I arrived in Norway last week to meet Ene and Aili and a group of friends gathering from around the world to celebrate our friend Wencke’s 50th birthday. Wencke was hosting the group on her family’s compound in Tvederstand, a tranquil hamlet of wooden buildings on a fjord about 220 kilimeters South of Oslo. Tvederstrand […]
Category Archives: bioregion/vernacular
Bull Kelp Experiment 2
Ene and I returned to Salmon Creek Beach on the last negative low tide and harvested another load of stray kelp for a new experiment. I found a larger piece of tapered, round driftwood to use as a form for a basket and calculated how many strands of kelp would be required to make a […]
Benziger Family Table
I had the ocean on my mind as I drove from the Pacific Coast to visit my friend Colby Eierman at Benziger Family Winery in Glen Ellen, one of a handful of certified biodynamic wineries in the region. Colby is in charge of the gardens and livestock at the winery and called to ask of […]
Bull Kelp Experiment 1
It is High Spring on the Sonoma Coast and I’m finding my interest in woven structures is shared by birds, whose nests are literally dropping from trees with the afternoon winds from an unseasonably high barometric pressure. My initial experiments with bull kelp were a success. Wrapped around a tapered round of driftwood, the material […]
Lessons from Samone
I had a tiny shop in our garage in the flatlands of North Oakland when Ene and I first moved to California in the early nineties after circuitous travels through West Africa, across the United States and into Alaska. I had been deeply inspired by working with the village menusiers of Togo, and was just […]
Bull Kelp at Salmon Creek Beach
Dairy Barn Chair
I discovered this chair in an abandoned dairy barn in Tomales, California, among artifacts from a formerly productive cattle ranch just down the coast in West Marin County. It is a good example of “maintenance equals improvement” in that the original rush-woven seat has been replaced by a woven leather seat improvised by the deceased […]