it moves

my solar panel is moving the solar sculpture in circles...maybe a bit faster than I had hoped but still....it moves!

where I've been

I've been away from my blog. yup, between the obsessively following the election, teaching, doing laundry, and working on the biggest ever solar project I've made I got out of the habit of posting but I'm going to start posting again. Above you can see the Solar Chandelier in my studio...still very much work in progress I've spent every recent Friday tying teeny tiny knots in filament to make the stuff hang just so. My panel arrived cracked so now I'm waiting for the replacement to see if the thing will turn or not.....very suspenseful.

my new hero

Today I was struggling with my solar powered sculpture project. It's coming together but there have been some technical areas I just didn't know how to make work. The art/techy types I emailed weren't responding...despair was beginning to set in. Finally, today I called, yes just got on the phone with, Therese who I had been referred to by Tony and she sent me to Guy. Guy is the guy I would be in an alternate universe. Look at his website. He has designed all kinds of amazing stuff. Created his own art and collaborated with other artists. He's built a solar hot water system. He lives in gorgeous Maine and to top it off he answered his phone and gave me several easy answers to problems I could not solve in my brain at 4 am! I heart Guy!

ecoversary

This week I celebrated 20 years of being married. In the midst of the busyness of school starting, daughter's bday, and myriad details of daily life my husband and I managed to get away for 24 hours! We had a light green theme to our celebration...On the actual day(Wed) we visited the temple of food and bowed down to local, organic, delicious, slow, tastes at Chez Panisse. It was the first time we'd ever eaten downstairs and the food was not surprisingly, amazing. The vibe felt warm and perfectly celebratory for 20 years, a number I find it hard to get my mind around...I guess I don't feel old enough to have been doing anything for 20 of my adult years but at the same time yes, of course, and glad to be doing what felt exactly right, eating that incredibly artful and honest food.

On Saturday we took the ferry to San Francisco with our bikes. Then ate more delicious local fare at the ferry building, Acme bread, local blue cheese, figs...then biked to our downtown hotel....we splashed out big time and had a view of the whole Golden Gate bay from our lovely room. In the afternoon we made our way to Crissy field along the water. It felt incredibly freeing not to have to worry about parking, all that stress of looking for it and paying for it, gone. We kept pace or even beat the traffic on our two wheels. Wandering around North Beach later we found Cafe Divine, another restaurant with local suppliers. The waiter, a younger version of my husband, gave us champagne and treated us with sincere kindness.

Sunday morning we went back to the ferry, ate more delicious local fare then onto the boat and with tenderness watched the city recede...pedaled home through the quiet Oakland streets to reunite with kids and all the stuff of life.

Parking Day movie

Here's a little movie I made of Parking Day.

Parking Day 2008

Happy Parking Day and happy 1st bday to my blog! Mary V. Marsh and I set out bright and early but ironically, got caught in traffic, on our way to parking day. Still we set up outside SFMOMA and made our park. Parking day regulars came by and drank sun tea, read Mary's earth flags, watched solar flora rotate, and fed our meter in exchange for little books. Newbies asked questions, we had a long intense conversation about climate change with a fellow from Denmark, writing his dissertation on visual imagery and climate change. All in all a day well spent.

madrone

I went to Oregon last weekend and visited the place I grew up. 40 years ago my parents "dropped out" and moved to the country, formed a commune and lived without electricity or running water. This was our 40 year reunion. Naturally seeing all the people was amazing but I'm not going to say much about that. What struck me was the place, the land, the smells, colors, sounds. All those feel stitched into my body at an almost cellular level. Each smell of flowering plants or pine was an olfactory reminder of my younger self. The soothing sound of creeks and streams heard everywhere on the land, the icy cold water on skin. The heat of the August sun. The greenish flaky serpentine rocks, deep purple blue oregon grapes, white queen anne's lace, orange red earth, red poison oak. Bird song, cedar tree, doug fir, madrone. Madrone bark peeling in layers, dropping down, red bark, brown bark, green. All of it soothing me back to my childhood summers and singing in the voice of the sweetest mother I have ever known.

sustainable school institute

This week I attended a Bay Are Teacher Dev. Collaborative institute on Sustainability. It was held at the Bay School (hence the photo). Two fun filled days of presentations, conversations, and delicious, organic food. The keynote speaker was Fritjof Capra,from the Center for Ecoliteracy . I took a class with him on Deep Ecology in the 80's at UC Berkeley. Hearing him speak I realized how much his teaching had inspired my thinking on sustainability and my general worldview. His view of life as a complex system in which each part's relationship to the whole must be valued was inspiring then and now. However it is difficult and sobering to realize how much more dire the situation looks now than it did 20+ years ago. Today I read that the Arctic is now predicted to be ice free in summer in 5 years rather than 60....Still it was so exciting to be in a room full of people, including a number of heads of schools, who want to use their institutions to create real change.

So much to fear so much to hope for.

I heart Freecycle

I recently got back into Freecycling as I cleared out stuff and I've got to say I loooove it. If you are unfamiliar with Freecycle Freecycle it is an email list where folks post what they have to give away and others respond. Let me enumerate what I love about freecycle. I can post my odds and ends, things that are cluttering and encumbering my life and others, often unseen, will gratefully relieve me of them. Things I've recently freecycled include a pile of old bricks, a car stereo whose volume went down every time I drove over a bump, and a shoe holder. On the other end of the equation I've gotten amazing stuff, most of which I would have no idea where to find. The ergonomic tray holding this keyboard on which I type is the example closest at hand. Oh and a real manual typewriter, which I will take to school to use with my students, but for now my 5 yo is learning letters on (my son came into the kitchen and typed one pithy line...the f word over and over and over, I heart twelve year old boys too). With freecycle there is the thrill of winning when someone picks me, yes me, for their item and the sweet relief of having something unloved by me loved and desired by so many. Truly green magic.

cool art

Wow, just found out about Virginia Fleck who makes mandalas from plastic bags and is part of the Austin Green Art. I need to be part of a group like that. OK, anyone know any other Bay Area artists who would be into it? I need a collective, collaborators, co-conspirators...

In other news I am making yogurt lids and cardboard tubes into art. Time consuming fun!

handlebars

Here's a video of my son and pals performing the Flobots song, Handlebars. It has a serious message about our times and yes, I'm biased, but I think he does a great job with it!

blue shadows

With all the smoke in the air lately the colors have changed. The light has a yellow/orange cast and the shadows look bluer than usual. It made me think of Monet's paintings of sunsets that were probably created by the coal and wood smoke hazing the cities back then....

today'snews

So in the hazy bay area air I read and heard some good green news recently. Elizabeth Kolbert's article in the New Yorker talks about a small island becoming energy independent. Her original series in the magazine a few years ago was a catalyst for my own environmental awakening. It was an incredibly bleak portrait of climate change that later became "field notes on a catastrophe", a book I own a signed copy of but have yet to work up the courage to read. In this piece she talks about how change actually happens. I like the vision of plucky farmers competing to see who can produce the most energy, also how the organizer worked with the existing tendencies of the community to create peer pressure to change. Social engineering against climate change! I'm going to be thinking about how to harness this when I go back to school in the Fall.

In a local parenting paper the editors looked at their carbon footprints but I can't find it online...

Today I heard on NPR that a garden is being planted in Civic Center, San Francisco. They are tearing up lawn and planting veggies! Very cool. Apparently an artist started this garden project. Another instance of the intersection of art and environmentalism.

smoke

Just returned from celebrating my mother's 70th birthday in Graeagle, CA. My sisters and I had planned a surprise long weekend away with her and our families. However the state of California was hit with huge, unprecedented, wildfires in the days before. We arrived in the picturesque Sierra hamlet to find smoky skies and trees hazed with weird orange light. As an asthmatic who suffers after sitting around a campfire for too long I felt an almost instant physical response and as a chronic worrier about climate change I felt a deep emotional one. It was bizarre beyond belief to be sitting around celebrating as the state burned.Watching my children frolic in the strange grey air.

I still haven't seen any articles talking about the flooding in the midwest and the california fires being a result of climate change, though clearly this is what has been predicted....there seems to be a huge cloud of denial along with the smoke.

hot

Has it ever been this hot in June in the Bay Area? It is 9pm and 82 degrees inside my house. We have had more hot days than I can ever remember and fires are already starting up. The whirrr in my brain says "climate change, climate change, climate change" As I folded the dry warm laundry off the line this evening ( a benefit, shirts dried within minutes of being pinned up. I rotated through three loads on my two lines)the cat, Rosie mewed pitifully from the roof. Once more she had gotten herself up there but forgotten how to get down. Is this us, roasting in our fur on the roof, with no awareness of how to escape when in fact we just need to take a leap on to a rickety fence and balance back to the ground? I fan myself and hope....

blue rumbler

alas our biodiesel 1979 Mercedes aka the blue rumbler has some real issues, transmission is slipping, glow plugs are flickering, driver's door sticking. We're going to put her out to pasture...however hope springs eternal! We are buying a 1980 smaller (rumbler was a boat that putted up hills at 10 mph even with the pedal to the metal) version! Hoping to convert to straight veggie oil and have better luck in the repair department.

Father's Day

Here's a poem I wrote a few years ago...


First Period

my father brought me flowers,
cheerful in the vase as I cramped,

embarrassed by their public color,
his male mention of my new body,

Today when I bled
I remembered the cone of blossoms.

Now he is gone.
Now my shame is done.

All that remains is my memory
of petals and stems

and grant us this,
red bloom of truce.

frogs

My daughter and I collected some pond scum this spring and have been watching the eggs turn to tadpoles and now to frogs. She is delighted and amazed, as am I. I find myself gazing into the tank several times a day to see what changes have happened and when the first pollywog emerged from the deep onto dry land I felt like I was seeing primordial evolution happen before my eyes!

summer is a coming in

One of the wonderful things about teaching is, of course, summer vacation. In mid-May it feels like summer will never arrive and then there is the amazing rush of early June when it seems I will never get everything done that must be done before the year can end. There are the field days and graduations when I look at the students and think about what they were like 5 years ago when I met them. How tall they've grown, how they look like young men and women instead of kids. There is the sadness of saying goodbye to colleagues who are moving on or retiring. There is the deep appreciation of certain treasured colleagues who stay on. The regret for moments played poorly and pride in those pulled off. I feel moored in a slipstream of time, bobbing up and down on its currents and pulled by the deep tow of my own certain someday voyage on.

slooow down

I've been busy, really busy with the multiple things that make up a mom, teacher, artist, environmentalist, life. Yes, I admit being busy is my addiction. The rush of saying "yes" to another important task, the thrill of moving at light speed from one event to the next, the exhilaration of forward momentum. Sometimes slowing down feels like a hangover. I get edgy even snappish. So it was a delight to find myself lying in the sun on the deck with my five year old today. We had an outing planned but my son unexpectedly fell asleep at noon (he also has a predilection for pushing himself until he drops) and so we made an impromptu picnic with basil from the garden, alas, colorful but not that tasty tomatoes from Mexico, olive oil, and good bread. The warm deck, my daughter's silly chatter, sweet basil ahhh the slow life of now.

pheasant

Yesterday, while biking home, I saw one of these on the trail near Lake Temescal. I've never seen one in Oakland before. S/he was looking through a chain link fence towards the lake and perhaps trying to understand what it was and how to get back over to the water. I imagined lifting it in my arms, scratchy feathers, warmth, wiggle, dusty smell, but instead, just pedaled on home.

art for sale

I just dropped off a bunch of art for the sfmoma 15th annual warehouse sale.

Here are the details:

The event begins with a grand opening reception that features complimentary wine and live music, and it closes with an afternoon of live jazz. Throughout the sale, the gallery offers special extended hours. The gallery restocks sale works daily, but visitors are encouraged to attend early for the best selection. The event is free and open to the public. On opening night, a limited number of reserved parking spaces will be offered in the Fort Mason parking lot. Free parking is available outside the gates in the Marina Green.

15th Annual Artists Warehouse Sale Opening Night
Wednesday, May 07, 2008, 6:00 p.m. - 9:00 p.m.

Special Sale Hours
Thursday, May 08 and Friday, May 09, 2008, noon - 8:00 p.m.
Saturday, May 10, 2008, noon - 5:30 p.m.
Sunday, May 11, 2008, noon - 4:00 p.m

Earth Day

Tomorrow I will wear my solar hat to the school where I teach and I'll bike to work too but the articles getting my attention are less the thoughtful and encouraging like Michael Pollan's and more the bitter and satirical like Gail Collin's "fat Bush" piece in the New York times or this one in Salon about dumping Earth Day. In truth I feel torn between the desire to be "virtuous" as Pollan calls it and do my part and a cynical despair that it is far too late to do anything but "slow the growth"and cope with the resulting catastrophe.

spring wash

It's in the 80's in Oakland and I'm hanging out the wash. Yesterday 5 yo daughter asked " does God think it's summer?".

new work

This is what I made during my spring break. Materials include cups from a baby shower, tea tin, thread spool, wire, play dough top, Peets iced coffee cup, motor, solar panel, epoxy.

best green blogs

Hey folks, I'm listed on best green blogs on today!

earth hour

Tonight is earth hour. We're asked to turn off our electricity for an hour tonight from 8-9pm local time. My son's first reaction "no way. I want to watch a movie tonight" and to be honest I'm not sure I'll pull it off. It's kind of ironic because I spent years growing up without electricity. I remember when I first started spending lots of time in electrically illuminated homes it seemed like people were addicted to electricity, to the ability to be very active at night, when it should be dark and calm. Now I take my addiction to illumination for granted and only feel the hold it has on me when I'm asked to give it up...for an hour.

edit- can't get the link to work...try this www.earthhourus.org.

solar hot tub

Hurray, our solar water heater is heating up a lot these days and making hot water for the hot tub. The way it works is that there is a panel on the roof and water is pumped up there. When it reaches 104 degrees the water flows into the tub and new water goes up. By late afternoon the water is quite hot and we only have to use the heater for a short time in the evening to heat it more. I love hearing it gurgle through the pipes. This summer I want to make a solar fountain to listen to and look at while in the tub.

a few things

A few things I've been up to instead of blogging (but want to blog about sometime):

Had a great weekend with my sisters in Lakehead....near the world-famous Basshole!

Learned how to design a circuit at the amazing art place the Crucible.

ummmmm and this weekend my son is playing in the Norcal ice hockey playoffs. go Bears!

snow

Last night I dreamed of mountains and snow. In the dream it had snowed and I saw high mountains outside my window covered in white but when I looked on the ground instead of snow there was a pile of styrofoam pieces with small pellets drifting in a gentle breeze.

ps I just found the image above...the artist is named Tara Donovan and those are cups.

Study in brown

My son was excited about the elephant seals too. He followed one as it wriggled up the beach, as I nervously reminded him not to get within 25 feet. The seal appeared to me to be about my son's age, an early adolescent. He squirmed his way along the sand towards a larger one sleeping in the corner of the beach. When he got about 15 feet away from the bigger one that one raised his head, turned, and gave a howl, clearly stating " no way are you encroaching on my territory". The little one retreated a bit, the big one gave another signal to back off. The little one headed into the waves as though it had just occurred to him that a swim might be nice. Jasper and I watched this drama together. In his brown hoodie, picked out for the first time for looks and not because of a sports team, he seemed at just the same stage as this young seal.

the artist and her model

We went to Ano Nuevo this weekend to see the elephant seals. Due to a variety of factors we didn't make it onto the official tour but down on the beach we saw three elephant seals. Ava instantly started drawing them in the sand. She has just started drawing people and animals in the last few months and this artist/mama felt so awed by her instant desire to translate her experience into art.

my favorite news story

This is my favorite news story I've read recently It's all about how hummingbirds make sounds with their tails instead of their vocal chords. Wow, amazing tiny musicians!

welcome to a new era

I read yesterday that scientists now believe we have entered a new geologic era, ladies and gents welcome to the Anthropocene Era! That means that the earth has been so altered by one species, humans, that one must consider it to be different place than it was in the Holocene. More that half the dirt on the planet is being used, cultivated, altered by us bipeds.

Reminds me of the middle part of this poem by Gerard Manley Hopkins:

God’s Grandeur
THE WORLD is charged with the grandeur of God.
It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;
It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil
Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?
Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;
And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;
And wears man’s smudge and shares man’s smell: the soil
Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.

And for all this, nature is never spent;
There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;
And though the last lights off the black West went
Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs—
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.


I love this poem and I do believe that nature is never truly spent, though alas, the warm breast of the Holy Ghost brooding over us is not something I frequently feel in this new era.

creating happiness

Saturday I went to a great event at a local school. Just sitting in a gym full of well-meaning, anxious parents was strangely comforting. I felt part of a community trying to get it right. The keynote speaker was Christine Carter of the Greater Good Center talking about childhood keys to adult happiness. It helped me with another thing I struggle with, despair for my kids future and confusion about what I need to be giving them . Should I be teaching them survival skills, how to spin wool and eat acorns, or indulging them with ipods and cool sneakers now, since the future looks so bleak? Her research based emphasis on happiness as a teachable skill made me rethink my task. Maybe helping them create the habit of gratitude and happiness will serve them in whatever predicaments and difficulties they find themselved in the unpredictable future. Anyway it's worth a try!

remembering my dad

This is one of the cabins my dad built back in the 70's. I didn't live in this cabin but remember a later one he build really well. It had large windows looking over a meadow and a big deck. It was a beautiful spot, something that always mattered to him. From Florence, Italy to Bellfountain, Oregon he was always one to choose a pretty spot. I'm grateful to him for teaching me the power of place. January 17th, 2004 was his 67th birthday and the last time I saw him.

Caro babbo, ti voglio bene.

sketch book

I'm thinking this year about, how do I put it, noticing, noticing my creative actions. The gestures I make that make me feel alive and like I'm really seeing the world. This is often not the work I show anyone...Lynda Barry said in an interview I read that she makes art all the time and some of it she chooses to share with others. I felt so freed by that.

In my current state as artist, writer, mom, teacher etc etc my creative moments may occur during a staff meeting as this drawing of the molding and shadow on the wall of the meeting room did....

nostalgia

The new year brings a feeling of nostalgia, pronounced in the Italian way, nos-tal-jee-uh. It has a different feeling than the English word... a deep longing for past places and people, maybe a longing for the person one was then. My sister sent me links to youtubes of songs that were popular when we lived in Italy 30 years ago. The one that brought tears to my eyes was this one by Lucio Dalla. It's a song about the new year and when I was 15 I knew all the words. Hearing it again they all came back.

Yesterday I dashed to San Francisco in the rain to see the Joseph Cornell show before it closed. It fit perfectly with this mood of longing. His sensitive worlds of collage and assemblage were breathtaking. So much collage can turn into pastiche and sentimentality whereas his are exquisite portals into the imagination. One thing I was particularly struck by was how he allowed each element plenty of space to breathe and relied on the juxtaposition to create the the magic. Ineffable, lovely nostalgia.