plate from ‘Kunsterformen Der Natur’ (1899-1904) by Ernst Haeckel For the better part of the past two weeks I’ve stopped all production in order to spend time with family and nourish my exhausted body and brain. Over the holidays we’ve been making leisurely day trips, hiking the beach, cooking, napping and reading, seeing movies and […]
Tag Archives: aesthetics
Back to the Stump
Excerpt from ‘Afoot and Afloat’ by American naturalist John Burroughs. ‘A Summer Boating Trip’, Burroughs’ account of a boyhood adventure, was first published in 1881. You may read ‘Afoot and Afloat’ in its entirety here. //
Shed Metrics
My Shed Chair concept was inspired by fences built by local frugal farmers I’ve been paying particularly close attention to the vernacular forms of Sonoma County’s family scale agriculture- the fences, coops, crates and outbuildings associated with our region’s numerous orchards, ranches and vineyards. My friend Cindy Daniel is in the process of realizing an […]
Design for Quiddity
I reserved the best of the clear and quarter-sawn stock for cabinets and doors Today when my interior design project in Marin passed final inspections and the stress of pushing for completion began to recede, I was reminded of my initial inspiration- to make a place that has a distinct smell, identifiable with local flora. […]
Exuberant Frugality
We tested my Greens Chair at Greens Restaurant over a four course dinner On the eve of our first full week home after six weeks of travel, Ene, Aili and I celebrated with a prix fixe, four course dinner at Greens Restaurant in San Francisco. Mike Hale, Greens’ manager, generously comped the meal as a […]
Graceland to Monticello
Jefferson planted ‘mad dog’ at Monticello, brought from the West by Lewis and Clark Ene and I had made three cross-country road trips before our most recent family pilgrimage. The first three punctuated a single year almost twenty years ago, when we negotiated a move from the East Coast to California. We made an exploratory […]
Sand Trees
These elegant ‘sand trees’ are unique to the low tide conditions of Doran Beach As Ene and I begin to fabricate our relief sculptures for a system of watershed markers we’ve been commissioned to design for the City of Oakland, we’ve been returning to our local beach at low tide for research and inspiration. The […]