Alone among a mussel cluster a sea star glows in stillness, vermillion like a smile like sunshine while the sea grass sways. Today I stand in cold tide pools because that is where my bare white feet make sense, alone among the cosmic rhyme of fives.
Tag Archives: california coast
Experiments in Wooden Planing Hulls
Top and bottom of my latest bellyboard, laminated from cedar and walnut veneers. I’m a purist when it comes to riding waves. Or maybe a minimalist. Or both. I grew up bodysurfing on the Jersey Shore in the Seventies, learning about tides and wind, sandbars and swell. We surfed beach breaks exclusively, daily, no matter […]
Update from Swell Break: Deep Craft on the Edge
Rodeo Beach, viewed from the trail from Headlands Center for the Arts Located on a barren bluff overlooking the Pacific Ocean in the Marin Headlands, the Headlands Center for the Arts (HCA) feels remote, like the edge of civilization, despite its close proximity to San Francisco. Founded in the early 1980’s, HCA occupies a series […]
Bellyboards Galore
Top and bottom view of my EggBellyboard in Western Red Cedar and Walnut I’ve made a few bellyboard prototypes for my upcoming Swell Break project at the Headlands. The first batch are deceptively minimalist, egg-shaped, about 39″ long and 23″ wide, 5/8″ thick at the middle, feathering out to about 5/16″ at the edges. I […]
Swell Break: Deep Craft on the Edge
Swell Break logo/coaster by Headlands Center for the Arts I’ve been tapped by the Headlands Center for the Arts in Marin County to head a workshop over Labor Day Weekend called Swell Break: Deep Craft on the Edge. The programming staff at Headlands were inspired by my Deep Craft Atelier at Storefront Lab last […]
Flotsam of the Day
I love a beach tangle, lines yanked and rolled by the surf, twisted colors at the tideline.
Bull Kelp Harvest
Each winter since we’ve lived on the Sonoma Coast and made a daily practice of walking the beaches, I become mildly obsessed with the bull kelp that washes ashore in great heaps after storms. I’ve tried weaving the kelp into seat blanks, drying it as an iodine-rich jerky, and brewing it for a savory stock. […]