Dear friends & family who are joining in for the “Crossing Patagonia Expedition” next month, & to those of you who are interested in what we are attempting to do there, I invite you to go to your computer & Google: 180 South ...to see this pretty well made, fast-paced, rockin’ soundtrack film featuring Yvon Chouinard, founder of the clothing company Patagonia, & friends adventuring around the wild south of Chile. It got me excited & reminded me of the very real potential we will have to bring back some great footage & hammer it into a truly worthwhile film that we can hopefully all be proud to have been a part of…
Where the Strait of Juan de Fuca empties into the Pacific Ocean
——————
Powers returns to the unusual home he almost-single-handedly built on the shores of Half Moon Bay. In the 1970s, former Coastsider John Essa (center) posed with friends in front of Michael’s creation.
a most remarkable month of sea kayaking, mountain climbing & photo/filmmaking adventures in the beautiful Land of the Vikings – a tough, thankless job, but somebody’s gotta do it.
PS: The reindeer antler you see above in the Svalbard Islands, 500 hundred miles south of the North Pole… miraculously made it home from the Arctic & through U. S. Customs to now proudly rein in its rightful place, upon the great Viking Stone here on Miramar Beach.
To enlarge the beautiful images, click on the photo! Do it!!
(Image: The Michael Powers homestead in Miramar Beach, with the huge redwood log in front. Photo by Michael Powers.)
In the late 1970s, Princeton shipbuilder Manuel Senteio, arrived at Miramar Beach, driving his crane to move a 20-foot-long, 3000 pound redwood log to photographer/sculptor Michael Power’s healing center, then in development.
The log had washed up on the nearby beach, and when Senteio saw how huge it was, and what his crane would have to lift, he exclaimed: “It’s big!”
Yes, it was VERY BIG AND VERY HEAVY–heavier still, from the sea water that had soaked into its pores.
Could Senteio’s crane lift the thing? To fulfill Powers’ plan, which was to carve the log, it had to stand upright. Could this be accomplished? Nobody knew for certain.
If all else failed, a crowd of Powers’ artist friends were on hand to help “psychically” raise the mammoth totem pole; its destination the peaceful inner garden. Half Moon Bay City Manager Fred Mortensen, a neighbor of Michael Powers, was there to lend more practical expertise.
There were many oohs and ahhs and oh no’s. This was the most dramatic event to occur in Miramar Beach for many moons.
But the crane lifter, Manuel Senteio was a professional: Can you hear the great burst of applause and laughter when the redwood log found its final resting place?
“Within this tremendous mass of redwood brought here to Miramar Beach by the sea,” said Michael Powers, “I intend to carve the forms of a man, a woman, and a child, a trilogy. It will probably take a year to complete but hopefully it will become a source of beauty and inspiration for everyone who comes to see it.”197
Burt and I arrived at Michael Power’s unique homestead in Miramar Beach about 2:30 in the afternoon. We missed the big kayaking event but here’s what we did see:
Parked at the end of the road was this really cool “ride.” Nobody knew what the make was. I suspect the South City Blues Band drove over the hill in it.
We saw the international flags and a kayak parked by the side of the road. The sound of the South City Blues Band drew us into the courtyard of Michael’s place, first walking through an unusual walkway studded with enormous rocks and carved, the work done by Michael & his friends. And however “down” Burt and I might have been before we arrived–that feeling was wiped away as we transformed to another time and place. Pete Douglas, of the Bach Society down the road, burned up the dance floor with Miramar chanteuse Susan Pate.
But the star was Michael Powers himself; scroll down to watch the “proverbially wild man.” I also posted a little quicktime video below.
Below, Miramar Beach photographer and “Tsunami Ranger” Michael Powers and wife Nani show us their high energy. They also had to dance because it was a freezing cold day!
Dear family & friends, Ocean Studio Alliance & Miramar Beach Kayak Club members,
I got up this morning hoping to send a message of hope & peace to all of you as the new year begins, & this wonderful image that my old amigo Bob Stender captured as we wandered together through a Guatemalan mercado years ago, just kept calling out to me.
Yesterday my old friend Chris Hedge, a very gifted & successful composer (who had his original Magic Shop music studio in the A-frame), his filmmaking partner Scott Dewar & I worked out a deal to begin sharing the new studio out front. If you go to christopherhedge.com & click on the ABOUT link, you will find a great little web show (with Chris’s great music, of course) that further inspires me to attempt the same for all of us in the OS Alliance!
Needless to say, I’m totally stoked to have Chris & Scott here in the new OS studio. For the last Olympics, they created a big production that ran for a month at Torino, where they had musicians from all over the world performing together – & now they are working on an even bigger deal for the 2008 Olympics in Bejing, China – who knows, maybe we can join them there!
On that exciting note, let us approach 2008 with passion & joie de vivre. May the same peace & courage that shines in the faces of Bob’s Guatemalan niñas, also shine forth brilliantly from yours.
Dear friends & family who are joining in for the “Crossing Patagonia Expedition” next month, & to those of you who are interested in what we are attempting to do there, I invite you to go to your computer & Google: 180 South ...to see this pretty well made, fast-paced, rockin’ soundtrack film featuring Yvon Chouinard, founder of the clothing company Patagonia, & friends adventuring around the wild south of Chile. It got me excited & reminded me of the very real potential we will have to bring back some great footage & hammer it into a truly worthwhile film that we can hopefully all be proud to have been a part of…
