December 13, 2011 – Headlands

In California, and particularly the Bay Area, old and abandoned forts, batteries and bunkers are plentiful. Across the Golden Gate Bridge, in the Marin Headlands, you can’t wander far without finding reminders of an earlier era of military defense. Many of the structures are from World War II. It might surprise some how interesting and aesthetically pleasing many of the old bunkers and gun batteries look today. I often see them as being like sculpture emerging from the golden hills. I find them haunting in the fog or striking in bright sunlight. It’s also easy to imagine the bunkers as precursors for the mid-century architecture that perched modernist homes on California hillsides. If we maintain our “ancient” fortifications for a few more centuries, they may seem as interesting for future tourists as any European castle.

October 12, 2011 – Campfire

Years ago I figured out what I like about camping and what I don’t like. I’ll pass on the whole tents and lack of plumbing experience. And even simple car camping can be ruined by one loud family of Santa Rosa trailer trash rolling into the campground late at night and disrupting an entire campground (you guessed correct if you think I am writing from experience).

But there is a lot I love about camping. There is the quiet of the early morning, starting the fire and getting some water boiling for tea. Sharing dinner with friends at night, feeling the darkness come quickly. That feeling when 7:30 p.m. already feels like 10 p.m. because you’re out in the dark in the woods. And the best part is all about the fire. Perhaps it is some primeval programming that has most of us mesmerized by that fire. The sound, the smell, the warmth — watching a good campfire beats anything you’ll ever find on TV.

Yesterday afternoon I was in a secluded, quiet clove below Marin Headlands on the shore of the Golden Gate. We stayed until about 10 o’clock, enjoyed dinner, birthday cupcakes, a full moonrise and of course we had a campfire. It was the things I love about camping. But no need for a tent because at the end of evening I was driven back across the Golden Gate Bridge in a swell little mini cooper convertible with the top down and heated seats on.

April 11, 2011 – Glass Beach

I have spent more than half of my life near beaches. The moment of finding some sort of “treasure” while walking down a beach never gets old. In California we have geology combined with the grinding Pacific surf. It has created some great beaches that are thick with layers of smooth pebbles. I can spend hours picking through the small rocks at Rodeo Beach in the Marin Headlands. You can find polished little bits of serpentine that look like jade beads. And you always find a few bits of beach glass ground smooth by the surf.

If you’re really serious about beach glass, you need to go further north. Glass Beach up in Fort Bragg is amazing. A former garbage dump! It’s hard to imagine a town dumping its garbage into a cove up until the 1960’s. Fortunately, we know better nowadays. The result though is a beach thick with beach glass. It doesn’t take long to have a handful of treasure. And I owe it all to Huell Howser and California’s Gold. Without that show I would have just kept driving up Route One and never stopped.

There are many artists and craftspeople that incorporate beach glass (or sea glass) into their work. I prefer to do something different. Over the years I have done some paintings that are close-ups of magnified beach glass. They are intensive, detail-oriented exercises. Today’s piece is another portrait of one of my favorite places in California.