I did an exhibit of driftwood shacks on NorCal beaches last month at the Bolinas Museum. 26 photos from years of beachcombing. My friend Hans Frey shot this photo on opening day. I’m going to do a print-on-demand book on the subject as soon as I get the time. I have a lot of “content” that may work in this format. What I need these days is a clone.
From David Shipway
Not sure why they truncate the boards’ noses, maybe to avoid pearling.
Check out the old guy rippin it up.
I’m doing my first ever photo exhibit, opening this Saturday at the Bolinas Museum. It’s part of a 2-month-long exhibit on the subject of makeshift architecture, and features artists Jay Nelson, Whiting Tennis, and Eirik Johnson, along with my photos of driftwood beach shacks along the northern California coast.
Rick Gordon has processed and printed 24 14 by 18″ prints and printed them here on our new Epson Stylus Pro 4900 ink jet printer. They look pretty darn good! The ingenuity of anonymous beachcomber artists.
The opening is this Saturday, April 2nd. At 2PM, I’ll talk a bit about my background and our 46 years of publishing books on building and fitness; at 3PM, there’s a reception.
Bolinas Museum
48 Wharf Road
Bolinas, California 94924
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Bob Wise said, “Try it out.” I hesitated, not having been on a skateboard for 3+ months. “Come on,” he said, and we went outside. He showed me how to use the handheld wireless throttle, and it was remarkable. I’m gonna go back and suit up and take it for a longer ride. Fun! No intention of buying one ($1500), but Wise seems to be OK with me taking a cruise. It’s got forward/backward controls, you use the latter for braking. It’ll go uphill. I now have an arm brace for my recently fractured wrist, slowly working my way back into skating. A lot more careful from here on out.
Photos by Dick Ryerson
From Bob Kahn
I wrote this last week for my surfing friends from the ’50s. It’s a tribute to an extraordinary guy who was, among other things, the foremost big wave surfer in Northern California in those golden years.
“Out, out brief candle!”
He had this quote on the nose of his balsa wood board in 1955, crudely written (in longhand), and funkily glassed. It’s a quote from Macbeth, Shakespeare commenting on the brevity and inevitability of death.
I used to wonder if it had something to do with Rod’s dad dying at a very early age. Maybe he thought he wasn’t going to last long, but luckily for many of us, he did.
I first knew Rod in San Francisco high school days in the early ’50s; he was a city swimming champion, in the 220 and 440 yards. I was one of the swimmers at Lowell and we knew the best city swimmers: Jim Fisher and Bill Floyd at Lowell, Jose Angel at Washington, John Stonum at St. Ignatius, Billy Wilson at Sacred Heart, Rod at Lincoln; all of these except Bill Floyd became surfers. Many of us trained at the YMCA on California Street, and then the Marine’s Memorial with coach Lyle Collett. Charlie Sava, who coached SF girl Ann Curtis to 2 gold medals in the 1948 Olympics, was the city’s genius coach.
I was going to Stanford and in 1954, got started surfing, and thereafter spent half of each week in Santa Cruz. By the time I moved up from Cowell’s to Steamer Lane, I met Rod. He was going to San Jose State, but spending all the time he could in SC. He lived in his car with his dog Steamer.
That’s me jumping (age 21). I’m wearing an old-fashioned wool bathing suit underneath my first wetsuit, a vest from the Dive ‘N Surf shop in La Jolla, Calif., in 1956. This predated O’Neill’s wetsuits. I sent my measurements to Dive ‘N Surf and they mailed me the cut-out parts along with a can of Black Magic glue; I glued the edges together and then glued strips over the seams.
This was an improvement, but we still tried to stay dry as long as possible. On certain swells, we’d jump this 6 to 8 feet down to the water and if done properly, the upper body would stay dry.
Chris Thompson is a filmmaker working on the story of Northern California surfing during the 50s and 60s (a far cry from surfing in the warmer Southern California waters). Recently I loaned him a bunch of my old photos, which he scanned; this is one of them.
A post 9 years ago about that time period in Santa Cruz: https://www.lloydkahn.com/2007/04/14/aloha-dave-devine_14/
Photo by Spike Bullis
Maui’s finest watermen including Kai Lenny, Jesse Richman, Robby Naish, the Porcella brothers, take on Jaws… Windsurf, kite surf, tow in, SUP and all while Dan maneuvers his Hughes 500D (helicopter) like a DJI Phantom to get the shot nobody else dares to get.
From Dick Ryerson via Bob Kahn
“Imagine if the art you spent hours making was destroyed soon after completion. For 44-year-old San Francisco-based artist Andres Amador, who creates sand-paintings up to 100,000 square feet (~35,000 M2) in size, this is a reality.
Amador received a BA in Environmental Science before joining the Peace Corps and then starting a regular career, but it was a visit to Burning Man in 1999 that changed him. He quit his job, and in 2004, in the hours been low and high tide, started doing sand art.…”
https://www.boredpanda.com/sand-paintings-earthscape-andres-amador/
From Anonymous
