even collecting antiques, or that I find comfort in reverse snobbery. It’s just that […]

Introducing Pappy

Pappy likes to repair things, preferably without spending money, using things diligently saved and gleaned, collected in coffee cans and baby food jars.  Pappy is a uniquely American archetype, a perennially frugal character forged by hardship, perseverance and optimism. We all hopefully still have a little bit of Pappy in us. ????? ????? Between projects […]