Hi Lloyd,
I know you have an interest in handmade boats.
A friend passed this video along about pirouge making in South Louisiana, my homeland. The video was created around 1948-49 and depicts local craftsmen carving a local pirouge from a felled cypress with hand tools. The actual boat making starts at around minute 4:15.
https://www.folkstreams.net/film,188
Pirouges were used by the trappers and fishermen in South Louisiana to travel through the shallow inland bayous. I’m sure there is a study somewhere that will describe how they were derived, in some way shape or form, from the dugout canoe but their shape and draft and size are much different. Current varieties are built of fiberglass but there was a transition between the dugout and the fiberglass versions that were built of marine grade plywood. Those are still being made by hand and are collectors items.
Read More …
About a year ago, we gave up on finding a person or agency that could render any of our graphic-rich books into ebooks. So Rick Gordon, our Director of Production, decided to create Shelter ebooks in-house.
Marathon: You Can Do It!, by Jeff Galloway, was the first one. It works on an iPad (and iPhone), as well as the Kindle, and it was a beautiful job; it went on to qualify for a QED (Quality/Excellence/Design) certification from Digital Book World. This certification is given to ebooks that pass a rigid test of quality, functionality, and compatibility. It was also a finalist for a Publishing Innovation Award in non-fiction. See review of it here.
Ebook available here.
Tiny Homes, the 2nd one, was more of a challenge; it contains 1,300 color photos. In May 2012, Rick completed the job, and the (fixed layout) ebook version of Tiny Homes is now available for the iPad (not Kindle). I don’t know of a single ebook of this complexity that compares to this one. It maintains virtually the exactly look and feel of the print version. It even looks good on an iPhone.
Ebook available here.
Stretching Now Rick has completed the e-version of our best-seller (over 3 million copies), Stretching, by Bob Anderson. This one, the biggest technical challenge so far, has lots of interactivity, and some unique and very useful features for navigating through the book and saving personal information.
We had over 20 responses to an earlier post for beta testers and tests are now under way. We’ll make an announcement once we deem it ready to go.
On November 29, I posted a link to a large New York Times article on SunRay Kelley. In retrospect, it’s not really good or fair reportage on SunRay; it doesn’t do him justice. Part of it is East Coast reporter snark about West Coast free-spiritedness. Part of it is that the reporter just didn’t get SunRay— that he’s not only an artist, designer, architect, and inventor, but a master builder. His mortise and tenon joints, even with gnarly lumber, are tight. He’s a carpenter whose buildings soar. There’s a joy and a spirit in both builder and buildings. The NYTimes reporter missed all this and focussed on a bunch of trivialities.
And there was a very weird interview with SunRay’s ex-wife, who came up with some mean-spirited comments. This shouldn’t have been included in the article. Cheap shot, ex-wife-wise and journalistic-wise.
SunRay’s way better than you’d get from this account. In my opinion, there’s no other natural materials builder in the world who’s combined such ecology, design, and craftsmanship in so many buildings on the American landscape.
Just settin it straight…
For anyone interested in SunRay and his work, we have posted a PDF of the 27 pages we did on him and his work in Builders of the Pacific Coast in 2004. (We do—ahem—a way better job on builders than does the New York Times.)
For the real SunRay, click here. (To get this in Acrobat, you may have to right-click and save linked file in downloads folder.)
“Hi Lloyd, After seeing your image of the Morris Minor on your blog I thought I would send you this picture. This woody was turning heads at a local village show at the end of summer, I couldn’t resist grabbing a photo once I could get a clear shot between passers by.
Best regards,
Al” (Alan Whittle)
On side wall of the Proof Lab Surf/Skate shop in Mill Valley (254 Shoreline Highway). About 8′ in diameter. The artist is Charlie Callahan (see comment below by Charlie about his other work, including a 25′ wall mural at Facebook headquarters in the works).
https://grooveshark.com/#!/album/What+It+Takes+The+Chess+Years/5475164
Wow! What an album! Total powerhouse mode of her career. And the band!
“We’re gonna get your /Wang dang doodle/All night long.”
Hi Lloyd,
