Paul Hawken, Blessed Unrest and WiserEarth

Paul Hawken speaking at a Bioneers event about his book, Blessed Unrest. Worth a look, about 5 minutes.

technorati tags: bioneers, wiserearth, paulhawken, blessedunrest

International Day of Peace

This past Friday, September 21, was the International Day of Peace. Here in Chatham, NY a group of us gathered for poetry, a bit of song and a bit of prayer- T'was a lovely thing.



Paul Nowak is holding a sign made by Jillian O'Connell.

technorati tags: idp, internationaldayofpeace, peaceday

All Edibles

Sara Weihman and Kirk Saunders set up a display at Dwell on Design, San Francisco, representing their company, All Edibles. Revolutionary idea of making planting an edible garden into a business. Leave it to Berkeley!! This is an idea that could spread. It's a good one.

technorati tags: alledibles, dwell

MAD at Dwell

Have to post some images of my booth. With huge thanks and hugs to Liz McIlvaine for help with the dotted backdrop fabric, George Gruel for the stunning photographs and large prints of them, Jan Gruel for her lighting expertise and John Wallner for his lights and friendship. Thanks also go out to Millie Rossman-Kid for help with new business card and look, Sara Weihman and mostly, Doug Cohen, who helped me set up and continues his networking magic....

Michael McDonough

Michael McDonough spoke this morning and what an amazing guy! He has a project called e-House. He has been working on the project for 7 years and said he'll probably continue developing it for the next 30. For the first 5 years he sourced everything. "Invent nothing, Google everything". He also said that "in the past 15 years, more building innovations have been made than in the past 15,000".

To consolidate what he has learned from this project, he boiled down 5 learning points:
1. Conventional building materials are good conductors - bad for insulation.
i.e. metal, glass, ceramic; all materials we use to cook with. Better to use aerated auto-clave concrete or other high insulation product whose inherent quality is to insulate.
2. Remove dampness.
3. Light - daylight combined with artificial light - use a dimmer. Watch where natural light falls and take advantage of good exposures. Be conscious of what you want to see.
4, Be where you are.
5. How do you want to live? Think about the site and what is there.

He also mentioned that many Leed certified high rises have an r-factor (insulation defense) of 2-3 (40 is optimum, 10 is barely hanging on). I found this confusing so asked him abut it later. He told me that Leed certification, the US Green Building Standard, does not do post occupancy studies. Building Science is a rigorous scientific study team which analyzes post occupancy r-rating and determines, though physics, the long term insulation standard of buildings.

Fascinating stuff, this.

Dwell on Design

Dwell on Design has just opened in San Francisco. As an exhibitor, I am currently sitting in the audience listening to John Hockenberry and others talk about architecture and social change, with a particular focus on sustainability, bubbling up as the highest levels of leadership are abandoned. It is a promising start to what is clearly going to be an exciting weekend. I will be blogging more than usual in the next 3 days, so stay tuned...

Social Networks

There is a lot of really cool social networking going on online. Unfortunately there is also some major creep stuff happening too. I joined Quechup at the invitation of a trusted contact, only to find out the site will spam your entire address book, possibly after you quit! Sorry if you got an invite, please disregard. I do like Facebook, though.

Venus Vessels

Here are some new bottles I am working on, photo courtesy of George Gruel, photographer extraordinaire. We took a bunch of shots on location at Dog Park, Jan and George's refuge and botanical oasis. The rocks here are part of a dry river bed Jan created. It was a gorgeous day and some beautiful shots were made.

The photographs are part of the show in San Francisco I am getting ready for, Dwell on Design. More new work is coming out the kiln in the next days, will post.

technorati tags: oddstick, dwell

The Unknown Monet at the Clark

Yesterday I went to the Clark Museum in Williamstown, MA to see the Monet show. What was especially interesting about this show is the fact that his drawings were little known until recently. The high point for me of the exhibition was looking at his sketchbooks, which are available to view, page by page, on a computer in the galleries. I love drawings...

technorati tags: monet, clark, drawings

Sustainable Thursday

Last week while I was in New York, I got a ride from 5th Ave. and 55th St. to Penn Station on a Revolution Rickshaw- Liandro was my host and it was a very different exprience than a cab. Being an open vehicle, I was exposed to the intensity of Times Square in the middle of traffic. Think extreme sports... It reminded me of a science fiction book I forgot to write ;-) about New York after fossil fuels are forbidden on the island of Manhattan. Green, tree lined streets abound because all vehicles are human driven or electric. Ah, to dream...

Did you know that the average life span of a tree in Manhattan is 7 years because of the carbon monoxide of the automobiles and trucks?



Anyway, the human rickshaw experience is wonderful and is in danger because opposition from a lobby of taxi cab and horse and buggy drivers. Seems to me there is room for all of the above in New York and the human factor is especially important in Michael Bloomberg's PLANYC, greening New York City. George Bliss apparently has a campaign going on about this, but I couldn't find anything online today. I did find this article about ominous regulations for this industry.

technorati tags: georgebliss, revolutionrickshaws, pedicabs

New York Gift Show

I dipped my foot back into this huge gift fair held in New York twice a year. I was very recently approached by an old friend to have me as part of his booth in the handmade/fair trade section of the show. John Wallner, of Anohka, kindly sold my things in his booth this past week at the Javits Center.



Being at this show for the first time in 4 years was a refresher course in several areas. I met another old friend, Carole Waller, a fiber artist who lives in bath, England and it was a reunion of wonder. She and I went to Cranbrook 25 years ago and lost touch shortly after graduation. Seeing her in New York was like knowing her all along. I am grateful to be back in touch and her work is, as always, amazing.

technorati tags: newyorkgift, javitscenter, handmade, davistudio

I am Carbon Neutral

OK, yes, there I go bragging again. But, I am amazed how easy it is to go 100% carbon neutral. This past Saturday, after realizing at this stage in history our priority is to go carbon neutral, I figured out how to do it. It isn't hard nor is it expensive. I bought my carbon offsets or REC's from Native Energy for $10 a month. If you are interested in a whole lot more info about carbon neutrality, David Suzuki has an exhaustive website about it with piles of links. He's totally cool and you can learn about about him there, too. Another carbon neutral potter I just learned about thanks to Emily Murphy is Soderstrom.

Creating a sustainable business, one which takes into account environmental and social equity while maintaining artistic integrity and making a living, all at the same time, has been a journey to say the least. When I wrote the previous 2 posts, the thought behind them came after years of thought and well, maybe not a little procrastination. Saying my work is eco, sustainable, and now carbon neutral is partly or maybe mostly due to the fact that I have been paying attention to the detail of what it takes to make those claims.

Years ago, after doing the New York Gift Show, I was approached by a multitude of "opportunities" to offshore my production. I made a decision early on to maintain the making of all of my things. It was a tough decision back then. Jonothon Adler had burst into super stardom after he started working with Peruvian potters and his days filled with building a business, not making pots. Since I do tend to be slow, I decided to keep making pots, build my business slowly and see what was what.

Today, I am still making pots. You know what? I love making pots. I do some business and I make a lot of pots. I have total artistic control of my destiny and I am eco! Carbon neutral! Mostly, though, I am doing what I love and making a living. Not a killing, but a living. That works for me. Growing old is inevitable. Growing old with a conscience, that takes a bit a planning, or maybe a little procrastination. Anyway, I just got back from the New York Gift Show, but will write about that tomorrow. Much fodder for the blog this week...

technorati tags: carbonneutral, davidsuzuki, sustainability, ecopottery