‘Oakland Fusion’ Installation Commences

Over the next three weeks I will be installing our Oakland Fusion  project at Jack London Square in downtown Oakland, CA. The project consists of  four consecutive 10′ x 10′ lenticular murals, comprised of over 45oo hand painted tiles, mounted to a custom-manufactured, corrugated steel substrate. Each mural functions like a two-cell animation; the image […]

Grove of Old Trees

I’ve always been drawn to old trees. We live on the edge of a redwood forest (Sequoia sempervirens), an ancient species that still dominates the coast of Northern California, despite relentless logging over the past 150 years. We have about 60 second growth redwood trees on our property, some already reaching a height exceeding 200 […]

Le Forgeron

Most villages in the Bassar region of Togo, West Africa, still had a blacksmith when Ene and I lived there briefly about 20 years ago. Our friend, Innocent (above) was Le Forgeron de Guerrin-Kouka, the market town where we lived. Although iron smelting had been in steady decline since Colonial times, it was still practiced […]

Anni Rapinoja

Trained as a botanist, Anni Rapinoja lives on a remote island off the coast of Finland, where she makes beautiful, functional objects from seasonally foraged, natural materials like pussy willow, used to make the shoes and purse pictured above. Rapinoja considers her work as an extension of her environmental activism, drawing us closer to nature […]

Estero Americano Floods

I rode my bike to scout the Estero Americano over the weekend, the body of water dividing Western Marin and Sonoma counties. Almost exactly a year ago I made my first post on this weblog after a paddle on the Estero to explore the availability of sea grasses like bulrush for a furniture-making experiment. I’ve […]

Driftwood Symposium

I’ve been collecting driftwood over the past couple of years and organizing it according to its general type (girth, length, curvature, species) and the frequency with which it can typically be found on stretches of beach near the mouth of the Russian River. I’d like to expand upon my collecting, make a kind of a […]

Windsor Longboard Roadtest

Aili took her Windsor Longboard  for a test spin and loved how it handled- it carves  with ease and feels rock steady going fast. The camber is just right, with just enough flex to ease road vibration and pump on a quick turn. I’m now taking advance orders for the deck on my GOODS page […]