REDSTARTstudio

Over the past week I’ve been adding Lawsonite rocks “quarried” from the Blake Lawsonite outcropping to the seep area. And, yesterday (09/28/08) I shot a few minutes of video of the seep in action. Even during the driest months of this summer the seep continued to flow at this rate. Where does the water come from? How far back into the hill does the pipe go? When was the pipe put in?

A one minute video of the Water Striders (most likely Gerris remigis) in one of the pools in the Redwood Grove at Blake Garden. Sound track was put together by myself and Lauri this past weekend. Lauri is playing a small heart-shapped bell, some magic wands and a sleigh bell. I’m on guitar. This piece is intended to be the first in a proposed series of short one minute videos.

On Sunday (09/28/08) Lauri and I sought out  Zach Pine at the “Out and About Rockridge Festival.” By the time we arrived at the “Nature Sculpture Arena” many bamboo tee-pee structures and dozens of smaller sculptures had been completed using the materials donated by Blake Garden. In this picture Zach is on the far right, and Lauri is kneeling on the far left where she is working on a collaborative piece that she did with Zach.

Lauri and I shot this video during the damp month of February, 2006. Early on this particular morning one of the ladybugs (Harmonia axyridis) wintering over in our apartment made a drawing across our fogged living room window. The sound was recorded from a broken music box at my Mom’s in Scarborough, ME. Despite some missing teeth, the nearly 100 year old music box still manages to charm us with the old german folk song “Alles Ist In!”

Zach Pine who works with the WildZones stopped by Blake Garden to pick up some natural materials that he will be using in a Free Public Event that he will be leading this coming Sunday at the “Out and About Rockridge Festival.” His event is called the “Nature Sculpture Arena.”  Festivalgoers will join Zach in making art from nature’s treasures. This is the 2nd  time Zach has stopped by Blake. He was by a few months ago to pick up materials for an event that he led at Lake Merritt in Oakland, CA.

Among the materials that we prepared for him today were: an old stump cut into cubes, a couple of bundles of bamboo harvested from the Blake bamboo grove, some pine cones, asparagus roots and asparagus fern, jade plant, old decaying roots, a whole bunch of rosemary, and phlomis seed pods as well as other seed pods.

It’s great that Blake Garden can provide materials for public programing.

Just a great, great project for Lauri and I to have been involved in. And who knows? It may not be over yet. We posted a video on YouTube, which for some reason, will not embed, so you’ll have to view it here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4qqiBHVCo5Y&feature=related

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=475BvJTjJpI[/youtube]

Time-lapse video of an Anise Swallowtail changing from the caterpillar to the pupa stage. This transformation took approximately 45 minutes. Lauri and I shot the video last summer. Music groove played by The Pollinators.