Author: punchwpadmin

The Adobe Creek Loop trail in the Baylands Nature Preserve in Palo Alto offers a wide range of tidal marsh wildlife viewing and is a popular spot with birders. This Perfect Shot was caught between storms by photographer Robb Most, who had joined hike leader Kaye Bonney on an annual expedition through the marshlands to see migrating birds.

Image Courtesy of Robb Most © 2019

If you walk down the first floor hall of Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital you might notice a large photo of a bobcat hiding in the grass. If you are holding the hand of a child, she’ll be looking at the smaller photos of the hawks or the deer that are just below, directly in her line of sight. In the next set of photos, the largest one of grazing sheep will be down low, peering back at the child, with different, smaller photos drawing attention above.

The photographer who captured these images is Teddy Miller and the style of display is intentional. When the photos were being installed in the newly renovated hospital, Teddy envisioned placing the large 30” x 60” photos both up high and down low, to appeal to both small patients and their parents. In this series, titled Skyline to Sea, there are 25 black and white photos of both farm and wild animals, in water, on land and in the sky.

It was a memorable day when Teddy saw his photos go up in this soon-to-be-busy hallway. He was surprised that the hospital wanted prints in black and white, but came to understand that there is already a lot of colorful painting and sculpture in the building, so that his photos would offer a different experience. Once the hospital was open, he was able to see what they meant—looking down the hall, he would see children stop and point at cows seen through a barn window or a quail with its distinct comma-shaped crest.

“That was one of the most rewarding things I’ve ever done with my photography,” Teddy says. “It was pretty wild to see kids walking down the hallways with their families. They didn’t know it was me and I could stand there like a fly on the wall to see them stop and look up. I really hope it gives them an escape from whatever scenario they are in.”

When Teddy first started taking photos he had no idea where it would lead. He grew up in Woodside and his father, Brad, always had a camera in hand. Teddy remembers Brad packing 30 rolls of film when they went on vacation. And what seemed like overkill back then, now makes sense to Teddy. When a roll was done, or when they’d return from a trip, Brad and the kids (Teddy has an older brother and a younger sister) would head down to One-Hour-Photo in Redwood City to get them developed and printed as soon as possible.

In middle school, Teddy started taking his own photos. Using one of his dad’s old cameras, he and his brother Jack captured action shots of each other skateboarding. Just like their father, they wanted to see them right away so they would ask their mother to make the trek to Redwood City. Teddy’s interest continued at Menlo School, where he took a photography class followed by AP Art with a focus on photography.

Then there’s a gap in Teddy’s photography; at Cal Poly he found it difficult to keep up his hobby. But two years in, he took some time off from studying and started working on a 3,000-acre ranch near Pescadero. For Teddy, the ranch was a photographer’s dream and he credits his experience there as the impetus for his return to his craft. He worked as a ranch hand all day, doing everything from herding cattle to mending fences. And then at dusk—when the work day was done—it was the perfect time to take out his camera. That’s when he› started to get serious about photography.

When you look at many of Teddy’s photos, you immediately know that there was patience involved. Particularly when you see something like a leaping coyote—that photo could only have been taken by staying in place and waiting. And waiting. And even then, there’s never the guarantee of a pay-off.

“It’s very rare that you are going out and there’s a leaping coyote,” Teddy says. “More often than not, you’ll see a coyote or bobcat and they’ll get spooked but then you have their territory and range, which is only so big. When you go back that evening or at the same time the next day, the goal is to see them before they see you. I don’t hunt but I imagine it’s similar. You anticipate their movement.”

In addition to wildlife, Teddy specializes in surfing photography—partly because of his own love of surfing, and partly because one of his clients is, Surfer Magazine. Teddy’s voice takes on a new energy when he talks about going into the water. With his wetsuit and fins on and a waterproof hood on his camera, he swims out to where the surfers are waiting for the waves. It’s a two-fold physical and intellectual challenge for Teddy—timing the wave, which is something that surfers need to master—and also positioning himself where the rider is going to be to capture the perfect shot.

What started out as a hobby is now a full-time vocation for Teddy—with a growing roster of clients ranging from The New York Times and Stab Magazine to Tepui Tents and Marine Layer Clothing. And although he’s aware that it’s a tough professional pursuit, he’s committed to making it work. “I’m just not suited for a nine-to-five job,” he admits. Getting his father’s nod of approval also was a factor. “When I started falling in love with photography, he was happy to help rather than tell me it was a pointless career,” Teddy acknowledges gratefully.

He also takes assignments from Peninsula Open Space Trust, which preserves 76,000 acres of public open land. Whether he’s creating photo documentation or marketing materials, Teddy especially treasures his solo access to remote, protected areas. “Instead of capturing a vast landscape shot, I’m becoming more interested in highlighting a specific scene—something that can evoke emotion or a special moment in nature,” he says.

Now 30, Teddy lives with his wife, Nicole, and their dog, Honey, just over the hill, close to the coast and the nature that he loves. Having grown up in Woodside, surrounded by horses and the hills of the Peninsula, he’s drawn to anything rustic and outdoorsy—be that animals, barns, old fences or landscapes. Teddy particularly likes the solo trees—maybe because they’re solo like he is when he’s trekking through the open space. And he’s always willing to invest whatever it takes to get a shot that’s as natural as possible. “Sometimes you’ll sit there a long time and it doesn’t always pan out,” he reflects, before channeling a surfer’s vernacular. “But when you get it, it’s sweet!” 

To see more of Teddy’s work visit teddymillerphotography.com

After World War I, a group of concerned citizens raised nearly half a million dollars to purchase 1,000 acres in the South Bay and then sold it to the U.S. Navy for the very reasonable price of $1. Their motive was to create a military base to protect the West Coast from any future threats. At the time, the Navy was entering into the Lighter-than-Air (LTA) era, constructing rigid airships—including blimps and dirigibles—that could be steered to provide high-flying protection from the sky. The USS Akron supported fleet operations in the Atlantic and the USS Macon owned the Pacific. These magnificent machines were the first, and only, airborne aircraft carriers. They would patrol in front of a fleet of ships scouting for any adversary. (Remember, this was before radar.) Small pursuit aircrafts, called Sparrowhawks, would launch from below the dirigible and extend the search range.

The USS Macon was 785 feet long with eight engines and could fly to Hawaii and back on one load of fuel. The dirigible could house a crew of 91. There were sleeping quarters, engineering, a control room, a radio room and even a medical room. When she was at Moffett Field, the USS Macon was protected inside Hangar One, the iconic metal structure seen from Highway 101, straddling the line between Mountain View and Sunnyvale. It’s 1,138 feet long, 308 feet wide and 198 feet high—the floor could hold seven football fields. Fabricated from metal in the early 1930s, it is one of only two such structures in the U.S.; the other is in Lakehurst, New Jersey. After the Navy left in 1994, Google won a competition and agreed to multiple restoration projects with a 60-year lease. Hangar One will be re-skinned over the next several years.

Words by Sheri Baer

This is the story of a little gardener’s cottage on what was once an expansive Hillsborough estate. Henry T. Scott, a San Francisco mogul, shipbuilder and one of the founders of Pacific Telephone and Telegraph, built Oakhurst in 1895 as a second family home maintained by a staff of 10 servants. Tucked within the property, between lush flower and vegetable gardens, Scott placed a small outbuilding, a 1,570-square-foot shingle-sided cottage with steep gables, where the gardener lived, tending to the fresh produce and flowers that would be taken up Fern Court to the main residence at the top of Forest View Avenue.

Over time, the Scott estate was subdivided into smaller lots but the little cottage endured, occupied by an artist in the 1930s who enjoyed drawing in an upstairs bedroom that captured the morning light. In 1943, Edith (Edie) North, a passionate gardener, purchased the property from the Scott estate. In 1949, she invited her daughter and son-in-law, Betty and Bill Horn, who were living in San Francisco post-war military housing, to join her. They added two more structures, a garage and a 692-square-foot “little house,” where Edie could reside independently. Edie also deeded the property over to Betty, intrinsically linking the fate of the gardener’s cottage to the lives of four Peninsula women: Betty Horn, Pandy Garvic, Doris Rivett and Sue Subbotin-Riviello.

Betty Horn

Betty and Bill Horn raised a son, Bill Jr., and a daughter, Ean, in the gardener’s cottage, surrounded by prolific wildflowers and the restful burbling of Sanchez Creek running at the back of the property. Betty cherished her home and the simplicity of its idyllic setting. Like her mother before her, she was an award-winning gardener. She joined the Hillsborough Garden Club and spent countless hours tending to camellias, lilies and a whole profusion of perennials. Even as mega-mansions rose up around the little cottage—5,000 square feet here, 12,000 square feet there—Betty maintained her family’s simple, peaceful lifestyle. The early years of Hillsborough fascinated her and she researched and lectured extensively on Hillsborough’s oldest estates, contributing to the preservation of the area’s history. Time passed, and Betty and Bill’s children grew up, moved away to college and settled in other states. As they were adjusting to being empty-nesters, Betty and Bill met Pandy Garvic.

Pandy Garvic

In 1965, after graduating from Ohio State University, Pandy moved to the Peninsula and began working as a dental hygienist where she frequently chatted with her patients, Bill and Betty Horn. “Bill was originally from Ohio, and so we had that Ohio connection,” she remembers. “I was missing my parents, and they were missing their kids, and it was just an immediate connection.” Bill and Betty became Pandy’s surrogate parents, and the little gardener’s cottage became her second home. “It was always special. I have so many amazing memories here. The garden was always wild and natural, and you felt like you were a world away with the uniqueness of the setting and just this wonderful couple who lived here.”

Doris Rivett

That same sentiment would be shared by Doris and Bob Rivett, who bought the house next door in 1995. Having moved from the East Coast, Doris and Bob settled into their new lifestyle in Hillsborough and were instantly enchanted by their neighbor, Betty. “Betty was just turning 80 the year we moved here, and she threw herself a party in our shared driveway and invited us,” Doris recalls. “She was always a very active, vivacious and lovely woman.” Starting as “next-door neighbor friends,” they forged a genuine friendship and frequently conversed about their common passion for gardening. “We’ve always had properties where we could grow abundant flowers, particularly roses, vegetables and fruit trees, so there was always that connection with Betty; the outside of the home is as important to us as the inside of the home,” Doris says. For nearly 20 years, the Rivetts and Betty lived side by side, and the attachment between the neighbors grew: “We wanted Betty to live forever. We knew she probably wouldn’t, but we were hoping she would.” With the help of a caregiver in her later years, Betty never had to move out of her beloved little cottage. She passed away in 2015, just two weeks short of her 100^th birthday.

As family and friends grieved the loss of Betty, Pandy also prepared for a new responsibility. Having left the world of dentistry, she now had a successful career in real estate. For Betty’s children, living in Washington State, it was a natural fit for Pandy to handle the sale of Betty’s one-acre property. After the constraints of the cottage’s historic status added too much complexity to envisioned plans, an initial buyer withdrew. For the Rivetts next door, it was a fortuitous opportunity. “When the buyer cancelled the contract, we went in,” Doris recounts. “The house has historical significance. We really wanted to restore it. Betty didn’t want the house to fall into disrepair and be torn down. She didn’t want a mega-mansion.” Pandy brokered the deal, and Doris and Bob Rivett became the new owners of the historic gardener’s cottage—leading to the final link in the chain: Sue Subbotin-Riviello.

Sue Subbotin-Riviello

Sue grew up in Burlingame, the fourth generation in her family to live on the Peninsula. “My grandfather’s parents built one of the first homes in Burlingame and I’m told my great-grandfather was one of Burlingame’s founders. I grew up hearing stories about playing on the Crocker Estate and El Camino being a dirt road with maybe one car a day,” she remembers fondly. After earning an economics degree from UC Davis, Sue worked in advertising, before finally deciding to pursue her passion for design—which led her to the Parson’s School of Design and a career in New York City. After moving back to the Peninsula and starting her own interior design firm, she met Pandy in 1993 while working on a Hillsborough Showhouse for the Coyote Point Auxiliary. They stayed in touch through the years, and in 2015, Sue got the call. “You’ve got to come over to see this house,” she remembers Pandy saying. “This was after Betty had passed away. I drove up and I just felt it. The cottage oozed charm, and the garden was overgrown, but you knew in its heyday, it was a jewel. Pandy told me the story and said they needed someone to bring it back to its original glory.”

Pandy made the introductions, and Sue felt an instant connection with Doris and Bob Rivett. “They were a joy to work with, and we all had the same goal and the same feeling. We wanted to honor Betty and restore the integrity of the home,” she says. Under the guidance that the property would be used by the Rivett family and perhaps as a rental one day, the job was threefold: update the “little house,” rebuild the garage and restore the historic cottage, within the parameters set by the Hillsborough Historical Committee. After Sue did the space planning, an architect drew up the designs and Sue teamed with contractor Aaron Quinn to effect the transformation: “We wanted it to be livable by today’s standards while maintaining its charm.”

Restoring the Gardener’s Cottage required inserting a new foundation, taking the structure down to the studs and rebuilding it identically. The original cottage had more than its share of quirks—from steep, steep stairs to a single outlet on the second floor to ill-placed bathrooms that were added after the original construction to provide in-house plumbing. And while the restored exterior is an exact replica, Sue took more creative license with the interiors—moving the staircase and creating an open, versatile space, accented by custom-designed columns with a tie-in to the custom fireplace mantel. “The entire downstairs is painted in Benjamin Moore white dove. I felt that color could be brought in with the artwork, furnishings and the rugs,” Sue shares, noting that the interior decor will be added gradually. “We moved Doris’ antique dining table in, which looks phenomenal with the more modern kitchen.”

Sue selected a Waterworks board and batten tile for the kitchen backsplash, which she replicated in wood for the dining area. For the master bathroom shower, she chose a Waterworks wainscot tile, capturing the look of the cottage’s original wainscoting. For another tone-setting example, Sue points to the downstairs powder room wallpaper—designed by Half Full in San Francisco: “It’s an old-fashioned cottage rose with an updated twist of adding Black Robins. It felt appropriate for the era of the house.” Most of all, because of Betty, Doris and Sue’s shared love of gardening, “we really tried to blend the outside with the inside,” adding a back French door and patio to create a sense of expansiveness.

For the “little house,” which had been built in the early ‘50s, Sue faced a different set of challenges—like updating the original kitchen, which was functionally “a kitchen in a closet.” Although the permitting took longer, Sue assessed the structure’s original flat ceiling and knew it needed to be vaulted: “I am so happy we did that because it makes the small room feel so much more spacious.” To dramatize the effect, Sue selected a Shades of Light iron ring chandelier to cost-effectively transform the space. “Basically, we renovated the entire building,” Sue says, gesturing to another favorite design choice, a Dutch door, swinging half open to usher in even more light and air.

Furnishings and finishes will be added bit by bit, even as progress is being made on landscaping and restoring the gardens. There’s also talk of adding wooden window boxes and a trellis. But those are just details. Originally built in 1895, the gardener’s cottage has been successfully preserved. “I sell a lot of houses, and I’m always hearing, ‘Oh, this is a scraper. Tear it down. Build to the lot line,’” Pandy says, taking a moment to reflect. “This house found its rightful new owner, it found its rightful designer and it is all about preserving a piece of the past with the way people want to live today. It’s a good reminder that there is beauty and there is function if you want to stay within what you have.”

Thinking back on her dear friend, Betty, Pandy continues, “Our entire motivation was, what would make Betty happy?” With tears welling up in her eyes, she finishes her thought, “I can feel Betty smiling. There is so much of her energy still in this place. I feel it every time I walk in here.”

the peninsula’s tucked-away treasures

In the hills of Woodside are 100 acres of what appears to be open space. From the vantage point of Cañada College or driving by on 280, you see wide expanses of green fields and small forests. There are no visible buildings, but if you look closely, you catch flashes of man-made shapes—a black circle and a rust-colored angular structure—hinting that something else is back there. What you’re getting a glimpse of is a vast collection of sculptures that have been carefully curated and intentionally placed. This is Runnymede Farm.

Bought in 1930 by John (always called Jack) Rosekrans and his wife, Alma Emma Spreckels, Runnymede Farm is still owned by the Rosekrans family. Alma was the daughter of Adolph and “Big Alma” Spreckels, a wealthy socialite and patron of the arts—often referred to as the great-grandmother of San Francisco. When Jack and Alma purchased Runnymede Farm, Woodside was a popular locale for the country estates of prosperous San Francisco residents. While it had a few churches and a school, it was mostly farms, small cattle ranches and vineyards—Runnymede Farm itself was covered in old vineyards and included an old dairy barn that still stands. An accomplished equestrian, Alma competed and excelled as a jumper. The property became home to her many horses, at one time housing more than 50 jumpers and breeders.

Alma outlived Jack, who died in 1966. When Alma died in 1983, she left Runnymede to her three sons, John, Charles and Adolph. Today, it is still family-owned, by Adolph and his two children, Kate Rosekrans Duininck and Spreck Rosekrans, and John’s sons, John and Peter Rosekrans. The property has a number of buildings, but they are tucked away and largely hidden by the many oak trees that Alma cultivated. While the horses are gone, Runnymede Farm is now home to a collection of outdoor sculptures—a staggering number of them, as in over 100.

The sculptures were the passion of Alma’s son John, and his wife Dodie. Inspired by a trip to Storm King Art Center in New York State in 1984, John was enchanted by the possibility of blending and harmonizing sculpture with nature and began his collection. The selection criteria had more to do with what the Rosekrans couple liked, rather than the value of the art as an investment. According to Peter Rosekrans, his father’s first installation was an abstract figure by Belgian sculptor Jean Coenen called Androgyne—a bronze figure that’s nestled close to the buildings near the front of the property.

Among the significant collection, noteworthy sculptures include a 1994 installation by Andy Goldsworthy, who is known for creating site-specific sculptures, each of which “grows, stays, decays.” At Runnymede, Goldsworthy created a semi-permanent work: a collection of clay pots, some of which are reminiscent of an open beehive. They were created from the clay on the property, which was processed on site over a period of months by a crew of young artists. As was expected, in the drying and firing process, the Runnymede clay cracked and broke. Goldsworthy placed the imperfect pieces in and around the soil on a hillside at Runnymede. Some of them are almost completely buried. It’s hard to know how much decay has taken place—the art is often covered in moss and lichen. One day, the pieces will return to the land from which they were formed, just as Goldsworthy intends with much of his work.

California-born Charles Ginnever is also well represented, with multiple sculptures installed over more than a decade. Ginnever is known for his large-scale, open-form work for the outdoors. At Runnymede, some of his creations are nestled among the trees, while another sculpture sits close to the buildings near Runnymede Road. And one of them is the rust-colored abstract sculpture that you can see from afar. Titled Ibis, it sits high on a hillside with the skyline ridge as its backdrop. Typical of Ginnever, the art appears to shift shape as you change the angle from which it is viewed. And while you can see it from 280, the trees surrounding it threaten to dwarf it.

Another piece that is visible from the road is After the Reign by Ilan Averbuch. Heading north on 280, when Cañada College is on your right, if you glance to your left, you can see what looks like a large dark circle on the hillside. The circle is actually the opening of After the Reign, which up close seems like you are looking into the inside of a wooden ship. The interior is natural wood, while the outside is patina-colored. Scale is difficult to see from afar but this work is more than ten feet tall, with its gaping opening facing the highway.

When it came to determining placement, John applied a thoughtful process, often working directly with the artist. Almost all of the art was collected from living artists who were still creating. The sculptures are in open spaces, set along pathways or tucked into natural niches of the land. Some are uniquely situated, such as Ginnever’s Zeus II, which is suspended in the trees; long, yellow beams are shackled together so that if the wind blows hard enough to move the tree branches, Zeus II shifts in response.

The size of the artwork ranges significantly. In the woods, several small sculptures create an ever-changing pathway. The giant sculptures usually occupy open space, including the memorable and dramatic Horse Head, also created by Ilan Averbuch. The massive sculpture sits on the edge of an oak grove and surprises you when you come around the corner. Even though it is inanimate, the horse’s wooden mane appears to fly behind its granite boulder head.

Many installations have multiple pieces, and some human shapes are represented, such as Celeste Roberge’s Rising Cairn and Walking Cairn. Rising Cairn is a cage-like container made from welded and galvanized steel. The figure, with one knee on the ground, looks as though it’s about to stand up. Filled with 4,000 pounds of granite, the bent-over sculpture stands almost five feet tall. Nearby, a similar figure is upright: Walking Cairn measures almost nine feet.

With over 100 sculptures, the collection is varied—almost eclectic. Most of the artists are from the U.S., although many European artists are also represented. As with all art, how the works are perceived and appreciated is subjective. Walking the property, you might stand in awe in front of one piece, yet pass by several others with barely a glance. Depending on when you visit, the sculptures look different, varying by the season, the weather and the time of day. Some change with the angle from which you see them, like Ginnever’s, and some change very slowly, as the years pass, like Goldsworthy’s art created from clay.

Zipping past on 280, an art lover with a trained eye can catch teasing, tantalizing glimpses of Runnymede’s wonders. However, public access to the property is usually limited to fundraisers. The Rosekrans family opens Runnymede Farm to a long list of non-profits to which they have close ties, at no cost to the organizations, including Cantor Arts Center, Peninsula Open Space Trust, Woodside Elementary School and SFMOMA. It’s worth keeping watch for any upcoming events. By helping a worthy cause, you may also be buying an insider’s look at some of the Peninsula’s hidden gems.   

Elephant parts lie scattered across a white table inside the central studio space of the Claremont Art Studios in San Mateo as two sisters work in tandem to stitch them all together.

Peninsula-based fiber artists Lorna and Jill Watt work across from each other on separate parts of their project–Lorna stitches the larger pieces using a Brother KH-270 knitting machine while Jill crochets the whimsical additions, like a peanut or eyebrows. Pairs of aqua blue ears, legs and stubby arms are stacked and ready to go. Also on the table is a grid paper notebook that serves as an instruction manual with the dimensions of each elephant body part calculated into inches and stitches.

It takes a week to complete two elephants but soon these yarn creatures will join the sisters’ dozens of other colorful installations wrapped around trees in the Civic Center Commons in San Francisco. For the last two years, the Watt sisters have been commissioned by the Trust for Public Land to visually enhance the area. So far, they’ve wrapped parrots, chameleons, giraffes, flamingos and more on over 80 trees that line the plaza outside City Hall.

The Civic Center Commons is just one of dozens of commissioned projects the duo has completed between San Francisco and the Peninsula through their artistic outlet Knits for Life. The sisters specialize in yarn bombing: fiber art installations that pop up in unexpected places—giving feet to an ordinary corner mailbox or turning tree limbs into octopi—always creating a head-turning effect and often prompting a grin.

Jill and Lorna began in 2011 and have distinguished themselves with their delightfully whimsical characters, accentuated by intricate features. Not only are the ears, toes and tusks fully accounted for in their elephant, but they’ll go as far as developing a narrative as to what prompted this giant animal to scale up a San Francisco tree in the first place.

“We’re always adding more,” Jill says. “Not just on the elephant but we’ll tell a story; why is he up in the tree like that?”

“He’s rearing up from a mouse!” adds Lorna, holding the silver-stitched provocateur in her hand.

The pair’s working relationship couldn’t be tighter or more complementary and it shows down to the seams. (Jill fancies the vertical mattress stitch while Lorna prefers weaving the Kitchener.) And although they sometimes differ in the direction of a project, they always find ways to support each other’s opposing styles.

“I want to do something crazy while Jill wants to make the cute little frogs in suspenders with a cane and top hat,” Lorna says.

They admit that they only ever reach loggerheads while brainstorming for new projects. Lorna will often suggest ideas regardless of scope or expense and Jill will have to remind her of the logistics.

“I want to have thousands of ideas to find the one,” says Lorna, whereas Jill prefers to be more direct. “I don’t want to waste time with 999 bad ideas,” she says. “I want the perfect one.”

Both women were born and raised in San Jose, where Lorna remembers checking out a book at the library to teach herself how to crochet a mummy. Their childhood dream was to work in Jim Henson’s Creature Shop and they attribute much of their interest in the arts to their grandparents, Robert and Catherine Watt. Two filet crochet portraits of their grandparents were on view in the 2015 exhibit Thread Around Holes at The Lace Museum in Sunnyvale and currently hang outside their studio’s door.

“They would always take us to a craft store when we visited them in San Diego,” Jill says. “What’s the craft version of a green thumb?”

“A thimble thumb!” Lorna responds, with a laugh.

Their knitting and crochet began as a hobby but quickly gained traction after its positive reception on the Peninsula. The yarn bomb they made of an iPhone covering up an old payphone in San Mateo earned Knits for Life a front-page story in the San Mateo Daily Journal in 2013 and in the same year, Lorna was appointed Artist in Residence for the Downtown Business Association of San Mateo. They installed their Squid Tree yarn bomb, a baby blue mollusk that stretched up the limbs of a downtown tree and required four miles of yarn to complete.

The sisters moved into the Claremont Art Studios about four years ago. One wall is adorned with their grandfather’s paintings of landscapes and architecture while the other is filled with needlepoint images of portraits or religious imagery from their grandmother. The back wall is completely covered in hundreds of rolled skeins representing all shades of the color wheel while taxidermy heads of a yarned fox, zebra and elk are mounted around the studio. Scores of scissors and pens are within arm’s reach and their work station is bookended by sewing and knitting machines, both from the brand Brother. “We’re sisters surrounded by Brothers!” Lorna says.

2018 was the first year Knits for Life worked on more commissioned projects than personal yarn bombs. Some of their commissions included an installation at the Google Cloud offices in Sunnyvale, contributing several string art designs and panels for a global summit for Twitter and yarn bombing multiple critters for the CuriOdyssey Museum in San Mateo.

They also increased their national profile with the debut of the Monster Feet Yarn Bomb Along in the spring. What was essentially a virtual crafting circle, the sisters developed into a six-week series of online tutorials and lessons for creating yarn bombs (in particular, their quirky, three-toed monster paw design). Instagram posts using the #mfybal create a collage of beaming participants from New York, Austin, Minneapolis and more who uploaded pictures of their city’s benches, bike racks and mailboxes revamped with color and whimsicality.

Yarn bombs are quite durable and can last for years, although the sun eventually bleaches out the color. However, Lorna and Jill say the leading cause of ruination tends to be from human thievery, an act that hasn’t discouraged them in the least.

“Lorna got a picture once from someone who said, ‘I just saw your iPhone at a bar,’” Jill says. “It was just after the local paper had featured it and someone was wearing it. I mostly don’t care because yarn bombing is an experiment; we’re putting it out there and whatever happens, happens.”

“It’s transient and ephemeral,” Lorna adds. “We’re at peace
with that.”

“If things are up all the time, people will stop noticing,” Jill says. “And the whole point is to get them to smile.”

During a recent walk on the beach not far from her home and studio in Half Moon Bay, designer and artist Kate Miller was struck by the sight of countless fragments of shells at her feet.

“I started thinking about shells and how people appreciate their inherent beauty but don’t give much thought to the whole life cycle of these natural objects—they are essentially abandoned homes and might have a few tenants before they are permanently vacant,” she says. “Then begins a new cycle, one of gradual exposure to the elements as they are broken down into smaller and smaller pieces. To me, this process is as poignant and beautiful as the shell itself.”

The overlooked details in nature—rusted drain pipes, the differing shapes of poppies or the finite life cycle of a seashell—become inspirational fodder for Kate as she envisions new wallpaper and textile designs to create through her company Elworthy Studio.

Kate’s process begins with an idea she’ll transform into sketches, filling up her notebook with ways to adapt the concept into interior décor. She prioritizes editing, and sometimes while working, she’ll keep in mind a quote from renowned mid-century designer Charles Eames: “The details are not the details; they make the design.”

“I spend a lot of time exploring what I want to communicate and the editing process is the most important part,” Kate says. “How do I distill this idea or concept down to its essence?”

Launched in 2015 and named after Kate’s great-grandmother who “spoke her mind, wore what she wanted and was the most energetic 90-plus-year-old I ever encountered,” Elworthy Studio’s wallpaper and fabrics have been installed in homes, hotels and offices across the country. Kate will introduce one large collection per year with four to six designs available in different colors and offered as either fabric or wallpaper.

Wallpaper has undergone a recent resurgence to become an unexpected trend within the design community. “I picked a very good time to become a wallpaper designer,” she reflects. “I’ve seen so many designers pop up. I had a conversation with a local wallpaper installer and she thinks this resurgence is going to be more long-lasting. The reason is technology. Digital printing allows artists to translate ideas into this medium and there’s this ability for unique expression.”

This liberation in wallpaper and textile design has also extended into how Kate chooses to operate Elworthy Studio as a company offering high-quality products that minimize environmental waste. “I want to control the controllables,” she says. Each wallpaper and fabric design is manufactured using eco-friendly raw materials and Kate only works with suppliers who share her commitment to social and environmental responsibility. Every item in the collection is made to order, which limits excess resources, and she encourages customers to send back samples whenever they’re finished so she can recycle or reuse them.

This last year was the first time Kate was able to accomplish a goal she had since Elworthy Studio began—giving back in a direct way. When she finished the year with a little profit, she donated a percentage to two environmental organizations that manage carbon offsetting projects: CoolEffect and Wildlife Works.

Kate was living in San Francisco when she founded Elworthy Studio, but she and her husband have since relocated to Half Moon Bay. The scenery change has been beneficial in multiple ways; she’s able to frequently take her toddler daughter to the beach and being engulfed by nature has led to a bevy of ideas, such as her exploration into the relationships between nature and urban environments.

“When I took myself out of the urban setting, I felt this sense of space and landscape,” Kate says. “There’s still this amazing juxtaposition of forces in the coastal Californian landscape. I’ll walk outside of my house and it can be serene and calm and other days it’s intense and wild.”

This juxtaposition led to a collection of wallpapers and fabrics she calls Native. One of the designs, Botanica, was inspired by abstract shapes of poppy petals. Her process of creation entailed using one hand to dip her artist blade in ink to create petal shapes on paper, while her other hand sprayed the shape with water so that she could observe how water and ink interacted.

Kate accumulated 20 design concepts for her Native collection but only needed a few so she enlisted the help of her then-newborn daughter. “I made black and white flashcards with simple sketches of poppies, rock shapes and succulents, and then showed them to her. She would kind of stare at them but if she stared longer, I thought, ‘Okay, she must have liked this one,’” Kate recalls. “The poppies were definitely her favorite. She was just a few days old but was already part of my design process.”

elworthystudio.com

Although the full name isn’t used very often, the home of the Cardinal is technically “Leland Stanford Junior University.” His parents sketched out the plans for what would become a world-class research institution, but young Leland Jr. himself is never far from students’ minds since his final resting place is located just off of Palm Drive in the Stanford University Arboretum. Former California governor and railroad magnate Leland Stanford first bought land on the Peninsula in 1876, in the form of a mansion on what is now Sand Hill Road and a 650-acre ranch surrounding it. The ranch would come to be known as the Palo Alto Stock Farm, and it was the family’s summer home as well as a place for Stanford to practice his hobby of raising horses, hence the name. The property would likely have remained a private residence if not for the untimely death of Leland and Jane Stanford’s only child, Leland Jr., in 1884. After succumbing to typhoid fever in Florence, the teenager was temporarily laid to rest in a vault on the East Coast. Later that year, his remains were reinterred in a “smaller” brick mausoleum on the family property on the Peninsula. This earlier mausoleum was still plenty grand, featuring a sitting room upholstered in gold and purple, a fresco depicting two large angels who bear Leland’s body to heaven and a ceiling decorated with stained glass. It was June 29, 1893—five days after his father’s burial—when young Leland’s lead-lined casket was moved to the structure that exists on campus today, which is the final resting place of the whole Stanford family. Five years later, the university established in Leland Jr.’s memory first opened its doors, and ever since, the mausoleum has stood as a connection between Stanford’s 21^st-century accomplishments and the young man who inspired its creation.

words by Sheri Baer

In studio #13 in the west wing of the Peninsula Museum of Art (PMA) in Burlingame, it looks like Paul Bunyan just swept through with his mighty axe. Leaning every which way, hefty logs dripping with sap are stacked against tree trunks with gnarled bark. The room smells like a forest. There’s walnut, Bradford pear, Brazilian rosewood, ginkgo biloba, Italian cypress and cherry. From under tables, oak stumps peek out.

With the help of a colleague, Ruth Waters puts her knees into it and lifts a hefty 100-plus-pound chunk of olive wood up onto her work bench. She shifts and turns the log, using the railing for leverage. Next, she strategically plops down weighty sand bags, anchoring the slab in place. Eyeing faded chalk marks, she positions her chisel just so and then draws back her mallet. “Whap!” A small snippet goes flying, just one of thousands of pieces that will be whittled away, as Ruth transforms inanimate wood into seemingly living pieces of art.

This isn’t a “behind the scenes” private look into the secret world of an artist. In fact, it’s just the opposite. From 11:00AM to 5:00PM every Wednesday through Sunday, anyone can drop into studio #13 and watch Ruth ply her chisel and mallet and then wander by 29 other studios to observe and talk with an eclectic range of artists—sculptors, painters, photographers and even hat makers—as they express what drives them creatively.

With five rotating exhibition galleries showcasing Bay Area living artists, working artist studios, workshops and art courses, PMA offers a very personal way to engage with the arts. “It’s the difference between static and active. When you only see finished works, you don’t understand the process,” Ruth says. “This is an environment where people can begin to understand how art happens, meet the artists and ask questions. There’s nothing else like this on the Peninsula, and I think we’re unique in the country.”

Ruth should know. As PMA’s founder and director, she’s the force behind it.

Originally from Seattle, Ruth comes from a family of teachers; her mother taught home economics, and her father, industrial arts. “I was born with DNA for doing things with my hands,” she says. Adding to that foundation, Ruth’s parents also collected and restored antiques. “I grew up with beautifully carved and finished rosewood and walnut and mahogany furniture. That’s what we lived with—the kinds of things you reach out and stroke,” she says.

Ruth arrived on the Peninsula in 1951 as a Stanford journalism student. In 1957, a casual stop in a Sutter Street art gallery in San Francisco gave her a new direction and purpose. “I turned around and there was a sculpture carved in wood. I looked at it and thought to myself, ‘I can do that.’” Ruth tracked down the right tools and started to perfect her craft. By 1962, she had her first solo hardwood sculpture exhibition.

Fifty-plus years, hundreds of pieces and countless exhibits later, Ruth’s mediums now include hardwoods, bronze, marble, constructed room-size sculpture and painting—with many of her works held in private, corporate and public collections. She sculpts primarily in classic subtractive mode, meaning starting with a mass and taking away. She has no shortage of material–sourcing from trees that are cut down to make space—and constantly ponders the various thick and heavy shapes of wood stacked around her. “They’re always lurking in the back of my head,” she says about the swirling images that need to crystalize before she makes the first strike. “I have to know exactly where I’m going before I start because once it’s cut, it’s gone,” she says emphatically. “Cut and it’s gone is what I live by.”

Ruth describes her focus as exploring the human condition, commentaries on humanity, observations of individuals and reflections on universal truths. “There’s nothing more important than basic human relationships,” she says. Titles of her work—The Dance, Siblings, Interceptions, Partners, Interaction—reflect that theme. Crafted from an avocado tree, Intimacy shows two lithesome forms seamlessly and forever intertwined. Ruth recalls how Intimacy was selected for a 1994 show at the Rockefeller Center Gallery but was excluded after being deemed too erotic. She takes pride in the rejection: “It must be a pretty good piece,” an assertion supported by the eight casts of it she has sold in bronze.

Ruth’s art and her belief that art belongs in the community are also intertwined. After moving away, she returned to the Peninsula with her husband and three children in 1976 and immediately recognized the area’s shortcomings—artists working in isolation and Stanford’s art collection one of the few cultural touch points between San Francisco and San Jose. On a mission to embed art into the local community, she founded the Twin Pines Art Center in Belmont in 1977, which evolved through various iterations and eventually incorporated into the Peninsula Museum of Art in 2004, occupying the Manor House in Belmont for eight years, before moving to Burlingame in 2013. In a testimony to Ruth’s perseverance, PMA will celebrate 15 years on the Peninsula with its Spring Gala fundraiser on April 13.

A $1 million donation by local philanthropist Charles Homer made PMA’s current facility possible, allowing for the conversion of an 18,000-square-foot building into exhibition, studio and classroom space. Throughout its history, the continued generosity of individuals and philanthropists has kept PMA afloat. “We have no paid staff and lots of wonderful volunteers,” Ruth shares. “What keeps us going is that it seems like every time we have a specific need, the right person walks in the door, so we operate by serendipity.”

However, PMA’s Burlingame locale requires paying commercial rent, which is a rarity in the museum world, and the facility lies directly in the path of development progress. These are problematic concerns. To guarantee long-term survival, Ruth envisions PMA moving into a converted public space, ideally a city, county or school district building. “Art is an advantage in any community,” Ruth says. “Communities deserve to have art, and artists deserve to have a supportive place to work.”

“Whap!” Another fragment of wood goes flying, as Ruth repositions her chisel and whacks it with her mallet. A tennis player and former competitive marathon runner, she is clearly tireless, which extends into her art and her work as a local arts advocate. Painted by one of PMA’s artists, Ruth’s office chair is embellished with the fitting motto: “If you rest, you rust.” Asked about the physical demands of sculpting, given that she’s now 85, Ruth retorts, “Do you want to feel my muscles?” A quick squeeze confirms that her biceps are indeed impressive. “I have plenty of endurance,” she adds. “I rarely feel tired.” Still, she acknowledges that she is planning for PMA’s future and is looking at candidates to eventually succeed her. “I don’t want it to fall apart when I do,” she says, drawing the mallet back again. “Whap!” It’s hard to imagine that ever happening.

Now, thanks to Ruth’s efforts, wander down the hallways and discover how other artists are channeling their creativity at PMA’s Museum Studios.

Studio 20

Greta Waterman 

Putting the finishing touches on The Pacific, Greta likes to weave colors throughout the canvas to add balance and composition. Originally from New York, Greta is currently working on a solo show, The Four Seasons, opening March 14 in the Museum Studios Gallery.

Studio 21

Myrna Wacknov

Seen here painting a recent boat excursion, Myrna’s greatest passion is painting faces she finds interesting with the focus on expression and character, rather than likeness. Recently, she has been investigating the self-portrait as a means of expression and likes the viewer to see the hand of the artist in her finished paintings.

Studio 28

Michael Kesselman 

Made from incongruous components, Michael’s sculptures portray common objects in unexpected forms. His current work is carved from the limb of a plum tree. It is the Greek god Apollo, leaning forward to grab the nymph Daphne, who is ironically saved at the last minute by being turned into a tree.

Studio 29

Neil Murphy

Neil pulls his inspiration from the exciting and timely nexus of art, science and technology. Neil is working on a piece in his ongoing series, Curious Maps of Impossible Places, which he describes as abstract maps with trails through the terrain of the absurd and wondrous.

Studio 32

Teresa Hsu   

Teresa is a watercolorist who loves studying the details in nature and reflecting them in her paintings. On a recent walk, she found a tiny feather on the ground and got the idea to combine her portraits of rocks and pebbles with an element of nature.

Studio 33

Barbara M. Berk 

Barbara works directly with metal, making bobbin lace with
stainless steel and phosphor bronze wire by hand. She then curves, loops, twists, interweaves and sews her flat “fabric” into hanging, wall-mounted and free-standing three-dimensional forms, like this sculpture that will hang from a gallery’s ceiling.

Like many people and plants on the Peninsula, Pacita Ikonomou is a transplant. Born and raised in Australia, Pacita moved with her husband and young daughters to Seattle in 1995. From Seattle, they moved to Nashville and then back to Australia, followed by a return to Nashville and then to Toronto with a stop in Pennsylvania before landing in Menlo Park in 2009. Since originally leaving Australia, Pacita has stayed in one location as short as nine months and as long as  seven years.

Pacita was particularly proud of her Pennsylvania garden, so she dug up and shipped many of her plants to her new home in California before she fully understood the East versus West Coast climate difference. The rhododendrons, hydrangeas and camellias took off right away but suffered a setback when the drought came and Pacita had to cut back on her watering. “That’s when I had a lightbulb moment,” Pacita recalls. “As much as I wanted to bring my whole Pennsylvania garden with me to California, I couldn’t. And not just because I couldn’t fit them in my suitcase.”

Pacita’s garden today reflects the diversity of her Greek-Filipino-Australian heritage, emphasizing plants from “summer-dry” regions (only 2% of the world’s land mass) that share California’s Mediterranean climate. This climate is typically characterized by short, mild, rainy winters (with rainfall varying wildly from year to year) and long, warm to hot, dry summers.

But Pacita’s real love is succulents—those distinctive, always eye-catching, and yes, increasingly trendy plants characterized by thick leaves and stems that can store a lot of water. Stemming from the Latin word sucus, meaning sap or juice, succulents range from familiar forms like cactus and jade to a myriad of monikers like “Silver Ruffles,” “Ox Tongue,” “Crown of Thorns,” “Pinwheel Desert Rose” and “Baby Toes.” Although her home and garden are full of succulents (most of which originally came from the four summer-dry areas around the world), Pacita is always looking for another unique color, shape or texture to add to her collection.  Road trips are plotted around out-of-the-way nurseries, and she continues to bring home plants in her suitcase. After one particularly memorable find, she flew home carrying a two-foot-tall “Sticks on Fire” succulent in her lap.

Pacita had just trained to be a Master Gardener in Pennsylvania before she moved west, so she was dismayed to learn that she would have to attend another 14-week program to be certified as a UCCE Master Gardener in California. “I thought I knew a lot about gardening,” Pacita says. “It turns out that the training in California is very different. There was nothing in my training in Pennsylvania about sustainability, water conservation, drought-tolerant plants or Integrated Pest Management. I also learned about how to select a site for a garden—the angle of the sun is different here and changes through the seasons. I have to move around my container succulents so that they achieve the optimum light and heat.”

According to Pacita, understanding your plant and its requirements is the key to successful gardening. “Right plant, right place,” she summarizes. “I bought my first succulent at Sierra Azul Nursery in Watsonville, brought it home and it soon died. I thought all succulents wanted full, hot sun and little to no water. You need to read plant labels and do your research for best success. If you give a plant what it needs, it will love you back.”

Touring Pacita’s garden, it’s easy to see how her love of traditional garden plants fueled her transition to succulents. “Echeverias look just like roses and come in many color variations,” she explains, pointing out color combinations in her garden ranging from green and green-blue to lavender and mauve. And, among the leaves, a mix of styles—from flat, traditional to striking waves—many spouting tips tinged with red, blue, pink and even lavender.

“There are thousands of varieties of succulents. I am always looking for unusual pots to complement my plants or other ways to display them,” Pacita says. She re-purposed a roof gutter into a succulent container and uses succulents to create holiday decorations. And while many succulents look good as solitary specimens in a pot, she also fashions larger containers with groups of succulents. “I follow the ‘thriller, filler and spiller’ formula for creating no-fail interesting combinations. Consider form, color, contrast, texture, focal point, repetition and balance,” she says, referencing the design principles that she learned at the Art Institute of Seattle. She also recommends combining plants with the same needs for sun, water and growing season, while factoring in their overall size at maturity. “My gardening goal is to enjoy gardening with less work, time, money, energy and water,” she says. Looking at Pacita’s wonderland of lush and visually captivating creations, she clearly has a master’s touch.

Pacita will be teaching Succulent Care and Design on February 10 at the San Mateo Arboretum. Visit sanmateoarboretum.org/classes–events.html to register for this free class.

pacita’s tips

Growing Succulents in Containers

+ Pots must have a drain hole and be slightly larger than the plant.

+  Use a premade succulent mix for soil or amend traditional
potting mix with 50% coarse pumice, crushed lava rock or perlite.

+ Most succulents need three to four hours of morning sun (not the hottest, sunniest place in your yard!).

+  Water in the morning when plants approach dryness (about once a week in the growing season).

+ Keep water off of leaves.

+ Many succulents can take some freezing temps; others must be placed in a protected place when temperatures drop.

+ Prune, divide and transplant during the growing season, typically February and March.

+  Feed with a half-strength balanced fertilizer (like 10-10-10) in spring and fall.

+ Repot every two to three years.

Creating Succulent Arrangements

+ First pick a “Thriller” – This is the “star” or leading role, the Audrey Hepburn, of your arrangement and should be large, tall or dramatic. It should be the first thing people notice in your arrangement.

+ Next, pick a “Filler” – These are the “supporting actors” and should fill in around the “Thriller.” Ideally, they should
complement the “Thriller” in color, texture or form. Plants
should be spaced to allow for good air circulation.

+ Finally, select a “Spiller” that spills over the side of the container like “String of Pearls,” “Donkey’s Tail” or a trailing sedum.

+ Look for a container that also complements the plants in
shape, color and size. Make sure that it is not too big or too small.

+ “Top Dress” your arrangement with colored rocks or marbles for a finished look.

When a young couple met with Menlo Park architect Ana Williamson about their new home, she knew the project was going to be a challenge. “It was a very tight lot with a lot of constraints,” the Columbian-born architect explains. While not having a lot of space is a common problem in Peninsula real estate, Ana and her team were determined to use the constraints of the project to push their own creativity.

Three years later, the finished home is known as The MOTO House. The homeowner’s vision was for a modern, private, light-filled home that would require as little maintenance as possible. The homeowners work as engineers in tech and appreciate the marriage of design and functionality. In their new home, they were looking for an intimacy reflecting their interest in small social gatherings but with durability to keep up with their active lifestyles.

Since the house sits on a corner, ensuring privacy was a concern. However, Ana’s clients also wanted to let in as much daylight as possible, a goal that can run counter to privacy. To achieve both, Ana and her studio created a courtyard concept with high clerestory windows along the street. With the glass near the roofline and above eye level, this type of window let in plenty of light without sacrificing privacy. The small, rear courtyard is surrounded by large glass doors and windows, filling the interior spaces with light and allowing activities to easily flow from the main interior living space. The courtyard is an active entertaining space with a trellised seating area and a pizza oven.

A favorite pastime of the clients is motorcycle riding and racing, hence the project’s name. This hobby meant that Ana had to create sufficient parking space for two cars, motorcycles, a trailer and a workshop with storage for tools. Although they love their bikes, the clients also didn’t want the garage to be the primary experience or face of the home to someone walking by on the street.

In the end, Ana designed a garage that is stepped back from the street and includes a hydraulic lift for the motorcycles. The lift can transport the bikes downstairs, where a workshop to repair and store the bikes is located in the basement. Material choices were driven by the clients’ request that the house require little to no maintenance or upkeep. A palette of raw concrete with accents of corrugated metal and raw steel was integral to both the interior and exterior of the home. The clients love color, so the home features punches of color that work with the industrial materials and have some similarity to the bold color of the motorcycles.

Ana describes the process of working on The MOTO House as her favorite type of project. “The owners really knew what they wanted in a house,” she says. “We enjoy working with clients who are looking to push the envelope a little bit. They were a good example of a client that collaborates with us.” For Ana, the final style of a project is much less important than a good working relationship. “It doesn’t matter if it’s Mediterranean, Craftsman, a bungalow—it just has to be good design.”

Ana and her staff of eight can be working on up to 20 projects at a time, all in various stages of completion. As she moves into almost her 25^th year as the principal architect of the firm, Ana sees her role as being a design director as well as mentoring the rest of the staff.

Throughout her career, Ana has been surprised at how little most people know about the job of an architect. Converting a sketch on a drafting board into a building where people live is a huge endeavor, and it requires a unique set of skills. While the job is certainly math-heavy and fairly technical, Ana reaches for an artistic comparison when trying to explain the process of bringing a project like The MOTO house to completion. “It’s like being an orchestra director. And then you make music together with all these players.”

awarchitect.com

A collage is defined as a piece of art created by sticking various different materials or images, such as photographs, onto a backing. This technically applies to        Patricia McClung’s work but doesn’t come close to doing it justice. Working in her Portola Valley studio, using digital photography and online photo editing tools, Patricia weaves and layers images and fragments together to “recreate a place, experience or feeling that cannot be captured in a single photograph.”

Before embarking on what she calls her “encore” career, Patricia worked as an academic librarian, building and preserving large research collections. In that capacity she was a bibliographer, a writer, an editor and a project manager. Always drawn to layering things—clothes, quilts, silkscreen prints and pictures—Patricia’s entry into fine art photography dates to a 2004 digital photography class at Foothill College. For one of her night class assignments, she created her first digital collage of a street scene that included a pedestrian, a cyclist and yellow taxi cabs, layered together in repeating colors, patterns and images. Her teacher’s response was a clear validation that she might be onto something: “Can you make more of those?” he asked.

In 2006, Patricia won first place in the “Manipulated Images” category of the Palo Alto Weekly Annual Photo Contest; the next year her work was featured in a Stanford art show. She has created collages of both iconic and everyday places, such as the Brooklyn Bridge and the Eiffel Tower, always offering a fresh take or unconventional view. For example, in her Stanford piece titled Stanford Arches 2, Hoover Tower takes a lower-than-usual profile while Stanford’s Memorial Church, lush oval green lawn and repeating architectural arches are prominently featured. Like many of Patricia’s works, this image can be found hanging in the lobbies of Bay Area companies and VC firms, providing a welcome distraction for waiting visitors.

One such visitor, Aditya, became captivated by Patricia’s work on display at a local private equity firm. With some effort, he tracked down her email address and sent her what she calls “the equivalent of a love note.” He and his then fiancée, Irene, had just built a home in San Jose and he wondered if she could create something for them. Patricia was initially hesitant—commissioned work can be good news and bad news—it’s nice to have a sale commitment, but there’s always a risk that the buyer won’t be completely satisfied, given the subjective nature of art. In the end, she was swayed by his entreaty to try and capture “a story about creativity and evolution, of hope and rebirth—of Irene and I coming together.”

Patricia took photos of their house, the garden and the surrounding downtown of San Jose. She captured photography over the course of a year, in all seasons, at all times of day and in every kind of weather. For every art piece she works on, she tries to find a way to make it coalesce or hang together. With this project, the breakthrough came with her decision to use one of the architectural drawings as the underpinning image. Her ultimate creation, Ode to the Odd Shaped Lot, is a singular tribute to Aditya and Irene’s shared history, now hanging prominently on one of the few walls in their modern glass and steel home.

Patricia also creates series of striking diptychs—two partial images juxtaposed on one panel, much like a simple collage. In one series of six diptych panels, meant to be displayed together, Patricia compiled images of Venice Beach. There are bright turquoise colors and a floating clown, contrasted with classic boardwalk shots and “I Heart Venice” writing—split apart and then recombined, creating a sense of dramatic color and movement in an otherwise static piece. The beauty is in the way she splits and weaves images together, an approach she has applied to several cities, including Seattle and New York.

Most of her early collages and diptychs have clear lines between the images. In some of her recent work, such as a Lisbon creation titled Since Yesterday the City Has Changed, many of the lines seem to blur and fade. It’s a technique resulting from preference, skill and sheer numbers—this piece was created from hundreds of fragments sourced from 60 different photos. Since Lisbon was literally built up from rubble after a devastating earthquake in 1755, there is rubble in much of the photo, but it barely catches your eye since it is overshadowed by the brighter Mediterranean blues and reds, and the black and white tiles. At first glance, it looks like it is just a photo of Lisbon, but then the repetition of people and cars make it clear that this is a complex collage.

It takes Patricia a long time to make these pieces, and they go through countless iterations. In some cases, the work stops and starts over a number of years. With Seattle Views, she started by making a digital collage with photos taken from the Space Needle; then she made another one using pictures from all over the city and a ferry ride to Bainbridge Island. She combined those two into one, but something was still missing. This draft Seattle work sat in a flat file drawer for two years. It wasn’t until she was lucky enough to be flying low over the city in a seaplane and could take some clear aerial photos of Mount Rainier that she knew she had what she needed to complete the work.

Patricia’s creativity is not limited to her own solo work. She and eight colleagues have a website that is an online “artistic conversation among nine friends.” Patricia posts one of her photos every nine days, in response to the previous eight posts by her friends. Sometimes she is responding to what someone has just “said” in their photo, or, just like a real conversation, sometimes she shifts the topic to something else.

What’s next for Patricia? Akin to her “new” style of work, perhaps it will be a San Francisco piece. She already has too many images to count—iconic photos including Coit Tower and Market Street—as well as everyday images, like ones seen in Waiting for the Train (San Francisco). She has yet to find the right “thread to pull” to create a San Francisco series, but it’s definitely on her list. In the meantime, Patricia’s work and ongoing photo “conversation” can be viewed at patriciamcclung.com and F8dontwait.com

This light-strewn image of geometric patterns and angles is actually the four-story view looking up from the lobby of the Science and User Support Building (SUSB) at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC). This Perfect Shot was captured by photographer Irene Searles with the SLAC’s site plan visible at the bottom. SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory offers free twice-monthly public tours, typically including a visit to the lab’s two-mile-long linear accelerator, which powers the world’s brightest X-ray source.

Image courtesy of Irene Searles

Words by Sheri Baer

If you’re taking a walk with Irene Searles, don’t expect to get your heart rate up—but lots of other things will likely happen. Just as you’re starting to set a pace, Irene spots a mature, graceful woman passing in the other direction. “Wow, you are in amazing shape,” Irene calls out, flashing a smile that lights up her eyes. Before you know it, you’re hearing the fascinating life story of a former professional ballet dancer, who appears sincerely flattered by Irene’s subsequent request, “May I take your photo?” After that interlude wraps up, you’re back on the path, starting to hit a clip, when Irene suddenly drops out of sight. A quick glance around and then down, and there she is—crouched low and framing her lens on a cluster of whimsical-shaped mushrooms growing at the base of a tree. Irene is that person who stops to look, lingers to talk, asks the question and notices the subtlety. So yes, come prepared to constantly pause your Fitbit—you may not burn as many calories, but spending time with Irene will fire up your sense of wonder instead.

“I think the greatest joy I have about photography is that it’s taught me to look at my entire world differently. I see shapes and colors and sizes and patterns, and even if I don’t have a camera in my hand, I walk by something and I take a photo in my head,” Irene says. “Sometimes it’s a reflection or a shadow or I see a person who has a unique spirit, and so I’m constantly clicking in my mind, even when I don’t have a camera.”

Hearing Irene talk about her passion for photography, it’s surprising that her journey to answer her creative calling was anything but a straight shot. Raised in Darien, Connecticut, Irene majored in English literature at St. Lawrence University in New York before attending a commercial bank training program in Atlanta. She spent 20 years in banking—two separate 10-year stints, broken up by a degree in culinary arts and a brief run as a pastry chef. As for photography during this stage of her life? “I’ve been a world traveler since I was 19, trying to take at least one trip a year. I used a film camera and mostly took travel photos. That was pretty much the extent of my photography until I had kids.”

During her second 10-year stretch in banking, Irene got married, opened the Silicon Valley office of Citigroup’s private bank in Palo Alto and had a son and daughter with her biochemist husband, Malcolm McGinnis. Taking an interest in family photography, she started auctioning off her services to support school and nonprofit fundraising events. In August 2009, Irene and Malcolm moved their family to Paris for what was supposed to be a year-long adventure, but the trip was abruptly cut short. “Malcolm was diagnosed with a rare cancer in October and we moved back right away,” Irene relates. “That’s when I started really getting involved with photography because it was my outlet as we were managing Malcolm’s health needs and raising two kids.”

Malcolm survived his first diagnosis of cancer, and with a hyper-awareness of the tenuous nature of life, the couple zeroed in on family time and pursuing their personal aspirations. For Irene, that translated into intensive photography and printing workshops and Stanford continuing education courses—with topics ranging from street photography to documentary and portraiture. She started working for the hyperlocal blog, InMenlo.com, contributing one to two photo shoots a week. “It was a great chance to hone my skills doing environmental portraits,” Irene says. “In the best of all worlds, it’s capturing actual activity and engagement but sometimes that’s tricky, if they’re a poet, for example, and then you have to capture more of the spirit of who they are.”

In the meantime, Malcolm was realizing his own dream of opening a brewery, and Irene applied her photography skills to documenting the process. “I ended up taking about 3,200 photos. We told a story starting with the blueprints, to the partners having their first pint of beer when Freewheel Brewing Company opened in 2012,” Irene recalls. She culled her work down to 33 photos for an initial exhibit, before selecting about a dozen that remain on permanent display at the Redwood City brewery.

With the brewery up and running, Irene continued to hone her craft—embarking on a photo excursion to Myanmar, focusing her lens on Buddhist monks and fishermen casting their nets, and then a documentary workshop in Darjeeling, India, where she captured every aspect of making tea. ”I really learned about storytelling and creating a body of work,” she says. However, by the end of 2015, Malcolm was showing renewed signs of illness. He was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and passed away in September 2016. “The years we had after Malcolm’s first diagnosis were so incredibly precious,” Irene reflects. “The loss is indescribable, but I’m so grateful that we had the time that we did.”

After pausing her photography during Malcolm’s illness, Irene discovered solace in it after his death. “Part of my healing has been to continue to follow my passion,” she says. When her youngest child left for college in August 2017, Irene turned her lens on new destinations including Mexico, Cuba, Italy, France and England. She took on nonprofit work for organizations like LifeMoves, All Students Matter and Kepler’s Literary Organization, photographing subjects like Al Gore, Margaret Atwood, George Shultz and Jackie Speier. And, in 2018, Irene successfully executed her first 365 photography project, posting one black and white square iPhone image per day in a visual diary of her life—ranging from a woman taking a break with her dog to bathroom fixtures: “I was in my shower and I saw the two different shower heads on the wall and it looked like one was bashfully turned away from the other. You never know where you’re going to see images.” Her 365 project caught the eye of Peninsula news outlet The Six Fifty, which named Irene one of “11 local Silicon Valley photographers you should follow on Instagram right now.”

Like a photographic image that develops over time, Irene’s life continues to unfold. She connected with a widower, David Brett, who had experienced the same tragedy of a long-term illness with his spouse. A chat over coffee led to a deeper friendship and realization that they shared more than tragic loss in common. “We are getting married later this year,” she shares. “We will be carrying all the chapters from before into building new chapters with our families together.”    

Irene’s photography will be getting even more exposure in 2019. She launched a new 365 project in color on January 1, and when an opportunity for a new photography director opened at PUNCH Magazine, Irene’s ability to storytell through her camera secured her the job. “Photography allows me the opportunity to see what’s inside of a person and what a person thinks and how they feel, and I’m thrilled to be able to share the view that I have with PUNCH readers.”

Follow Irene’s Instagram posts @irenesearlesphotography 

As the owner of Palo Alto’s Topiary Design, Betty Lee says her best day is when she’s able to solve a design challenge—especially something unusual like how to showcase a pair of bright red chairs. Her own garden is whimsical, including animals made from stone and plants, placed visibly, and also hidden, like treasures to find. At first glance, a garden might be perceived as pleasing, inviting or simply beautiful. But the design behind it is what delivers the experience—it’s the paths, walls, water features, decks and furniture, all carefully interwoven.

And while Betty has personally chosen a whimsical English garden, she is equally capable of creating a traditional garden, with garden “rooms,” perfectly-manicured lawns and neatly trimmed hedges, or a contemporary garden that uses clean lines in both the plants and the stone and wood that might create the hard landscaping. Specializing in both interiors and exteriors, she works hand-in-hand with clients who want to be involved and is equally comfortable with a hands-off client who trusts her to execute their vision.

Born in Taiwan, Betty moved to the Bay Area when she was 12 and stayed here until she went east for college. While at Princeton, she did not yet delve into design, although she did take one garden design class that she loved. She also met her husband there, and when they graduated they moved to New York City, where Betty worked as a management consultant for Booz Allen. The garden design class became a faint memory. Ten years later, a work opportunity for her husband, Peter Fortenbaugh, lured them back to the Bay Area. Once here, Betty tapped into her creative side and started her design business.

Her projects cover a wide range—from an expansive home on a multi-acre property to a small apartment balcony. She says designing isn’t really that different from her job as a management consultant—her work is project-based, with new people and a new location every time. Like management consulting, there is research, planning and implementation. What’s different is the creativity. In the words of one client, “Betty paints with plants.”

What does she love about gardens? They can be beautiful and practical. Betty will make sure that the must-have hot tub requested by teenagers will also be aesthetically pleasing—a raised pond with a fountain serving as the focal point. Beauty is not the only criteria, but it is never sacrificed.

Garden furniture offers another opportunity to create something beautiful and practical—whether it’s a white stone lounge or green metal rocking chairs. And it’s not just the furniture that draws the eye, but the path that leads the way, such as the round stones seemingly in a haphazard polka-dot pattern, drawing you to the rocking chair respite. And the material of the furniture fits right into the design—from the stark white stone to the grey weathered wood.

Having raised her own family, Betty knows how important it is to understand how a client plans to use their garden, whether it’s to entertain, as a play space for children or both. What life stage is a family in—toddlers, teens or no children at all? She carefully considers the budget, including the upfront and annual costs such as maintenance and the water bill. Betty factors in location-specific requirements such as “water-wise” plantings and deer-tolerant plants. She has a bias to build in flexibility; aware that a family’s needs might change over time, she accommodates a sunken trampoline knowing that one day it might be a pond.

Betty’s own traditional English garden has been featured in Gamble Garden’s Spring Tour—an annual event showcasing a small selection of noteworthy local gardens. A sign of her success? Most of her clients come from word-of-mouth, as a growing number of Peninsula properties get touched by Betty’s paintbrush.

Her January advice? With many plants in dormant stage, it’s the perfect time to look at the skeleton of the garden and make plans for the other seasons. And one little-known fact is that our climate allows for the late planting of bulbs. So, if you were too busy over the holidays and think you missed your chance to plant a few daffodils or tulips, think again. Betty knows first-hand that you can still plant them now and enjoy them in the spring.