Author: punchwpadmin

Words by Johanna Harlow

You’re standing in front of a door. Not a run-of-the-mill kind of entryway, but one of thick, dark wood with a submarine hatch wheel and a porthole of opaque glass. Presenting like a portal to adventure, this door beckons. Answer the call, and encounter the Peninsula’s funkiest, most imaginative Airbnb.

One of two vacation rentals residing on a half-acre property in East Palo Alto, the building’s equally artful interior is the handiwork of super-host Todd Gaviglio. A world traveler, painter and sculpturist (specializing in traditional statues as well as salvaged material ones), Todd converted his former home and art studio, furnishing both with his creative projects as well as artifacts and art from around the globe. Staying here means experiencing your own Night at the Museum.

“I’m not a businessman,” Todd freely admits. “It’s more for my own gratification and expression and balance for me.” Despite that absence of ambition, he’s achieved the lofty Airbnb Plus badge, reserved only for top-rated, highly-booked venues with one-of-a-kind flair. “There’s so many decisions behind every little thing you see,” this host with the most reflects. “I try to have things look one way at a distance and another way up close.”

Ready to plunge into this pay-for-stay masterpiece? Hold on tight because here we go!

Photo (and Cover Photo) by Johanna Harlow

Eye for Detail

Even before your mind registers the eclectic decor, you’re engulfed by an exuberance of color. Unsurprisingly, Todd isn’t a fan of the neutral, subdued palette. (“It’s almost like a mausoleum,” he tsks.) Instead, his rooms range from sunset tones (fiery rose, lava orange, tangerine, saffron yellow) to tropical ocean shades (Caribbean blue, turquoise, sea green, aquamarine). Passing a peppy coffee table, Todd brushes his hand across its surface. “To me, it just sings,” he muses. “The red vibrates.”

Some of Todd’s guests travel to receive treatment at nearby Stanford Hospital, so the cheering colors provide respite and replenishment. He also sees plenty of out-of-towners, “digital nomads” seeking a stimulating setting to work remotely as well as Stanford Live performers and other artistic types looking to get their creative juices flowing. “And then honestly, there were people that just couldn’t get a hotel,” he concedes with a smile.

A rule-breaker in more than color scheme, Todd situates rustic, primitive elements next to modern, sleek ones for an industrial chic atmosphere. “I believe in juxtaposing things that don’t ‘belong’ together,” he explains. “You appreciate each one more.”

With a fastidious eye for detail, Todd strives for a “divergent” aesthetic. “Maximalist is what I’m hearing,” he comments. That means artwork everywhere you turn and patterned rugs everywhere you step. Books organized by category and color. A medieval-style chandelier in the shower. And so many eclectic light fixtures and neon signs it takes a scavenger hunt to turn them all on and off again.

Photo: Courtesy of Marietta Asemwota

Of course, there’s also oodles of sculptures and paintings, many of them Todd’s own creations. “Generally, everything that happens, I kind of process it through art,” he shares. His bronze sculptures can also be found in private collections as far away as Germany and France—though Todd says parting with his paintings is another matter entirely. “They’re like my children,” he confides.

In the case of Todd’s salvaged sculptures, he hopes Airbnb guests will find his reclaimed work a chance to get reflective. “You can look at it at the superficial aesthetic level. Or you can look at it and think, and then use it as a meditation device: ‘What do I see? Why do I see that? And why do I perceive things that way?’”

According to Todd, the ideal home should display a variety of different elements designed to stimulate or rest your mind, body or spirit. “So that’s why when I look around, there’s ‘thinking’ art, but there’s also maybe aesthetically peaceful things too.” Whether you’re seeking a meditative retreat or a stirring escape, Todd’s intentionality is easy to see. Down to the drawers and the doorknobs, every little detail is orchestrated.

So exquisitely detailed are each of Todd’s rooms, that it’s not uncommon for guests to cycle through bathrooms and bedrooms each night. “They like to migrate from zone to zone,” he relays with a grin.

Photo by Johanna Harlow

A Taste of the World

If there’s anything that rivals Todd’s appreciation of an artful interior, it’s his passion for world cultures. Todd’s restless spirit has carried him from Morocco to Mexico, Bali to Brazil, Suriname to Switzerland. And throughout his adventures, he searches for meaningful mementos. “I don’t want some little key chain,” Todd remarks of his vast traveler’s collection. “I want something nice and solid and big and meaningful and expressive of that culture and that aesthetic.”

The result? Jhandi flags sway from bamboo poles in the courtyard and a bronze miniature of the Taj Majal sits in the book nook. Mosaic globes of multi-colored glass from Oman hang in the bedroom. And a statue of the three-faced Lord Brahma (bedecked with bracelets and necklaces from Turkey, Greece, and the Vatican) presides over the living room.

Todd, a retired Peninsula teacher and principal, credits travel for many invaluable life lessons. “Perfection is not as beautiful as imperfection,” he shares of one such epiphany. To illustrate, he recounts a trip to Cambodia.

“There were Buddha figures that had been buried, that were uncovered,” Todd recalls. “They were rotted and had termites in parts of them, but it created this beauty to them: that they were somewhat decomposed and ethereal… ephemeral.” It’s one reason he enjoys creating patinas on the surface of his own bronze work. “For a bronze sculpture, you want it to show some irregularity,” he explains. “It makes it more interesting. And it’s more significant. More relevant. Gravitas!”

Photo: Courtesy of Marietta Asemwota 

He pauses to reflect further on the allure of travel. “If you’re in your regular routine, you don’t notice things…It’s the same people, the same routines, the same location, the same buildings… When you’re someplace else, when it’s something distinctive, you remember.” He adds, “I think what creates a memory is if it’s distinctive, right? If it stands out. Otherwise, it blurs together.”

When on the lookout for new pieces to add to his collection, Todd admits that he’s no good at bartering. Actually, he takes great pride in that. “I met the person who made that. It’s beautiful to me. I had a conversation with them. They’re artists,” he emphasizes, “and I paid them a fair price.”

Saving the Environment one Plate at a Time

Passionate about the environment and upcycling, Todd has also furbished his Airbnb units with reclaimed finds, heirlooms and interesting artifacts from yard sales. “There’s plenty of mirrors that already exist in the world, that are out there in salvage yards and flea markets or in your grandmother’s basement,” he observes.

Photo by Annie Barnett

To that end, Todd repurposed his mother’s porcelain plates as wall decorations and constructed an ironic step ladder out of old handicap signs. He even incorporated corrugated tin from the property’s defunct chicken ranch into the building’s design, honoring its farming past from before he bought it back in the early ‘90s.

“Beauty doesn’t have to come from a big box store,” reasons Todd. “So maybe you don’t like the color of that dresser your grandmother had—But could you paint it? Could you sand it down to just bare wood? Can you put a piece of marble on top of it? Could you nail a piece of metal across it? Just make it yours.”

This is also why a handful of mannequins can be found sunning themselves in the back garden. Todd rescued these discarded figures from beside the Nordstrom dumpster. “It’s kind of sad because they have these signs on them. It’ll say ‘trash’ or ‘incomplete.’ Kind of profound in a way though.” As he passes these alabaster models, now posing among the cactuses, lounging on benches and watching over his vegetable garden, he notes, “They’re almost like little garden spirits.” Then, after another moment, “Honestly, I may need to scale back.”

Photo by Annie Barnett

Steeped in Memories

If you’re lucky during your visit, you’ll encounter Todd and his young daughters out picking vegetables and fruit in the yard. “It’s like Easter to come to the garden,” he describes. Harvesting the bounty of the land, nature’s egg hunt, is one of many fond memories here. Todd has plenty more of family milestones and festivities. Like the weekend he celebrated his grandmother’s 100th birthday party on the grounds. Or all the times he hosted elaborate Day of the Dead celebrations—complete with Mexican folk dancers, musicians and altars designed by Todd and his artist friends—for 200 revelers.

With a grimace, Todd recalls the time he almost sold this place: “The realtor had a buyer and had a really good offer,” he recounts. “But I was confronted with the daunting task of getting rid of all my stuff… It’s sentimental, a lot of it.” With a property so steeped in meaning, he couldn’t bear to part with it.

As Todd continues to tread the garden path, he stops to survey the land. “It’s very fertile ground here,” he remarks. Seeing this creative soul standing amidst the cucumber and chamomile plants, it seems a particularly fitting observation.

Visit Dreamland

Words by Sheri Baer and David Hibbard

Behold the blaze of colors and quiet moments that fall evokes, as captured by Menlo Park landscape photographer David Hibbard. Born and raised in Los Angeles, David ventured north to attend Stanford University and has lived on the Peninsula ever since.

David traces his love of the natural world back to his early childhood, much of which he spent on his grandparents’ citrus ranch. “There were orange groves in every direction and then beyond that were the mountains,” he recalls. “There were no fences. I had the run of the ranch and I was always out exploring.”

Although he got his first camera, a Kodak Brownie, when he was seven, it was looking through the viewfinder of a Pentax SLR when he was in high school that cemented David’s pursuit of a wilder path. After a 20-year career in technical writing, he returned to his first love, photography. Along with this homage to Peninsula autumn, David shares insights into his lifelong quest to engage with the natural wonders around us.

A DIFFERENT  PERSPECTIVE

Early in life, I got into the mental habit of “framing” what I saw. A congenital eye disorder left me with flattened vision. I can see the height and breadth of things, but not their depth. I was always looking at and through windows, marveling at how they parsed the chaos of the visual world and made it more comprehensible. When I was a young child, I did not question why my two eyes rendered the world so differently. My left eye saw everything with great clarity: the smallest detail resolved to exquisite sharpness. My right eye, on the other hand, turned the world into a lovely Impressionist painting. Shimmery light and vibrant color, but no hard edges anywhere. To live in the world, I must use my ‘good’ eye; thus, it dominates. It is the magic of light and color, what I principally see with my “inferior” eye, that pulls me out of the everyday world and into art.

LOOKING THROUGH A MAGIC LENS

As a child, I drew and painted constantly. I would take snapshots with my Brownie camera on family vacations, but I didn’t take photography seriously until I happened to look through the viewfinder of a Pentax SLR. The bright image that I saw, so exquisitely rendered on the ground glass, enchanted me. It was a magic lantern view of the world. I knew, in that instant, I had to become a photographer. I connected with that flattened, luminous image because it was how I saw the world. Although my brain cannot resolve what it receives from my two eyes into a coherent vision, I am able to do that through photography, and perhaps that is why photography has such a powerful hold on me. Out in the open air, the camera is a portal into a dimension I cannot see. I am often told that my photographs convey a strong sense of depth and space, but that is something I cannot fully appreciate.

PHOTOGRAPHIC INFLUENCES

When I started out in photography in my 20s, I modeled myself after Ansel Adams, whom I had met and who had encouraged me. I first encountered his work on a family vacation to Yosemite. We were staying at the Ahwahnee, and in the dining room, the menus always featured a beautiful, full-page photograph by Ansel. I was so taken with his photography that I wanted to steal one of the menus. After I met Ansel, I built a darkroom and taught myself how to make expressive black-and-white prints by poring over Ansel’s highly technical Basic Techniques books. Elliot Porter, a pioneer of color photography, was another important influence. His exquisitely detailed photographs of New England’s forests blew my mind when I first saw them. Ansel told me that I had a better eye for black-and-white than color, but over time I have found that I love color photography more. Perhaps my childhood immersion in painting accounts for this. Whatever the explanation, I’m having a ball with color.

SPECIAL PLACES

Throughout my life, specific places have been important to me. I can return to them again and again and never feel that I’ve had my fill of them. The very first is Point Lobos, which I encountered as a small child. The beaches of Northern California, from San Mateo to Mendocino County—all within a day’s drive of my home—have been my main focus in recent years. Most special of all, perhaps, is Gazos Creek, a wooded coastal canyon that I discovered when I was a student at Stanford. Recently, I went through my records and counted how many days I’ve spent at Gazos Creek since the mid-1990s, and the number turned out to be 340. That’s almost a year of my life. All of these are places where I can immerse myself—lose myself, if you will. Through photography, I try to convey the wonderful alchemy of light and weather I often encounter there.

OUT IN THE FIELD

I strive to get out with my camera at least once a week. I follow the weather closely, checking the forecasts up and down the coast. Weather brings the most interesting light; I like to work on cloudy or foggy days—or when a storm is rolling through. I depart well before dawn so I can catch the first light, and I usually work the entire day, pausing only to eat a bag lunch. I carry a backpack that holds a camera body and three or four lenses, and over my shoulder I sling a heavy tripod. All of that can weigh as much as 35 pounds, depending on how much gear I decide to bring that day. I always have a destination in mind once I’m on the road, but I assess the light and weather while I’m driving, and sometimes I decide to go elsewhere based on what I’m seeing. I think of it as chasing light.

WHAT CAPTURES MY EYE

At the beach or on the trail, I’ll just start walking. I try to keep an open mind and heart—and let the landscape speak to me. It’s almost always the quality of light that draws me into a scene. The light can be dramatic or subtle, but if it strikes the right chord in me, I will stay and work with it as long as it persists. If the sky, for example, is full of beautifully illuminated clouds that are forming and reforming, making all kinds of glorious shapes, I might stay at that spot for an hour or more, observing the clouds and making photographs as the spirit moves me. When my days in the field are like that, I’m happy as a clam.

THE DIVERSITY OF THE PENINSULA

We have such an abundance of landscapes and ecosystems here: the Bay and its wetlands; mountains high enough to receive an occasional dusting of winter snow; beautiful forest lands and open, rolling grassland; superb beaches and magnificent coastal vistas. I’m hard put to think of another place that I know of with all of that in one package. We are blessed that so much of it has been preserved. Some of our open space preserves are just minutes away from our house, and the coast is less than an hour’s drive. I often feel as if the natural world, with all the miraculous sights it has to offer, is but an extension of our backyard.

THE WONDERS OF FALL

Well, for sure, I’m drawn to the color. In our coastal canyons, the alder leaves and redwood fronds stay green, but the maple leaves turn yellow and even into red, creating a vibrant color contrast between warm and cool. Then too, I love the quality of the light as the days get shorter. The sun is lower in the sky and the light is not as intense as it would be, say, in midsummer. At Gazos Creek, the sun barely peeks in during the middle of the day, selectively painting the lower branches and leaves with light as it filters through the forest canopy. On our beaches, late in the afternoon, the coastal bluffs turn golden as the sun eases down to the horizon. Even the modest neighborhood where I live seems transformed by the autumn light. The light has a pervasive softness that graces everything. From mid-October into February, the light is magic.

A JOURNEY WITH LANDSCAPE PHOTOGRAPHY

Photography gives me a great excuse to be out-of-doors. I am grateful that I live close to so many beautiful places, and that I have the time and ability to photograph, which I intend to do as long as I’m physically able. My photographic journey has blossomed since my retirement. I’ve taught classes in photography, led field workshops, taken workshops, started two photography groups, made some wonderful friendships through photography, exhibited my work and published a monograph of landscapes, Natural Gestures. I’m currently working on a new book that will feature my recent coastal photography. As always, I look forward to my next field session, which, as I write this, happens to be tomorrow.

Illuminating Beauty

www.davidhibbardphotography.com

Words by Christina Chahal

Marriage proposals, weddings, anniversaries, birthdays and babies. For Burlingame custom jewelry designer Christine Guibara, these milestone events fire up her imaginative expertise with gems and precious metals. “I feel very grateful that I have had the opportunity to connect with clients during their most special moments,” she says, “whether it’s a simpler wedding band for a small ceremony or an exquisitely bespoke piece celebrating decades of marriage.”

Christine’s process usually starts with a client coming to her with a general idea, picture or purpose—like a proposal. Then she walks them through the options and together they hone in on a design by perusing her myriad sample settings, compiling inspirational photos, sourcing stones and finally combining preferences and details into something cohesive. Christine relishes utilizing all of her skill set in order to bring her pieces to life.

“I am very appreciative of my very traditional and ‘old-school’ jewelry training that I have been able to augment with high-tech CAD and laser welders,” she notes. “I like to say that if it’s made of gold, platinum and gemstones, I can figure out how to make it.”

Most of her clients come through word-of-mouth, which is a critical factor in her line of work. Just consider the cost of an engagement ring. “When you’re buying something that’s the price of a car, trust is important,” she underscores.

Christine describes her style as classic, often with an antique or organic twist. She loves the unique, quirky and imperfect and is drawn to gem dealers who “can look at a stone and try to see what it’s talking about.” One of her favorite professional moments was when a man came to her with a treasure trove of stones and asked if she’d like to take a look. “He said, ‘My father was a jeweler’ and I uncovered this box and the box had some really beautiful stuff in it. They were a great fit, antique-cut and irregular, which is what I love. I bought a lot of moonstones from Afghanistan from the early 20th century.”

A key component of the Christine Guibara jewelry experience is visiting her studio for design appointments. Not a Neverland, Christine’s atelier is an Alwaysland, where dreams are transformed into reality by her skillful hands. Plus, there’s a bonus perk: getting a peek at the work of her talented neighbor, who just happens to be her dad, renowned bronze sculptor Albert Guibara. “My studio is a fun place to meet because it shares a lot of my history,” she reflects.

Christine grew up painting and playing where she now has her studio alongside her father’s sculpture garden and showroom. “We collaborate in funny ways,” she explains. “I don’t know if we’ll ever design a piece together but sharing a studio space means that we can connect and bounce ideas off of one another and give one another feedback. That’s been really great for both of us. When his sculptures get small he asks my opinion and when my jewelry starts to get big, I ask him more questions.” She adds, “I think of my pieces as mini-sculptures.”

Christine’s artistic pedigree also extends to her mother, a former interior designer. “I have really good memories of going into San Francisco and doing the treasure hunt of going through fabrics. I learned a lot about color and texture by tagging along,” she recalls. “It’s always been nice to have both of my parents in a creative industry—it opened the door to me that it was possible; it gave me that confidence. And I was always around people who respected the arts and made their living from the arts and that was so inspirational.”

Initially interested in fashion as a career, Christine changed her mind to focus on jewelry not only because it was more collaborative but because of its sustainability. “Fashion has come a long way, but when I was starting out, there was so much waste,” she recalls. “I couldn’t see myself doing that, whereas jewelry was sustainable. No one throws precious metals and gems away.”

Most of Christine’s favorite gem vendors are Bay Area-based, with some in LA. “California is a special place where people in the industry think about where the stones are coming from. I’ve always been drawn to that, thinking about how they are being mined,” she says. “Many local dealers are trying to get involved with source countries and working on industry-wide standards of sustainability.”

A true Peninsula native, Christine was born at Mills Hospital in San Mateo and grew up in Hillsborough. She graduated from Menlo School and then UCLA, earning her bachelor’s degree in business economics. She also received graduate degrees from both the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising in Los Angeles and the Revere Academy of Jewelry Arts in San Francisco.

Christine credits her business degree for making her acutely aware of her balance sheet, overhead and expenses. “It really transformed my business into a sustainable career. So many artists and creators have a tough time making their art a sole income,” she observes. “I focused on how to make this my way of life and breathe this for decades to come and have a career from it.”

Living on the Peninsula with her husband and three children, Christine weaves her family life into her professional passion. Her children, aka her “mini-assistants,” are well-versed in diamond lingo, not to mention which vendors have the best candy.

In addition to her custom creations, Christine also has a studio collection, which she plans to expand over the next year. “My strength as a designer is my flexibility to try new things,” she reflects. “I have a deep sense of design in jewelry throughout history and also what’s current. My passion leads me to look at new ideas and all the possible ways to do things.”

Custom Creations

www.christineguibara.com

 

Words by Sophia Markoulakis

Let’s face it. We live in a pretty spectacular part of the country. The weather, the views, the temperate climate—it’s easy to get caught up in the landscape that surrounds us and forget that our dwelling should be a place that represents who we are, where we’re going and how we want to be remembered. Prolific interior designer Kendra Nash of Nash Design Group understands the importance of expressing who we are through our interior surroundings while still emphasizing this special place we call the Peninsula.

With dozens of local projects underway, Kendra continues to build her San Carlos-based studio of all-female employees. The design firm recently completed two projects that convey their own unique aesthetic, vibe and feel. “These projects have yin-yang interconnectivity,” Kendra observes. “The San Carlos project was a contrast in soft goods and materials and the Los Altos project was a contrast in architectural elements like the black-clad windows and hardware.” Contrasts are what create emotional and visual drama and tension, she says, and the roots of each home within their respective neighborhoods provide the foundation from which each home can shine.

Elaborating further, Kendra shares that her San Carlos clients conveyed, “We want this place to feel designed and sexy.” Whereas the Los Altos clients desired California casual, a family-friendly home with ease throughout.

San Carlos Project: A major focal point and unexpected dining room feature is the ceiling detail of Fabricut’s graphic black and white wallpaper. To create reflection, Kendra and lead designer Lisa Vuong selected a patina mirrored backsplash from Peninsula showroom DaVinci Marble.

Two different perspectives. Two different approaches.
The San Carlos project, a 3,600-square-foot farmhouse glam new build, is full of moody colors and textures. The first piece that the client requested was a custom black velvet couch that resides in the living room. “This is my space with my husband and my friends,” Kendra was told, which helped inform an elevated ambiance that’s off-limits to the kids. There’s a mix of feminine and masculine, with enough textural contrast to keep it interesting through the use of fabric and pattern.

“They were so willing to go bold,” says Lisa Vuong, the lead designer of the San Carlos project, about working with the clients. “Though some of their selections seemed like they could be overwhelming, they actually made the design stand out.”

As drama takes charge in the dining room and sunken living room, its presence diminishes in gathering spaces like the kitchen and family room, though there’s no denying the statement made by the Opus White quartzite slab waterfall-edge kitchen island. Colors in the family room express more muted soft pinks and grays, with the rug, stools and throws adding natural textures.

San Carlos Project: Wow factors like the Birds of Paradise artwork from The Future Perfect in the living room, a rich matte black tub in the master bath and a textural waterfall island of quartz and black modern sink in the kitchen make this home full of design and major contrast.

For her recent Los Altos project, Kendra transformed a dated sprawling ranch home into a modern California-cool space that embraces outdoor views and accentuates the homeowners’ commitment to sustainability and biophilic design. “We wanted the remodel to stand the test of time but still show their personality. They were open to new color tones and playful wallpaper and fabrics,” Kendra says of the design journey. “The homeowner was really interested in local and female-owned vendors like Half Moon Bay’s Elworthy Studios and Lindsey Cowles for wallpaper and fabric.”

Lots of effort went into the home’s “effortless” look. “It was a pleasure designing this California-cool home for the coolest couple around,” comments lead designer Amalia Kallas. With an emphasis on ease, touches like automated shades in the living and dining room deliver smooth efficiency, along with a clean look.

Another client priority was durability. Kendra admits that she’s not a fan of engineered materials like quartz, but the homeowners stressed that they wanted it for their kitchen counters. “We found a pattern and product that pleased us both in the end—a slab that didn’t look manufactured and a final look that utilized a sustainable, eco-friendly material,” she says.

Long-lasting wide-plank white oak floors, along with other oak elements like beams, shelving and a built-in cabinet that houses the homeowner’s heirloom dishes, create warmth that will only patina over time. Kendra explains that “the crispness of the white walls and the warmth from the wood contrast so nicely against the gold fixtures in the kitchen. They were very intentional with their choices to create a comfortable, effortless feel.”

Similar to the San Carlos project, the Los Altos homeowners wanted to invest in a special (leather!) couch as an anchoring element. “At first, they were looking at leather couches online,” Nash recounts, “but we changed direction and said, ‘What if we could select the exact hide and build the couch to your specifications?’” And that’s exactly what transpired. The clients now view the piece fabricated at Nash Design Group’s custom workroom as a forever furnishing, which will undoubtedly age over time and transform with the stages of their home.

Creating Your Space

www.nashdesigngrp.com

Words by Johanna Harlow

Look—now look again. The art of unseeing the supposed-to’s is imperative for artists… and something plein air painter Ellen Howard knows well. “I think as an artist, one of the biggest things to learn is how to correctly see,” says the San Mateo artist, who dedicates herself to capturing ever-changing landscapes as they unfold in real time.

Unlearn those “lollipop trees,” she advises, “Really quiet your mind down to actually see the exact shape of the tree, the exact outline. Nature is pretty irregular in a lot of ways. And that’s the beauty of it. You don’t always want something that’s symmetrical and perfectly done.” It’s a value reflected on her website: “I favor the irregularity of nature,” Ellen writes, “ragged rocks, knotty tree trunks, peeling bark and muddy waters of the marshlands.”

Ellen’s passion for painting “plein air” (French for “in the open air”) draws her to idyllic stretches of sand along Pescadero, shady sections of aspens in the Sierra and flurries of flowers at the Half Moon Bay Nursery—though today she’s ensconced in her cozy Art Bias studio in San Carlos surrounded by the painted memories of past excursions. “Usually, I go out to the field to get a composition and study the colors.” Ellen twirls her brush as she eyes her latest scene on the easel. “Then I come back to the studio and, if I like what I’ve done, I see if I want to size it up or change something from my photos.” Under her touch, a palatte awash with inky ocean blue, cerulean and sea surf white is becoming a Carmel coastline.

That artistic eye runs in the family. Ellen’s mom dabbled in watercolors. Her grandfather was a cartoonist. “He got offered a job at Walt Disney, but he ended up working for the airlines,” she says. Even so, he found ways to channel his inner creative. Ellen recalls marveling at his illustrations of people from around the world in traditional garb, sketches he made while traveling as a steward. He also did advertising. “He would draw a big jumbo airplane with a man sitting on top of it with a TWA hat,” she describes.

When Ellen joined the workforce, she didn’t start as a full-time artist either. Actually, her first career was in finance. But when her kids were older, she became the gallery coordinator at Notre Dame de Namur University in Belmont. After that, she moved to the role of assistant curator at the Peninsula Art Museum. “So I kind of always had my hands in art, but I wasn’t exactly doing it myself, you know?” she shares, smoothing her black apron, speckled with paint.

That changed after she joined her friend for a painting class in 2007. Enchanted by the artform, she signed up for more. After a while, she began applying to shows. And receiving acceptances. And winning awards. Soon, Ellen’s work was getting featured in Plein Air Magazine and Fine Art Connoisseur. Today, her landscape paintings can be bought at the Holton Studio Gallery in Berkeley and Rieser Fine Art in Carmel. For the past five years, she’s also been included in the California Art Club’s Annual Gold Medal Exhibition (an organization she has recently joined as Vice President of Programming as well as co-chair for the SF chapter). “I wouldn’t have foreseen from my first art class that I would be in galleries and teaching and doing workshops,” Ellen smiles.

In addition to providing in-studio instruction (with offerings at Burlingame’s Art Attack! and an upcoming still life class at the new Burlingame Community Center), Ellen regularly invites students to join her in the field. Locations range from Filoli to Carmel to the Mendocino Coast. “I think art is very uplifting and it gets you out of your own way. It’s very meditative and I like sharing that,” she notes. “It’s also gratifying to see a student get a concept and progress in their skill level.”

Even now, Ellen continues to curate. She finds that two essentials of a strong show are finding a good theme and including a range of styles. “I’m thinking about artists that would have a different twist,” she explains. “You don’t want your exhibition to be the same. So an oil painter, a pastelist, a watercolorist. Architecture, figurative, landscape. I want a blend.” For a Pleasanton exhibition that’s currently underway, all works revolve around differing interpretations of life’s transitions—from the time of day to the shifting of the seasons to the stages of life.

Ellen’s own style has shifted recently. She describes one of her latest pieces, Vibrant Hues, as more impressionistic. “It was a marshland scene, but the trees were kind of blues and purples and it was more orangey and pink with the sunset. I kind of pushed the color a little bit more. So I’m trying to think of more innovative ways to represent nature.”

As for favorite environments? Ellen finds herself drawn time and time again to marshlands and ocean coasts. “I love painting with my shoes off and my feet in the sand,” she reflects, adding that she enjoys capturing “the energy of the waves.” Like her paintings Restless Waters and Winter Surge, which both capture a wave as it breaks on the rocks in a spectacular spray of sea foam.

And then, of course, there’s the light. “Seeing the light move across the land,” she describes on her website, “cascading off a mountain range, streaming through the leaves, dancing on the top of the waves and creating a beautiful ray of warmth in the sky and clouds is pure serenity.”

Capturing a moment in time isn’t easy, Ellen notes. Clouds shift. Shadows move. “You can be overwhelmed by the amount of information in the scene,” she points out. “You need to pick and choose the elements that will create a cohesive painting.” It’s also important not to chase the light, to keep your values consistent. “I like to take a photo of the scene, especially if I am painting clouds and they are moving quickly across the sky. Sticking to your original plan when you paint is important.”

It’s well worth the challenge, Ellen assures. “There’s just something about being outside, being in the fresh air,” she muses. “A photo is great to work with as a reference in your studio, but it makes a huge difference to actually go out and see what you’re looking at. The colors are truer when you’re out there in person. You can see the shadow colors better—how the light’s hitting an object.”

There are also fun interactions with the passersby her art attracts. “There’s so many times when I’m painting and I look down and there’s a seal watching me,” Ellen laughs. Nothing like an audience of otters and seagulls routinely checking in on your progress to keep you accountable.

 

Words by Johanna Harlow

From the outside, PlaceMakers might pass as your run-of-the-mill San Carlos warehouse—albeit a welcoming one with a cheery coat of barn-red paint. But step inside and the first thing you’ll notice are the vintage chandeliers. Victorian brass with glass bells. Wrought iron wagon wheels with candles. Dangly tiers of teardrops. Crystal beaded domes. They collectively shimmer below the corrugated metal roof in all their stately grandeur like grand ladies at court.

When you manage to pry your eyes from the ceiling, you’ll find an entire treasure trove of salvaged building materials and artifacts (many of them antique) filling the space. Clawfoot bathtubs and stained glass windows. Boxes of keys and boxes of doorknobs. A turn-of-the-20th-century wrought iron Juliet balcony. A Victorian roll-top secretary desk. Enough doors to inspire a symphony of knocking. Together, these reclaimed relics rival the collections of many a history museum.

The visionary and mastermind here is Palo Alto native James Dawes. Founding PlaceMakers in 1995, James began offering a full range of general contracting services, spanning demolition to ground-up development. Inspired by the one-of-a-kind items he found on sites, James also decided to start selling salvaged materials and artifacts. Like hulking mahogany column pillars from a bank demolition. “I never know what I’m gonna find,” James chuckles. “It’s an adventure.”

Greatly influenced by his environmental studies at UC Santa Cruz, James was impacted by assigned reading like Martin Pawley’s Building for Tomorrow: Putting Waste to Work. He dedicated his thesis to building a house out of repurposed materials in Jamaica. “Everything is super expensive there because they have to import it,” James explains. “Everything comes in on the boat. So for people to build anything there, it’s really challenging.”

The PlaceMakers name actually maps back to his college years. “There was a lot of talk even then about not just making buildings, but making places, and the idea that place kind of incorporated stories,” he says. In other words, it’s never just a window or a door. It’s the feelings you attach to them. “Things are new for a day. And after that, the story starts,” he observes.

Over the years, James’ salvaging skills have elevated to an artform. When out in the field, his experienced eye seeks out specific qualities. “There’s the artistry and the craft with which it’s made,” James muses as he walks past retro sinks and wall sconces, ship lanterns and portholes, vintage coat hooks and numerous other artifacts weighty with the significance of their past lives. “Did the maker know what they were doing?” he asks himself. “Is it well done?”

He also looks for items with “energy” to them. “Like a piece of old-growth lumber that took a hundred years to grow, rather than the stuff at Home Depot,” he clarifies. “There’s actual, real energy there. That took a long time!” Just outside his showroom, James stores a fort’s worth of reclaimed lumber. Piled on towering racks, these include beams from an old copper mine, redwood from the historic Tunnel 13 railroad structure at the Oregon-California border and (rumor has it) timber from ballistic missile silos. “All that redwood that was once a beautiful forest is still out there but it’s got paint on it,” he notes. “It’s in walls. It’s bridges. You just have to know how to look for it. It’s there.”

“History is part of it too,” James adds of his search criteria. He motions to a door from the Hayes Mansion, the residence of the family that founded the San Jose Mercury News. He’s also salvaged finds from glamorous historical landmarks like San Francisco’s Le Petit Trianon and Hillsborough’s Carolands Chateau—as well as spookier spots like Santa Clara’s Agnews Development Center (formerly known as “The Great Asylum for the Insane”). One of his prized possessions (not for sale) is a hulking wraparound desk built from the cedar of a pipe organ’s swell box.

Unrivaled is James’ fondness for tile. Extracting them takes the right tools, a lot of coaxing and plenty of patience. “It’s very tempting to just try and pry or chisel them off,” he notes. “Anybody can take a light fixture off the wall or take a door off. But to get tile out is tricky.” In fact, he credits the material as playing a hand in his career path. After trying to sell vintage tile to a salvage yard from an early demolition job—and being offered a paltry 75 cents per piece—James decided to hold on to them. “That wouldn’t have even paid my gas and bridge toll to take them over,” he recalls. Later, at a tile lecture, the presenter informed him that his find was actually worth $20 to $40 a tile.

James is always on the lookout for ceramic gold by “the Greats” of the Arts and Crafts era. “Beginning in England in the late 19th century, there was a revival of hand-craftsmanship in direct contrast to what was considered ‘soulless’ machine-generated productions that were a product of The Industrial Revolution,” he writes on the PlaceMakers blog. Later, California tile makers followed suit. “We had a couple of top-notch tile manufacturers in the Bay Area, S&S being one,” remarks James as he picks up a yellow and turquoise tile and flips it over to reveal the S&S logo. “I actually bought this at a garage sale.”

He’s also a huge Pedro Joseph de Lemos fan. De Lemos not only handcrafted tile and designed the facades of many local buildings (including the Allied Arts Guild in Menlo Park), he also served as museum and art gallery director at Stanford University for nearly 30 years. What’s more, his Palo Alto home incorporated reclaimed materials from the college campus after the earthquake. “It’s an amazing story of salvaged materials,” James notes.

As he wraps up his walk-through of PlaceMakers’ carefully curated collection, James pauses in the shadow of a hulking 10-foot mahogany door from an 1800s mansion and brushes his hand across the wood. “The most incredible thing is, it never got painted in 140 years,” he marvels of this untarnished treasure. “People painted everything. I mean, at some point in a hundred years, somebody’s usually going to paint it white. But it made it.”

Words by Jennifer Jory

With experience in welding steel, sculpting, oil painting and drawing, designer Dawn Mitchell’s creative bent came full circle when she married her Aragon High School sweetheart, builder and craftsman Will Mitchell. Together, they make up a one-stop design-build team in San Mateo. As the Peninsula’s own home renovation couple, the Mitchells seem straight out of central casting; however, unlike trendy TV celebrity remodelers, they have been solving real problems for sophisticated local clients for decades.

When Dawn and Will sit down for dinner, the conversation often shifts into a brainstorming session about space planning or lighting ideas. They possess a tool kit of creative talents and ease of communication unique to married people in business. “She calls me several times a day,” says Will, without a hint of exasperation. “She can always get a hold of me. The first 50 jobs, she proposed a color palette that I would question. Now I just listen. Her choice always works.”

Born and raised in San Mateo, Will honed his carpentry skills while attending college. Meanwhile, Dawn pursued a fine arts degree at UCLA. As Will started to grow his business, WMM Construction, Inc. he began to lean on Dawn’s expertise. Soon, she launched Dawn Leslie Interiors. “I had so much creative energy! I had to put it somewhere,” Dawn recounts. “I was painting everything I could get my hands on and sewing draperies for clients.”

After their first of four daughters was born, Dawn began drawing plans for Will’s projects. “When we started working together, she introduced woven metal cabinet doors,” Will recalls. “The types of metal and applied mixed mediums she used in interior spaces were so unique.”

As Will and Dawn partnered to transform homes on the Peninsula for their clients, their household of four young girls in San Mateo’s Highlands neighborhood evolved quickly as well. Creative juices constantly flowed, and the kitchen table was full of sewing and crafts, in addition to school volunteer projects. “Everything was over the top,’’ remarks Will. “We built floats for Highlands community parades with butterflies waving 14-foot moveable wings.” They also constructed stage sets for San Mateo schools and 8’ x 10’ birdhouses draped with tenting for school fundraisers. All the while, Dawn sewed costumes for Borel Middle School and Aragon plays late into the night.

In their spare time, the Mitchells volunteer their professional skills, with Dawn designing rooms for the SolMateo Kitchen Tour and Will giving local churches a hand on mission trips. They recently enjoyed updating their own house, adding a deck and guest room that expanded and improved their use of space. “It was definitely a collaboration,” stresses Will. “We needed to go under the canopy of the oak trees and drop the deck down the hillside.” Even with a new granddaughter and another grandchild on the way, the busy pair enjoy talking shop over dinner. “We discuss projects at home and because we live together, there are no time constraints,” shares Will. “I tell Dawn, ‘Describe what you want and I will make it happen.’”

Hillsborough Team-Up

Dawn and Will recently completed a kitchen and master bath remodel for a Spanish Revival home in Hillsborough. In partnership with general contractor Loerke & Cresci, Dawn also designed the interior of the home’s new modern pool house.

pool house

Dawn chose neutral color furniture and bronze window trim, which effectively highlight the pool and landscape view from the inside. Folding doors open seamlessly to enhance the indoor/outdoor flow. The guest house offers a master bedroom and bunk room for four with drawers that pull out in between the bunk ladder rungs to maximize storage.

pool house bathroom

Playing off an aqua color theme, Dawn selected a Victoria + Albert tub in a vibrant turquoise for the master bath accented by an Ellen Gunn painting. “I found beautiful tiles and thought it would be fun to create a striped beach towel look on the fireplace and shower walls,” she says. “I combined marble limestone and turquoise glazed basalt.”

MAIN HOUSE

Will applied his carpentry expertise to combine an original kitchen, laundry and butler’s pantry into an expanded butler’s pantry and kitchen. To refresh the heart of the home, the custom cabinets by Village were painted in a high-gloss, off-white finish with walnut details and a laser-cut application. Will added an island, finished with the same Dolce Vita quartzite countertops used throughout the kitchen and accented by a long, traditional fixture with built-in task lighting overhead. The kitchen features walnut open shelves and herringbone tumbled smoke limestone flooring. Tabarka Studio supplied the terracotta tile with a textured Arabesque pattern behind the Crosswater London range. “It was a big transformation,” notes Dawn. “I wanted it to have a modern Mediterranean feel.”

“One of the favorite walks I take with my friend, Randy, is at Wunderlich Park in Woodside. We always do the Meadows Loop,” shares Menlo Park’s Robb Most. On a recent outing, Randy pointed out the interesting waves of grass, fog and hills, which inspired Robb to capture this Perfect Shot. “They say the best camera is the one you have and so I took it with my iPhone,” adds Robb. “It made me realize that I should look for photos even when I don’t have a camera in my hands.”

Image by Robb Most

Words by Johanna Harlow / Photos Courtesy of Karmalink, Miguel Jeronimo

When director and Peninsula native Jake Wachtel tells people he filmed his breakout movie in Cambodia, many ask if it’s a documentary. Not even close. Try Buddhist sci-fi mystery.

Now before your mind jumps straight to space sagas and CGI aliens, you should know that Jake’s film Karmalink is set in the not-so-distant future on planet Earth—a lower-income neighborhood in Phnom Penh, to be precise. And it’s a whole new flavor of sci-fi. While glossy-sleek, ultra-urban cityscapes can feel like a fever dream, Karmalink’s world seems much more plausible—and right around the corner. There’s something grounding in its depictions of drones, augmented reality and biotechnology alongside dirt streets, abandoned train cars and a community facing forced evictions.

Beyond the masterful juxtaposition, Jake’s story of a young treasure seeker and his adventurous friends reveals the cultural differences between Cambodia and Silicon Valley (Jake was born and raised in Menlo Park) as well as marvels at our shared humanity. “I really love near-future and plausible sci-fi as a way to expand our minds of what’s possible and point us to what’s going on in the present,” he shares. “And I think that there’s a great capacity in sci-fi to talk about socio-political issues.”

Photography: Courtesy of Miguel Jeronimo

Touted as Cambodia’s very first science-fiction film, Jake’s movie questions our preconceptions of where a sci-fi should be set. “Cambodia’s hurling headlong into the future,” asserts Jake, explaining that the country’s native digital fluency is exceptional. “There’s this idea of technological leapfrogging where people who aren’t beholden to older forms of technology can more readily embrace new technologies.”

After its world premiere in 2021 at Venice Critics’ Week, Karmalink made the film festival run and was released last month to streaming services. Heralding U.S. filmmaker Jake Wachtel’s “striking feature debut,” Variety describes Karmalink as a “magical spiritual mystery tour” that “takes viewers on a fascinating and frequently wondrous expedition to a place where science and metaphysics intersect.”

For Jake, filmmaking has always been about building bridges. As a young teen, he recalls bringing his new MiniDV camcorder on a trip to the rainforests of Ecuador with his grandmother. “The goal was to document what was going on,” Jake says, “but it also served as a means of connection with the kids in the village.” He recalls a group of Ecuadorians clustering around him to check out his camera—then getting invested in pointing out all the things he should film. “I guess I see in this moment the seeds for later explorations,” he reflects.

By his early 20s, Jake had become a citizen of the world, filming documentaries for NGOs and nonprofits in various countries. When an opportunity to teach film in Cambodia for a year with Filmmakers Without Borders presented itself, he jumped. “I was finding myself really hungry to dive deeper with a single community,” he shares.

Karmalink’s future stars—Srey Leak Chhith and Leng Heng Prak—signed up for Jake’s 2014 class and acted as the leads in the course’s final project: a superhero movie where Student Girl must defeat Dropout Boy and his diabolical plan to cancel school. Both were naturals on camera. And Leng Heng not only played the villain but also served as director. “I have this fun photo of him dressed in full Dropout Boy costume directing the other kids,” he laughs.

Fittingly, Jake also fell for cinema at a young age. At 13, right before attending Menlo-Atherton High School, he encountered the magic of Hitchcock’s psychological thrillers at the Stanford Theatre. “I just remember being so captivated,” he recalls. The vintage design of the venue—in addition to the organ player, lifting out of the floorboards like a rabbit from a hat—also left an impression. “I felt so transported and brought into these worlds,” he notes.

It wouldn’t be until the end of his first year in Cambodia, during a meditation retreat, that the idea for Karmalink first entered Jake’s mind. As the story began to take shape, the filmmaker found himself telling the tale of a young boy who recalls his past lives through dreams, then determines to hunt down the gold artifact he believes he hid long ago.

It would take several more years before production began in earnest. But Jake says he wouldn’t have it any other way. “It doesn’t really feel right to me to fly to a new foreign place and make a movie there,” he explains. “This connection to Cambodia arose organically. And it’s become a very deep and special place in my heart.”

Jake fondly recalls those early days of steeping in the local culture, of “getting used to the rhythms of the monks coming through in the morning asking for alms, and the giant pots of steaming corn that the ladies load on their bicycles to go sell in the market.” More than anything, he admired the beautiful sense of community. “Everyone knows each other,” he says. “Everyone’s looking out for each other.”

Even after deep immersion, Jack knew his perspective would be limited. However, with a roughly 90% Cambodian cast and crew, he had help navigating those nuances. “I tried to make clear to everyone, ‘Please, at any moment, if anything’s going on that doesn’t feel right or you have some ideas, let’s talk about it. Because I want this to really feel like your story, like this makes sense from your perspective.’” And even though Jake is proficient in Khmer, he had Cambodians translate the script in order to capture the subtleties of the country’s official language.

Although major changes were made to his screenplay after Jake recruited the help of Christopher Larsen (an experienced American screenwriter living in Lao), Jake found that the most significant changes weren’t plot points. “I think that, in a lot of ways, where the collaboration is most meaningful is all of the small details,” he explains. Like “how the family sits around dinner together; how they sleep together, curled up on the mattress. It’s a lot of stuff around how families relate to each other.” In one scene of the film, Leng Heng consoles his grandmother by taking her arm and massaging it. “I didn’t write that in the script,” Jake reveals. “I didn’t even know that that’s a very intimate moment in Cambodian family life.”

The film also explores Buddhism (Cambodia’s leading religion and beliefs Jake holds), and there’s a fascinating undercurrent on whether technology progresses or hinders the search for enlightenment. Intriguingly, in Karmalink’s future world, people can only access and view augmented reality by placing a dot-sized piece of tech in the middle of their foreheads—recalling the third eye or “eye of consciousness” said to reveal the world beyond one’s physical sight. “Buddhism saturates the fabric of daily life in Cambodia,” Jake shares. “It’s very common for people to remember their past lives. It’s not out of the ordinary at all.”

But like every story, this one carries universal themes as well. The strength of a tight-knit community, the bravery of big-hearted kids and the power of friendship are topics that transcend time and borders. So is the coming-of-age scenario. “It’s such a common and important story in cultures around the world: demarcating this passing from childhood to adulthood,” Jake notes. “It just so happens to be around the time when our brains really start to crystallize a lot more. We start being open to so many possibilities.”

The topic of memory and brain development is near and dear to Jake’s heart. At Stanford, he majored in psychology while minoring in film studies, delving into neuroscience and film theory, cultural psychology and the history of global cinema. He also worked in a lab for a season, researching the cognitive differences between monolingual and bilingual children: “I was manning an eye-tracking device that’s following the baby’s gaze, as they watch these videos and look around. We’re sponges from the get-go!” Needless to say, you should expect Karmalink to mess with your brain a little bit. But in a good way.

It would be at the intersection of these two studies that Jake came to a life-pivoting realization: “What makes us human is our empathy.” For the filmmaker, cinema is the ultimate empathy generator. “It can literally bring us into the lives of other people who live seemingly so differently from how we live.”

And it’s this mindset that makes Karmalink so powerfully collaborative. “I think a lot of people talk about the director needing to have the vision and telling people, ‘This is how it’s going to be.’ That’s not how I operate,” he chuckles. “I love that it’s this team project!” He smiles when he adds, “They say it takes a village to make a movie.”

Words by Jennifer Jory

From an early age, Heidi Lancaster always had a camera in hand—and today, this San Mateo photographer and mother of four is staying true to form. Heidi’s mission to freeze-frame the current styles in interior design and preserve this cultural moment keeps her behind the camera constantly. “The variety of architecture on the Peninsula makes design photography really fun,” she says. “I never know what I am going to shoot until I get there. The home has become so important right now and people are changing things up.”

Heidi looks at the craft of photography with an artistic eye and brings that sensibility to every shoot. “The interior designers in my view are kind of like artists,” she explains. “I am trying to capture their art in a moment of time.” She credits local designers with making rooms feel liveable and interesting by adding distinctive elements. “This is a very sophisticated area and people are wanting that extra touch of wallpaper that no one has seen,” she adds.

Photography: Courtesy of Bridget Lancaster

Although always drawn to photography, Heidi directly traces her vocation back to her children. Forgoing the portrait studios, she dusted off her Canon, propped her kids up on a blanket and began taking her own photos. Heidi’s friends took notice and started asking her to take pictures of their children and shoot their family Christmas cards. Soon, Heidi Lancaster Photography was born. But balancing work and family had her burning the candle at both ends. “I was editing into the wee hours of the night,” she recalls. Eventually, she started shooting a variety of subjects from products to events, and then one day a designer friend asked her to photograph a San Francisco apartment.

“I love design and using my tripod and it just clicked for me,” she remembers. As Heidi’s client roster of interior designers grew through referrals, her photos started gracing the pages of lifestyle and design publications. Popular home furnishing retailers like Serena & Lily and Pottery Barn began featuring Heidi’s images as well.

While she likens interior designers to artists, Heidi also dabbles in creating art with photography. She sells her outdoor art series—beach scenes from Positano to Malibu and a mountain sequence highlighting images of the Sierra—in boutiques and online. She also plans to release a selection of interior design art photography, such as the large unconventional photo of a colorful, modern boutique interior that hangs over her kitchen table. When she asked her family to vote on wall art for the kitchen, they unanimously chose this image. “I can stare at it and find something new every day,” observes Heidi.

When it comes to photographing a home, Heidi identifies three distinguishing elements of design. A room’s color saturation is the first, and she’s not surprised to see more color being added to homes. Next, Heidi points to the layering of patterns in fabric and wallpaper. “When the mix is done well and layered with a piece of art, it really stuns you and you want to take it all in,” she notes. Finally, balance creates a room that is pleasing to the eye, whether it is through repetition of items such as matching chairs or a color that carries through. “It is also important to have a place for the eye to rest in a photo,” she emphasizes.

In terms of design trends, Heidi sees a transition from minimalism to maximalism, a style that promotes “more is more” when it comes to colors, textures and layers. She appreciates both contemporary approaches as well as classic antiques that ground a room. “Mixing styles makes it feel like a home versus a staged house,” she imparts. “Antique furniture is like a coat from decades ago that you can throw on over a modern dress. You can put a modern vase on a desk from the 1800s and update it.”

Heidi emphasizes that homeowners want to put their own personality stamp on their interiors. “One of my clients is scouring the world for unique objects,” relays the photographer. “She is searching for light fixtures and elevated one-of-a-kind pieces. Reusing vintage pieces with a fun history is a sustainable practice showing up in design.” Heidi also underscores that with all of the layering and adding in of maximalism, people are still drawn to the relaxed, clean look in kitchens.

 

Raised in Marin, Heidi traces the influence of the outdoors as a thread running through her work today. Her father’s love for photography inspired her to pick up his high-end cameras and shoot everything she could. “I had such a passion for it,” she reflects. She took art classes throughout her education and spent time in the darkroom; however, landing a job with a wedding photographer elevated her skills to a new level. “I basically learned the business and ran it, working on lighting and shooting for three years,” she recalls. “The experience was irreplaceable.”

After college, Heidi worked at Citibank in San Francisco, where she met her husband Dave. Reflecting on what tipped her ultimate career choice, she says, “I liked the business world but when push came to shove, photography didn’t seem like work to me.”

Now, with a teenage son, two daughters still in college and one just graduated and embarking on a career in construction and design, Heidi relishes the immersive stimulation she encounters every day. “Someone asked me what my end goal was with my work,” she shares. “There is no end goal—it’s a passion. It’s the excitement of creativity and what comes next.”

Words by Johanna Harlow

To Dan Lythcott-Haims, time is an artist.

After rediscovering photography in his late 40s, Dan began capturing shots of corrosion around scrapyards, forklift and heavy machinery rentals and auto salvage yards. “With the camera, I started to see the art in the world—and what I saw was the textures and colors and patterns and forms of decay,” shares the Palo Alto resident. “It sort of spoke to me as the art that nature and time have created.”

Dan appreciates that when elements interact on the microscopic level, they are capable of creating something exceptional on a larger scale. Rust deserves recognition because something miraculous happens when atoms on a piece of iron combine with water and oxygen to create something… more. “It’s grown into something kind of random and beautiful,” he marvels.

Similar to the transformation of a bronze patina, Dan has also developed with age. One of his big milestones was moving to his first studio at Art Bias (known as The Art Center of Redwood City back then)—because it meant recognizing himself as a professional artist. As the former creative director of Pandora’s design department, Dan’s mind has always been innovative, and yet… “I was always creative; I came from an artistic family, but I didn’t feel like I had whatever artists had,” he reflects about his early insecurities. Moving to a studio also meant invaluable mentorship opportunities. “I think my professionalism increased quite a bit while I was there. I was able to really talk to people about some of the business aspects of being an artist and selling art.”

Dan’s current studio resides at The Alameda Artworks in San Jose, and his work can be found at open studio events, exhibits and online. Previous solo shows include Schultz Cultural Arts Hall, Pacific Art League and the International Art Museum of America. In addition to being held in private collections, his creations grace the walls of local cafes.

It was through exploration at his first studio that Dan began branching out to three-dimensional art. After many photoshoot outings, he’d collected quite the assortment of bric-a-brac ranging from chains and barbed wire to washers and saw blades. “I had to do something with them,” he says. “I couldn’t just leave them. I wanted the work to come off of the flat plane of the photograph. I wanted to display them somehow.”

Soon, he started mounting his rusted gems on maple wood frames, “almost like I was presenting a jeweled object to the world,” describes Dan. “I would take a rusty nail or a rusted piece of metal and make it special by the way I was presenting it.” He allowed his pieces to evolve by intentionally leaving the wood unfinished, the color of the rust transferring to the frames over time. “Everything ages,” he observes.

One man’s trash truly is another man’s treasure—and over the years, Dan has found a gold mine in places like Alan Steel & Supply Co, a Redwood City supplier bountiful with pipes, i-beams, rolls of wire, gears and casters. “You can buy stuff by the pound, which is fun,” he grins.

One project of note is Dan’s Alchemy series. By weaving wire through perforations, he fashioned a kind of metallic textile. As he experimented with different kinds of wires and thicknesses to find the right look, Dan found a therapeutic trial and error element to the project. Old materials were too brittle for assemblage, so he found a copper wire that met his needs, then oxidized it with a vinegar spray, leaving it to soak for different lengths of time to create varied textures and shades of green. “Every piece is unique, even though the chemical reaction is the same,” he notes. “Technically, as my scientist mother-in-law would tell me, it isn’t alchemy, it’s chemistry. But the change that comes over the metals to me is magical.”

The Alchemy series was Dan’s first time using new materials. “I felt a little bit uncomfortable sort of ‘faking’ the rust, but I have met some artists and that’s what they do. They patina metal in different ways with different chemicals. So I realized it’s not fake—it’s just a different process.”

Despite all these assemblage and sculpture projects, Dan still makes time for photography. Like his Collections series, which features objects from flea markets around the Bay Area. “One of the things that I like about repetition—when I take similar or identical objects and repeat them—is that overall, there’s this emergent, organic quality.” He compares it to the ocean. “Every coral reef is unique, even though each polyp is identical.”

One of Dan’s favorite projects to date is a series of cages and keys from 2020—the largest of which holds 400 or so keys and stands at almost human-height. “I love the scale, the scope,” he says with a smile. “And it has some unexpected characteristics. It makes a beautiful noise when it’s bumped, all the little keys tinkling against each other. The visual of all the movement is wonderful and unexpected.”

Many have told Dan that the project has spoken to their feelings of isolation during the shelter-in-place. “Each viewer can find in it what they want to find in it,” he invites. But as for him… “The meaning is in the making,” says the guy who finds wonder in the junkyard.

At the end of Marsh Road in Menlo Park, Bedwell Bayfront Park attracts many after-work walkers and runners as well as a varied assortment of sea birds. It’s also a favorite destination for Menlo Park photographer Jennifer Fraser, who captured this Perfect Shot of the post-sunset blues reflected in the water and sky.

Image by Jennifer Fraser / jenniferfraser.zenfolio.com

Calling all shutterbugs: If you’ve captured a unique perspective of the Peninsula, we’d love to see your Perfect Shot. Email us at
hello@punchmonthly.com to be considered for publication.

After experiencing an amazing fog layer during an evening hike at Purisima Creek Redwoods Preserve, Palo Alto photographer Brian Krippendorf clearly didn’t get enough of the breathtaking vistas. “The next morning my cat woke me up early,” he says, “so I decided to go back.” From a ridgeline trail just before 6AM, Brian captured this Perfect Shot of towering coast redwoods peeking through a dense sea of clouds.

Image by Brian Krippendorf / @briankrippendorf

Calling all shutterbugs: If you’ve captured a unique perspective of the Peninsula, we’d love to see your Perfect Shot. Email us at
hello@punchmonthly.com to be considered for publication.

Words by Sheri Baer

Visit Redwood City-based SDG Architecture’s website, and a quote from renowned Mexican architect Luis Barragán is the first thing that greets you. It speaks to serenity—making your home a calm, peaceful and untroubled haven.

“It resonated with me,” says SDG founder and principal architect Steve Simpson about the premise originally expressed by Barragán over 40 years ago. “It’s an elusive goal and it’s hard to get enough of any kind of serenity—more so now than ever.”

Although Steve believes that serenity is ultimately an internal pursuit, he embraces the idea that your environment and surroundings can play a role. As he frames it, architecture has the ability to provide a conducive backdrop. He cites his own home as an example. When he leaves the office after a frequently overstimulating day of problem-solving and navigating a maze of zoning ordinances, Steve can feel the tension slipping away as he pulls into Belmont. “When I go home, where I live is serene,” he notes, “and I think one of the biggest luxuries that anybody can have is just the ability to slow down, relax and enjoy life.”

When it comes to designing serenity-inducing settings, Steve relies on basic, centering principles. “In architecture, it’s about balance and flow and connecting the inside with the outside, particularly around here where we have beautiful properties and landscapes,” he says. “A lot of it is just keeping things simple. Often, that’s something that’s overlooked. When you can, just simplify, which is probably true in life too.”

Since SDG’s establishment in 1988, Steve’s firm has completed over 500 residential projects, with about 90% on the Peninsula—including Woodside, Atherton, Los Altos, Los Altos Hills, Menlo Park and Palo Alto. Specializing in new construction, with a smattering of remodels, SDG’s work ranges from estate-sized properties to smaller, suburban sites. For every client, the goal is to strike a balance in terms of design and flow while still optimizing for desired features and function. Understanding a client’s priorities—which includes how they define serenity—guides the design process.

A comfy reading nook. The perfect setting for a piano. A view out of the house to something that makes you reflect. “Sometimes,” Steve says, “it’s just a little surprise that you can add to a house.” As an example, he cites a property in Woodside where he situated a small private garden outside the master bathroom: “You wouldn’t expect it, but we’ve hidden this little almost-Balinese outdoor shower there and that can be just a moment of serenity.”

In the case of a Portola Valley project, an empty-nester couple felt a disconnect in the home where they had raised their children. “They wanted a house that was more in line with the next phase in their life,” Steve explains, “and it wasn’t going to be an older two-story house with the master bedroom on the second floor.” Rather, on their piece of property with expansive views of Windy Hill Open Space Preserve, they envisioned a new one-story house tuned to the outdoors, with an emphasis on energy efficiency and sustainability—and nods to serenity throughout.

“We rearranged the house and now every room opens up to the outside,” Steve relays. “The views of Windy Hill were facing the front, so in this case, which is unusual, we placed the master bedroom in the front.” Clean interiors that offset the client’s vibrant collection of Aboriginal art. A little music room. Italian-crafted kitchen cabinet doors that appear and disappear to hide any counter clutter. “We end up spending a lot of time integrating details into the design—like hardware and window coverings—that you don’t see until you need them.”

SDG partnered with landscape architect Cristin Franklin to transform the property’s thirsty lawns into stunning drought-resistant landscaping and a new pool area that delivers its own transportive experience. “Although it’s just a few steps from the house,” Steve points out, “it has this resort feel to it and becomes its own little destination.”

Steve takes immense pride in each completed project but says he gets the most satisfaction in the construction phase, watching the house take shape. That’s not surprising given his roots. Born in San Francisco, Steve grew up in Fremont in a family of builders—his father was a general contractor with his brother following suit. Although Steve’s studies initially took him in a different direction, he rediscovered his passion for architecture and ultimately opened his own firm.

Steve was living in San Francisco at the time but got some timely advice from a friend on the Peninsula. “He said, ‘Why would you try to set up business in San Francisco?’” Steve recounts. “‘There are tons of architects up there and not a lot of work [at the time], and down here, there’s a lot of work and not a lot of architects.’”

In 1988, Steve launched SDG Architecture in Redwood City, which was followed by his own move to Belmont. More than three decades later, working with a team of six, he’s appreciative of the evolution he’s seeing in Peninsula architectural projects. “The expectations have gotten higher, which drives everybody, so I think the quality across the board has gotten better,” he says.

At the same time, Steve acknowledges that building custom homes has never been an easy process, and recent supply chain issues have only made it harder. Not exactly serenity-inducing conditions for clients. His approach? “It’s a lot about setting reasonable expectations for how long it’s going to take and how much it’s going to cost,” he says. “There’s a lot of balance involved both in the house and how you approach it.”

And while Steve aims to create peaceful havens for all of his clients, he’s also pragmatic about how much he can achieve. “We can provide a backdrop,” he emphasizes, “but ultimately, serenity is kind of like happiness: You have to help yourself to get there.”

Words by Sheryl Nonnenberg

Sandy Ostrau says she did not set out to become an artist. A visit to her Palo Alto studio, where she has been preparing for a solo exhibition at Dolby Chadwick Gallery in San Francisco, would indicate otherwise. Sandy has enjoyed notable success for several decades, with gallery representation and sales of her work to both national and international collectors. But it all started with the humble crayon.

“I was the kid who would go home to color,” she laughs. “And I was good at it!”

Sandy relates that her parents encouraged her artistic bent and, as a result, “I was always making art.” As a child she took classes at the Palo Alto Cultural Center but when it came time for the Palo Alto High School grad to declare a major at UC Santa Barbara, she opted for art history. During her undergraduate days she took numerous figure drawing classes (“just because I liked to draw”) but steered clear of the painting studio.

Fast-forward to adulthood, marriage and children and Sandy was still doing art projects: “I painted furniture and textiles and, for a while, had a business selling silk-screen and hand-painted clothing to retailers like Nordstrom.” The business did well, but when she was ready to really expand, she decided to redirect her focus.

Throughout this time, Sandy took oil painting classes at both the Cultural Center and the Pacific Art League, where she had the good fortune to study under Jim Smyth and Brigitte Curt. “They were beautiful artists, great teachers and an exceptional find for a local art center,” Sandy says. She credits their teaching as providing the basis for her work with the figure and landscape, especially working in plein air.

“I really loved outdoor painting. You learn so much about how to distill a scene and it’s a great way to learn aspects of art making, especially materials management and how to mix colors.”

Sandy continued her studies with Smyth and Curt, even as she began to show her work in small group shows both here and in the Sea Ranch area, where her family has a second home. But she feels her evolution as an artist really took a turning point when she began to participate in Open Studios, which she did for seven years. It’s something that she strongly recommends to every artist. “Open Studios is a great way to get work out there and it’s a learning curve,” she says. While opening one’s home to a stream of strangers may not be everyone’s cup of tea, Sandy found it worthwhile. “I did really well and sold a lot of paintings,” she shares. “I have a great group of friends who were clients first.”

Although those early plein air landscapes found an eager market, Sandy was ready to evolve in her style and technique. She has always admired the work of Bay Area Figurative Movement painters (David Park, Nathan Oliveira, Paul Wonner and Richard Diebenkorn) who bucked the prevailing trend of Abstract Expressionism in order to return to the figure and representational art. Using a limited range of colors, brushes and palette knives, and a wet-on-wet painting technique, Sandy focused her efforts on work that integrated the figure into the landscape, but not in a literal way. “I am interested in getting to the essence in landscape and figure,” she explains.

Looking at the paintings that she has prepared for the Dolby Chadwick show, it is clear that the Bay Area figurative painters have been a major influence for Sandy. Does she mind if people see that reference? “Not at all,” she says. “All of those artists integrated the figure into the landscape in a way that is expressionistic, gestural but representational. They did it masterfully.”

In Sandy’s paintings, which are often large in scale and very textural, thanks to layers and layers of paint that have been added and removed, the figure (or figures) is generalized with no specific gender. She explains that she “doesn’t want to give too much information” and they are often placed in a location like a beach or pier, which serves as “a metaphor for the connection of land and sea.” In Simple Pleasures, a figure at the far left of the canvas looks out to sea but instead of a line demarcating the horizon line, there are rectangular blocks of purple, red, yellow and turquoise. It is a good example of one of the questions she asks herself, “How do you integrate a figure into blocks of color?”

And color is certainly a hallmark in Sandy’s approach. She explains that she really likes to examine how color contrasts work, citing the “push-pull” theory of Hans Hoffman. She is not afraid of adding or removing color and credits all those years of working outside for her ability to mix colors successfully, never working “out of the tube.” This is obvious in Fog Rolling Across the Pier, where squares and rectangles of both bright and muted colors are stacked along the horizon line, creating unexpected contrasts and juxtapositions. The three figures are so well integrated you might miss them, if you don’t look closely enough. That would be okay with Sandy, who says she wants people to bring their own references and experiences to the paintings.

Although she works mainly in the studio these days (and never from photographs), Sandy speaks with great fondness for her early days as a plein air painter. One of her favorite locations was Baylands Park, where she was a regular for years. “It has water, trees, horizon, distant hills and beautiful color changes,” she notes. She would paint quickly and the resulting plethora of canvases were stored in pizza boxes. Her son, she recounts laughingly, would exclaim, “Not another swamp painting, Mom!”
In addition to gallery representation, Sandy has also garnered interest in her work via social media, specifically Instagram. Clients as far away as New York City, Italy and Norway have found and purchased her paintings. Pre-pandemic, she also gave private lessons and taught in workshop settings. “Teaching allows you to isolate and define your process,”
she observes.

Sandy is clearly pleased, grateful and maybe a bit surprised at her success. “My original goal was just to pay for my paint supplies,” she adds. And what advice does she give to aspiring artists? “Affiliate with a local art center or school to keep honing skills and have a regular schedule to keep making art. You need to put in the time—miles of paint on canvas!”