The road from Valley Ford to Two Rock is flanked by furrowed fields of freshly mowed hay, ready for baling. Pretty soon the barns will be stocked to the rafters with sweet hay, elucidating their proportional relationship to the fields they occupy. Craftwork begins with the localization of supply and demand; contentment begins with their […]
Category Archives: bioregion/vernacular
Preparing for Mildred’s Lane
naturalist/essayist John Burroughs In preparation for my residency and lecture at Mildred’s Lane late next month, I’ve been studying the upper Delaware River, reading about its history and looking at maps. I was struck by a passage by the nineteenth century American naturalist/essayist John Burroughs, describing a boyhood trip down the Delaware in his book […]
The Week in Bloom
Red Hot Poker (Kniphofia uvaria) brightens roadside culverts Clusters of California poppy, red hot poker and wild pea brightened roadside culverts and hay barns as we cycled the Bodega Highway to the coast through a light morning fog. The lupin grow yellow around the contours of Bodega Head, a rocky bluff that juts out into […]
Final Oakland Installation Dispatch
Lake Merritt, looking towards the Northeast James and I completed the lenticular murals yesterday by clear-coating them with a protective, anti-graffiti glaze. Touching every square inch of the surface of the images reminded me how much the tiles have been handled over the past eight months, how much care has gone into realizing a hand […]
The Week in Bloom
Rhododendron are at their peak We beat the heat with a day at the beach on Sunday, very much in need of a rest after a grueling final push to complete our murals in Oakland. My limbs were soothed by a long walk in the surf, a quick dip in the chilly brine and a […]
Oakland Installation Dispatch
Ene, James and I worked long days in the heat and completed the Oakland Fusion murals by the end of Saturday, exhausted and relieved. Our biggest reward was when word spread among the train conductors to check out our project, and they would make a point of leaving the train to walk by the murals […]
Oakland Installation Dispatch
Oakland’s main tidal outwash to the Bay I’ve had less time to explore lower Oakland on bike as we bear down on the installation of Oakland Fusion, but have made a few early morning tours of the Embarcadero in search of waterways connecting Lake Merritt and the Bay. I find that a bicycle is the […]