a morning commuter braves the November chill in Sheboygan, Wisconsin Sheboygan is easily one of the coolest towns I’ve experienced. The people here exude a pragmatic optimism and can-do eagerness that conjure another time, a friendlier America of the past that in many ways has never left this small city on the lake. Clearly, Sheboygan […]
Category Archives: bioregion/vernacular
Kohler Arts Dispatch
looking E. over Sheboygan Reef, a geological oddity along Lake Michigan’s shores A gentle westerly breeze rolls tiny breakers over Sheboygan Reef, a rare protrusion of limestone bedrock extending to Niagra Falls, as I walk along the lakefront bike path before an afternoon of meetings with Kohler Arts Center. I’ll be here for the week, […]
Joe’s Mushroom Report
artist/musician/chef Josef Szuecs of The-Way-To-Go-Joes My friend and neighbor Josef Szuecs is one of the most multi-talented people I’ve ever met. Owner of Renga Arts in Occidental, CA, guitarist/founder of the locally popular, self-described ‘porch jazz’ combo, The-Way-To-Go-Joes, Joe is also an accomplished chef, and his food often features seasonal fare he hunts, grows, fishes […]
Bull Kelp of the South Swell
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 […]
The Week in Bloom
Now the sanderling outnumber the dowitcher along the Sonoma Coast, where heaps of kelp remind of the season’s first storms. Last week’s extratropical activity dumped up to ten inches of rain from Typhoon Melor, which blew across the Pacific from Japan. The uncharacteristically humid, warm weather forced some unlikely blossoming, turned the local pastures green, […]
Bioneers
Bioneers was held over the past weekend at the Wright-designed Marin Civic Center Bioneers is an annual, three day forum for cutting edge ideas in the realm of sustainability and ecology. This year’s conference was aptly sited on the campus of the Frank Lloyd Wright-designed Marin Civic Center and marks the twentieth anniversary of the […]
In Praise of Neighborhood Parks
community garden, Berkeley, CA (toolshed by wowhaus, 1995) “The older I grow and the longer I look at landscapes and seek to understand them, the more convinced I am that their beauty is not simply an aspect but their very essence and that that beauty derives from the human presence.” -John Brinckerhoff Jackson As much […]