The seasonal south swell has returned to Doran Beach, piling up shapely waves along with lashings of Bull Kelp. Last year I was intent upon taming the kelp for a wild-crafted, bioregional chair. My dream remains intact but this year I’m more seduced by the waves. enormous tangles of kelp accumulate along the shore after […]
Category Archives: visceral inquiry
Back to the Studio
a satisfying pile of offcuts accumulate as I make chairs for Becoming Independent Getting back to the studio this week makes me grateful that my work as an artisan requires such a range of activity. After a couple of weeks of project-related proposal-making, site visits, speaking engagements and interviews with the press, I’m delighted to […]
Wishing Wands Dedication
detail of one of three Wishing Wands crystal-embedded ‘heads’, approx. 32″ d. Wowhaus was honored yesterday at the dedication ceremony for our Wishing Wands project at Berryessa Creek Park in San Jose, California. The three 13′ high sculptures are sited adjacent to a playground in a paved seating area frequently used by children with physical […]
Radical Board Boat
the lateen-rigged ‘jangada’ of Northeastern Brazil Over twenty years ago, Ene and I built our first and only boat together one winter on the porch when we lived in a one room cabin perched over the Hudson. The cabin was built atop a sea wall on a narrow spit of land to the west of […]
Entropy Schmentropy
I doubt the rancher who owns this tiny roadside outbuilding shares my enthusiasm for the patterns of blistered paint on its corrugated walls. He’d probably agree that it needs repainting and was a poorly executed job to begin with, or that the galvanized steel was best left exposed to the elements without any paint at […]
Watershed Morphology Workshop
representations of water from across time and cultures How do we indicate water, let alone its increasing significance in maintaining the fabric of a healthy urban watershed? As we prepare a final design for the City of Oakland’s system of Watershed Markers, Ene and I will spend the weekend at farmer’s markets and major pedestrian […]
The Quiet Mechanics of Country Life
Here the soils of daily washing stay on the land, conveyed by gravity through pipes to the leach fields to join the earth of the tree duff, filtering fresh rainfall to replenish the dwelling well. Meanwhile the ferrous field well spews rustily over the garden, adding a mineral edge to the lusty bite of a […]