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 […]
Monthly Archives: August 2011
Installing Abundance
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 […]
Spark
Ali Blateis, our Project Assistant, tacks down hand-cut glass on one of Spark’s panels If you’ve been to the wowhaus studio in the past six months, you’d have noticed the neatly piled stacks of hand-cut, iridescent and mirrored glass everywhere that we’ve been transforming into a series of mosaic murals, called Spark, now nearing completion. […]
Vaka Moana
One of eight vaka sails into the harbor of San Francisco’s Treasure Island Last week I attended the welcoming ceremony for a fleet of vaka moana that had just crossed the Pacific from New Zealand, where the eight craft were built. Using traditional sailing rigs supplemented by solar-powered electric motors, the craft and crew made […]
Dory Revival
The mouth of Tomales Bay As a lifelong student and enthusiast of small boat design, my tastes lean towards working craft, which I define as any boat whose primary goal is to reach a destination, either as transportation or in the seasonal pursuit of a fishery. Working craft adapt and evolve over generations of trial […]
Donald’s Whittling and Scrimshandering Soiree
Pippa Murray, Donald Fortescue and John Randolph, a-whittlin’ at the Headlands Craving both a mental vacation and physical challenge, I decided to embark on an impromptu four day bike trip down the coast, eqipped with the barest possible essentials of food, clothing and shelter. My destination would be the Headlands Center for the Arts near […]