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John Sage / FinchHaven Photography Archives

 · the Nineteen-Eighties: Japan:
a trip to Japan, April, 1984 · 

And, in no particular order, except the most recent additions are at the top...

 ·  the Nineteen-Seventies: California:
Mexican Mask Folk Art, the Art Galleries,
California State University at Long Beach, early 1970s
 · 

 ·  the Nineteen-Seventies: California:
the Foundry, the Sculpture Department, California State University at Long Beach, March 1971 · 

 ·  the Nineteen-Seventies: California:
Epoch Ceramics Inc, Compton California, 1974 · 

 ·  the Nineteen-Seventies: California:
 · the High Fire Works studio, Long Beach California, early 1970s · 

 ·  the Nineteen-Eighties: Washington:
 · the Mount Rainier Ice Caves, Washington fall 1980 · 

the Nineteen-Eighties: Washington:
 · Purse-seining for Salmon off Glen Acres, Vashon Island Washington fall 1980 · 

the Nineteen-Seventies: California:
 · Surfing at the Huntington Beach Pier, California early 1970s · 

 ·  the Nineteen-Seventies: Washington:
 · Seattle Mercedes-Benz Club Concours at Discovery Park, fall 1975 · 

 ·  the Nineteen-Seventies: California:
 · Trans-Am Race at Laguna Seca Raceway, California October 1971 · 

the Nineteen-Seventies: California:
 · Los Angeles Auto Show 1971 · 

the Nineteen-Seventies: Washington:
 · Blanchard Wood Boat Repair, Seattle Washington June 1977 · 

the Nineteen-Seventies: Washington:
 · Climbing Mount Olympus, Washington September 1975 · 

the Nineteen-Seventies: California:
 · Joshua Tree National Monument, California April 1971 · 

the Nineteen-Seventies: California:
 · Wild Oats, Huntington Beach California 1973 · 

the Nineteen-Seventies: Washington:
 · Aurora Bridge Scenes, Seattle Washington June 1977 · 

the Nineteen Seventies: California:
 · Mount San Gorgonio California, October 1972 · 

the Nineteen-Seventies: Washington:
 · United States Bicentennial Celebration, Granite Falls Washington 1976

Much, much more to come, as I get them done...

Go to the Nineteen-Seventies

Go to the Nineteen-Seventies: California

Go to the Nineteen-Seventies: Washington


Go to the Nineteen-Eighties

Go to the Nineteen-Eighties: Japan: a trip to Japan, April, 1984

Go to the Nineteen-Eighties: Washington


Executive summary: in the winter of 2014-2015 I decided it was time to start scanning a lifetime of Ektachrome slides and conventional prints and put them up on FinchHaven.com for posterity. So here we are...


My father was a reporter-photographer for the Pasadena, California Star-News in the early 1950's -- one of those guys with a Speed Graphic 4x5 with the big chrome flash reflector and the long chrome tube full of D-cell batteries -- so there were always cameras around the house when I was a kid.

Can't really remember what my "first" camera was. Have some vague memories of a Kodak Brownie, but I'm pretty sure I got to use one of my father's Kodak 35mm cameras pretty early on, and probably "inherited" it at some point. And I have clear memories of a twin-lens reflex camera also. Maybe a Rolle, who knows...

In high school I was an art major and my homeroom was the photo lab; I still have a couple black-and-white 8x10s from that era but most everything is gone. One thing I really miss losing: in my Senior year (1965) I did a black-and-white photo essay of gang graffiti on the turf boundary between San Pedro, California (the Port of Los Angeles, where I grew up and went to high school) and Wilmington ("Wilmas" as it was known -- and still is known -- in *cough* certain circles).

In college at Cal State Long Beach during the late 1960's I did work-study on the Art Gallery crew and took over all the exhibition photography and promotional graphic design in my Senior year, using the Gallery's 35mm Pentax Spotmatic. I continued doing photography (and exhibition installation, and publicty) as a Graduate Assistant in the Art Gallery while doing graduate work in the Ceramics Department, which is where I got turned on to pottery, which is how I became a potter. And the rest of *that* story, as they say, is history...

But all the while I was doing pottery (starting about 1970 through 1985-86) I was doing photography of exhibitions and street fairs and for jurying submissions and catalogs.

And shooting tons of photos about everything else I was doing: visiting southern Oregon and Washington in the early 1970's, moving to Seattle in 1975, building a studio in south Seattle, moving to Vashon in 1979. Six weeks on a trip to Japan in the early 1980's. A kid. Fifteen years commuting off the Island to work 60 hours a week. Life, basically...

I went 100% digital in about 1998, first with a Sony Mavica and then with a Canon Powershot Pro 90 IS, and that is yet another story...


I'm offering these pretty much as I find them. Often the slides themselves are undated and unnumbered, so the only thing for me to go on is what's written on the box the slides were stored in. Which sometimes isn't much help, thirty years later. If I can, I offer a little "background" caption as to where these were taken, and what is going on.


Tech: scanned using an Epson Perfection V800 Photo scanner at 4800 dpi in 24-bit color and saved as tiffs. Most 35mm slides ended up about 6000x4000 pixels in size. A little post-processing was done in Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 5.7.1, mostly to fill out the exposure, pull up the black levels, do a rare bit of white balance adjustment, but mainly to organize the images and export jpegs for web use. I was *not* obsessive compulsive about dust removal: the slides got a brushing from a wide soft natural bristle brush, front and back, once they were in the slide holder, and maybe I did some Spot Removal in Lightroom...


Archive City...

This is one of two boxes of 35mm slides and 4x6 prints I've saved since the late 1960's. It measures 3.375 cubic feet in volume. It was completely full, as was the other box. I have my work cut out for me.

Get the slides out of the box, see what they are, organize on the cute little LED light table, load the slide holder, dust 'em off, scan 'em, name 'em, save 'em somewhere. Lather, rinse, repeat... Pull the scanned slides into Adobe Lightroom and do a little post-processing to get them ready to put on display.


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Going to keep the Japan Trip at the top, always, because it's pretty unique...

Japan Trip, April 1984

Notes:

Went to Japan on the trip of a lifetime with no camera. No, really. First full day in Tokyo we went to Akihabara and -- after quite a bit of shopping -- bought a camera (Pentax ME Super) and two lenses (Sigma 28-85mm f3.5 zoom, and a Sigma 70-210mm f4.5 zoom) all of which I still have. And off we went...

These are all Ektachrome slides, processed after we returned to the US. Each slide was numbered, dated and identified as to the subject which somehow I managed to remember pretty accurately. When doing these archives I did a Google search for most of the place name identifiers; any part of the captions within parentheses is the current common name for the subject/location as I recorded it in 1984.

The slides were scanned using an Epson Perfection 8000 photo scanner pretty much manually: I cropped around each slide in the 12-slide holder individually, and save them all as tiffs at 4800 ppi. Postprocessing was done in Adobe Lightroom Creative Cloud 2015. The final images were exported out of Lightroom as 800 pixel longest edge jpegs at 144 ppi.

They came out OK, for the most part...

The basic itinerary:

We flew into Tokyo with two night's hotel reservations coming in, airline reservations from Tokyo to Kushiro, Hokkaido, and three- or four-week rail passes. And hotel reservations back in Tokyo for two nights before the fight home to Seattle. And a pretty good idea of what we wanted to see, depending on how far we got and how fast the time went.

So basically: fly in to Narita airport, bus to Tokyo, fly to Kushiro, rent a car (!) and drive north to Akan, drive back to Kushiro, train to Sapporo, train to Hakkodate, ferry to Aomori, train to Utsunonmiya, Nikko, Mashiko, train from Utsunomya to Nagoya, train to Kyoto, train to Bizen, train to Okayama, ferry to Takamatsu, train to Kyoto, train to Tokyo, and home...

Set one: Tokyo to Hokkaido, Japan Trip, April 1984

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Ginza, Tokyo, Japan

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Tsuru Koen (Kushiro Shitsugen National Park), Hokkaido, Japan

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Tsuru Koen (Kushiro Shitsugen National Park), Hokkaido, Japan

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Akan (Akan National Park), Hokkaido, Japan

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Train, Sapporo to Hakodate, Hokkaido, Japan

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Under way, Hakodate - Aomori Ferry, Japan

Set one: Tokyo to Hokkaido, Japan Trip, April 1984

Set two: Aomori, Utsunomiya, Nikko, Mashiko, Japan Trip, April 1984

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Looking south to Honshu, Hakodate - Aomori Ferry, Japan

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Hotel Sun Route, Aomori, Honshu, Japan

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Kobayashi Antiques, Nikko, Honshu, Japan

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Nikko Shrines, Nikko, Honshu, Japan

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Pottery kiln number 2, Mashiko, Honshu, Japan

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Pottery shop number 2, Mashiko, Honshu, Japan

Set two: Aomori, Utsunomiya, Nikko, Mashiko, Japan Trip, April 1984

Set three: Mashiko, Nagoya, Kyoto, Japan Trip April 1984

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Clay works, Mashiko, Honshu, Japan

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Mashiko Pottery Museum (Mashiko Sankokan), Mashiko, Honshu, Japan

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Shinkansen, Nagoya Station, Nagoya, Honshu, Japan

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Noritake Showroom, Nagoya, Honshu, Japan

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Toji Temple Sale, Toji Temple, Kyoto, Honshu, Japan

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Toji Temple, Kyoto, Honshu, Japan

Set three: Mashiko, Nagoya, Kyoto, Japan Trip April 1984

Set four: Kyoto, Japan Trip April 1984

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Three Sisters Ryokan, Kyoto, Honshu, Japan

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Kimono - worn once, Kyoto Handicraft Center, Kyoto, Honshu, Japan

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Heian Shrine, Kyoto, Honshu, Japan

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Heian Shrine gardens, Kyoto, Honshu, Japan

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Kiyomizu yaki, Craft Walk, Kyoto, Honshu, Japan

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Kawaii Kanjiro House, Kyoto, Honshu, Japan

Set four: Kyoto, Japan Trip April 1984

Set five: Ryoanji Temple, Kyoto to Bizen, Japan Trip April 1984

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Ryoanji Temple, Kyoto, Honshu, Japan

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Ryoanji Temple, Kyoto, Honshu, Japan

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Ryoanji Temple, Kyoto, Honshu, Japan

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Bizen Pottery Museum (Bizen Pottery Traditional and Contemporary Art Museum), Bizen, Honshu, Japan

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Bizen Pottery Museum (Bizen Pottery Traditional and Contemporary Art Museum), Bizen, Honshu, Japan

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Bizen pottery shop number 1, Bizen, Honshu, Japan

Set five: Ryoanji Temple, Kyoto to Bizen, Japan Trip April 1984

Set six: Bizen, Okayama, Takamatsu, Japan Trip April 1984

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Pottery kiln number 1, Bizen, Honshu, Japan

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Abandoned climbing kiln, Pottery kiln number 1, Bizen, Honshu, Japan

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Shinkansen passing Okayama at night, Okayama, Honshu, Japan

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Shikoku ferry, Tamano, Honshu to Takamatsu, Shikoku, Japan

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Ritsurin Gardens (Ritsurin Koen), Takamatsu, Shikoku, Japan

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Ritsurin Art Gallery (Ritsurin Koen), Takamatsu, Shikoku, Japan

Set six: Bizen, Okayama, Takamatsu, Japan Trip April 1984

Set seven: Takamatsu, Kyoto, Tokyo, Vashon Island, Japan Trip April 1984

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Takamatsu Castle (Tamamo Castle), Takamatsu, Shikoku, Japan

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Taxicab, Kyoto, Honshu, Japan

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Mount Fuji from the Shinkansen, Kyoto to Tokyo, Honshu, Japan

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Yamamoto Baiitsu painted screen, 18th century Japan, Idemitsu Museum (Idemitsu Museum of Arts), Tokyo, Honshu, Japan

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Matsuya Ginza department store, Ginza, Tokyo, Japan

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Glen Acres, Vashon Island, Washington

Set seven: Takamatsu, Kyoto, Tokyo, Vashon Island, Japan Trip April 1984

Japan Trip, April 1984


Here's the rest of what I've got done so far, newest at the very top...


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Mexican Mask Folk Art, the Art Galleries,
California State University at Long Beach, Long Beach CA, early 1970s

Background (such as I recall it): Undated and unnumbered black-and-white positive slides. No idea what film was originally used; Google suggests that Kodak did have a black-and-white positive slide film maybe into the 1970's. These look like I may have been shooting either archival photos or photos for a show publication, but still I have no idea why I would be shooting black-and-white since all these masks are beautifully colored:

Masks on display at the Museum of Popular Art in Mexico City

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Photo, Wikipedia: File:MaskDisplayMaPHidalgo.JPG · Source article: Mexican mask-folk art

Also puzzling is the fact that these are my slides; when I worked on the Gallery Crew and then later as a Graduate Assistant in the Art Galleries I did all the photography for, and of, all the shows but all those slides would have stayed behind in the Art Gallery archives when I finally left Long Beach State for good in maybe 1973.

This Mexican Mask show was one of the major shows at the Cal State Long Beach Art Galleries the year it happened, as I recall, but after that I can't remember much about it. I do seem to recall that the masks were all from a private, local Southern California collection.

The first photos show the masks being curated and cataloged by Don Dame, PhD, who (with Carl Day) was one of the two Gallery Directors. A wonderful, wonderful man to work for...

Set one: Mexican Mask Folk Art, the Art Galleries, California State University at Long Beach, early 1970s

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Set one: Mexican Mask Folk Art, the Art Galleries, California State University at Long Beach, early 1970s

Set two: Mexican Mask Folk Art, the Art Galleries, California State University at Long Beach, early 1970s

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Set two: Mexican Mask Folk Art, the Art Galleries, California State University at Long Beach, early 1970s

Set three: Mexican Mask Folk Art, the Art Galleries, California State University at Long Beach, early 1970s

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Set three: Mexican Mask Folk Art, the Art Galleries, California State University at Long Beach, early 1970s

Mexican Mask Folk Art, the Art Galleries,
California State University at Long Beach, Long Beach CA, early 1970s


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the Foundry, the Sculpture Department,
California State University at Long Beach
,
March 1971

Background (such as I recall it): I was an art major in high school and started at California State College (to become California State University) at Long Beach as a art major. After all the prerequisite drawing, painting and design classes I settled into the Sculpture Department and stayed there. Something about working in three dimensions, and all the technical processes of it were very attractive.

Did a lot of stone-carving, but even more lost-wax bronze casting.

The lost wax process at the scale of largish sculptures is fascinating: make the original sculpture in microcrystaline wax, attach sprues and vents to get the molten bronze in and the gasses out, invest the wax original and its sprues and vents in a cylindrical flask, fire the flask upside down in a kiln to harden/strengthen the investment and drain off/burn off the wax, pull the still-hot flask out of the burnout kiln and pack it in sand while bronze ingots and bronze scrap are in the crucible in a furnace being melted, pull the crucible out, pour the sculpture. The next day when it's completely cooled break the investment off the poured sculpture, hacksaw off the sprues and vents, and begin the final chasing and finishing on the newly-cast sculpture.

Process. Lots of it, with lots of steps, and lots of heat and fire and smoke along the way. What's not to love?

By my senior year I was actually working on the foundry crew. The very first time I worked one ot the pours I was on one end of the two-handled collar that pulls the crucible out of the furnace. The temperature of the crucible was somewhere around 2200 degrees. The heat was simple staggering.

Ektachrome slides.

the Foundry, the Sculpture Department,
California State University at Long Beach, March 1971

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The fired investment flasks have had the wax burned out and are being packed into sand for the pour

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Sprues from previous pours are preheated on the top of the furnace before being dropped into the crucible to melt

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Opening the furnace lid. Temperature somewhere around 2200 degrees, plus

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The crucible is lowered down into a second two-handled collar. This collar will be used to control the actual pour

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Dr Stephen Werlick (red jacket) watches for the flask to fill and will give the word to stop

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In lost-styrofoam casting, the foam is burned out at the moment the aluminum is poured in

the Foundry, the Sculpture Department, California State University at Long Beach, March 1971

the Foundry, the Sculpture Department, California State University at Long Beach,
March 1971


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Ash on the sunroof of my car, Glen Acres, Vashon Island Washington, May, 1980.
Wonder what that could have been about...

My comment when I posted this pic to Old Vashon Pictures and Stories: "Yup. That's it. Can't remember what day of the eruption this was, but the usual westerly-southwesterly winds blew all the ash over to Yakima and points east at first. As I remember, the wind backed around to south-southeasterly for a day and we got this. You almost wouldn't notice it, but on a dark sunroof (and knowing what was going on) it was pretty obvious..."


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Epoch Ceramics Inc, Compton California 1974

Background (such as I recall it): So if the High Fire Works in Long Beach California was the idylic hippie-potter paradise, Epoch Ceramics was the hard-core industrial future of commercial production high-fire stoneware in Southern California in the 1970's.

Epoch Ceramics was founded by two Otis Art Institute (1970's name; now the Otis College of Art and Design) graduates and was working in direct competition with the slightly older Christopher Robin Pottery, where other of my potter friends from Long Beach State worked.

Epoch was pure production and pure business: we threw to a specific product line where each item had set dimensions and a set appearance, and we were paid by piece-work.

Piece-work is an interesting wage system: when you were not working, you literally were not making any money. I threw almost exclusively round-bottomed hanging planters called "pods" -- for which I was paid $0.22 cents each. One dozen pods per ware board, maybe 20-22 ware boards on a good day. Roughly $290.00 per week, maybe $1,000.00 take-home per month. Not bad for a single dude who was paying $90.00 per month for rent.

I worked at Epoch for maybe two-and-a-half years or so. That's how I made enough money to move to Seattle in 1975.

Ektachrome slides.

Epoch Ceramics Inc, Compton California, 1974

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Epoch Ceramics Inc. The street sign and the address numbers were "8205 Compton Ave". I've never been able to find anything that even remotely looks like this in Google Earth now...

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Clay storage on pallets outside. The shell of the building where the clay was stored (and I parked my car) was burned-out and left over from the Watts Riots in 1965

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Steve Stewart (l) and Mario Mortara (r), throwing planters outside on a "nice" day. Mario was one of the High Fire Works potters; both Mario and Steve were in the Ceramics department with me at Cal State Long Beach

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Four new but unfinished car kilns under construction as part of the factory expansion. The factory size was doubled. When I left in June of 1975 the four kilns were firing daily

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The owner Bob trying to drive us back to work. Bob was an Otis Art Institue graduate and pretty much the same age as the rest of us. Back to front: Steve Stewart, Mario Mortara, and me

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Back to work. Left to right: Mario Mortara, me, and Steve Stewart. This was taken before the factory expansion: the back wall on the right was opened up and the factory extended back, doubling the size. The potters (maybe five or six of us) ended up along the back wall at the very far end

Epoch Ceramics Inc, Compton California, 1974

Epoch Ceramics Inc, Compton California 1974


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the High Fire Works studio, Long Beach California. early 1970s

Background (such as I recall it): the High Fire Works was a group pottery and glass blowing studio in Long Beach California in the very early 1970's. Maybe five potters, two glass blowers. Most of us were originally from the Art/Ceramics department of California State University at Long Beach. Many of us also worked up in Compton California at Epoch Ceramics Inc as professional potters.

The storefront had previously been some sort of hippy restaurant; there was a large stainless steel restaurant sink in what had been the kitchen. The "back yard" was amazing: landscaped with bamboo and pines and entirely filled with a geodesic dome, hand-made out of what legend said were 1" steel drill rods from the nearby Signal Hill oil fields.

Several different sets of undated and unnumbered Ektachrome slides.

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The High Fire Works pottery and glass studio, Long Beach California, early 1970's

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The geodesic dome in the back yard, High Fire Works pottery and glass studio

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The old hardbrick high-fire kiln at High Fire Works pottery and glass studio

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The old hardbrick high-fire kiln at High Fire Works pottery and glass studio

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Full reduction, firing the old hardbrick high-fire kiln at High Fire Works

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Darlene and me and Sisu the Wonder Dog

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Tearing down the old hardbrick high-fire kiln at High Fire Works

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Breaking up the old concrete slab. Everything goes

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The new floor, the flue opening at the back, and the burner ports are laid down in new hard brick

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Me cutting hard brick. Face shield, but no dust mask

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The arch form in place, the skewbacks are laid, and one course of arch bricks

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The ironwork for the kiln frame and the gas piping is finished

the High Fire Works studio, Long Beach California. early 1970s


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the Mount Rainier Ice Caves, Washington fall 1980

Background (such as I recall it): ummm... Remember very, very little, other than having done it. With Janice, and her sister Mimi. Late summer day hike on Rainier to the ice caves. In the right-hand photo on the top row here you can make out a sign warning people not to go in the ice caves because of the risk of collapse -- one of which you can see towards the end of the set. Anyway, we went in as far as we could. Cold, and dripping water constantly. The light inside through the ice overhead was simply astonishing. Dated Ektachrome slides.

These might have been what's known officially as the Paradise (Glacier) Ice Caves -- a Google search for "Mount Rainier Ice Caves" doesn't seem to turn up any others.

A quote from that web page as saved by the Internet Archive Wayback Machine:

    "As of May 28, 1978 the length of the Paradise and Stevens Glacier Caves System was 8.23 Miles (13 1/4 km) or 43,560 Feet long. This was the most ever on the map at one time. When the Paradise River section of the cave was segmented at Surprise Entrance during the following summer, the length figure dropped to about 7.4 miles (I 1.9 km) but regained the gate figure in the winter of 1979. The depth (as determined by topographic maps) dropped from 855 feet to 490 feet, and similarly returned to the earlier figure. More than 15 miles of mapping was required to reach these figures and much remains to be accomplished. Because of change in cave system in the recession of the glacier.

    "From 1980 to 1991 Charlie and other IGS Members made two or more trips a year mapping the changes of the recession of Paradise and Stevens Glaciers. The Glaciers are in rapid retreat up the mountain. IGS Members also map the change in the caves entrances during this retreat of the Paradise and Stevens Glaciers..."

And then again, maybe not. These ice caves seem to be much lower down the Mountain than those described above, and not nearly so large in scale. But they were in ice, and they were really awesome anyway...

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the Mount Rainier Ice Caves, Washington fall 1980


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Purse-seining for Salmon off Glen Acres, Vashon Island Washington fall 1980

Background (such as I recall it): This is a by-gone era around Vashon Island in particular, and maybe in Puget Sound in general, even though current (2015) fishing regulations do allow non-tribal, commercial purse seine salmon fishing. Dated Ektachrome slides.

These few photos are of purse seine fishing for salmon in the fall of 1980 off Glen Acres (where I lived: these photos were shot from my deck) on the northeast side of Vashon Island, here featuring two of Vashon Island's own seiners, the Delight, and the Janet G.

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Purse-seining for Salmon off Glen Acres, Vashon Island Washington fall 1980


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Surfing at the Huntington Beach Pier, California early 1970s

Background (such as I recall it): I'm thinking this is late fall or winter, maybe 1973-ish. Everybody's got wetsuits on. A really nice four- to six-foot north swell and light offshore wind, looks like. Note that there's still some long boards but also the "new" short boards are the majority -- although "short" seems to be over six foot in length. Still some nose-riding, but also some lip re-entries. No aerials, yet. Undated and unnumbered Ektachrome slides.

Fun Facts: I myself started surfing in about 1959 (age 11, fifth grade) and surfed continually all the way up 'til I moved to Seattle in 1975. Learned to surf on a long board up at Cabrillo Beach, San Pedro (the Port of Los Angeles) where I grew up. Surfed mostly at Torrance Beach, Palos Verdes Cove, and Royal Palms (now White Point Park) which was right at the foot of Western Avenue, and right underneath my home in South Shores, San Pedro.

South, I surfed the Seal Beach Power Plant when I was really young 'cause the water was always so warm, but mostly the Huntington Beach Cliffs for years and years once I could drive. Never really surfed the Pier very much at all: a longer drive (!) with harder parking, and too many locals. Made a couple road trips every winter up to the Fairgrounds (I think we called it) in Ventura. Surfed Mexico a few times, but it was a *really* long drive and the Federales started to not like surfers or hippies, so... And in the early- mid-70s my buddies and I would drive up to Malibu after work at Epoch Ceramics in Compton if there was a good south swell running.

Surfed Hawaii twice: summer of 1965 on a two-week tour-trip as a graduation present that was organized through the Hollywood California YMCA, and lived there in Waikiki Beach for three months in the summer of 1967 with my surfing buddy Bob. Worked at Gordon and Smith surfboards for a couple summers in the late 1960's as a plan-shaper. Lived in Mission Beach with a bunch of other surfers, sleeping in a sleeping bag on the floor with the cockroaches.

Rode Bings, pretty much, and still have my 1967 (really-truly) Dick Brewer-shaped, pin-tailed Bing Pipeliner. Rode one Morey-Pope John Peck Penetrator. It got stolen in Hawaii, summer of 1967, and I replaced it in Hawaii with a Gordon and Smith Mike Hynson Red Fin model that was much more appropriate for Hawaiian waves and off-shore winds. Replaced that with the Pipeliner, and then rode an experimental vee-bottom, swallow-tailed short board (maybe 6' 8" short) shaped by a Gordon and Smith shaper friend in 1968 and up until I moved out of SoCal. Wish I'd kept that one: it was completely custom and had a photo of Eric Clapton and the Cream and the word "ATTACK!" glassed under the deck toward the nose...

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Surfing at the Huntington Beach Pier, California early 1970s


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Seattle Mercedes-Benz Club Concours at Discovery Park, fall 1975

Background (such as I recall it): I have no clue. The slide box says "M.B. Club Concours Fall '75" so I'm translating that (somewhat) into "Seattle Mercedes-Benz Club Concours". From the background in some of the shots I'd say Discovery Park, out on Magnolia, is a pretty good guess. Also, at the time I was living with some friends (Bill and Donna) over on Queen Anne, so... yeah. That's my story, and forty years later I'm sticking to it. Ektachrome slides.

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Seattle Mercedes-Benz Club Concours at Discovery Park, fall 1975


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Trans-Am Race at Laguna Seca Raceway, California October 1971

Background (such as I recall it): I was actually quite a sports car/race fan, myself. Went to Riverside International Raceway out in Riverside, California to watch the Can-Am and Trans-Am races, and the Motor Trend 500 NASCAR races starting about 1965 or 1966. Jim Hall in a Chaparal, Denny Hulme in a McLaren, Ken Miles in a Cobra 427, like that. Anyway, in October of 1971 I talked Cathy and her middle brother Bobby into going to Laguna Seca Raceway up by Monterey to watch the Trans-Am race. The Trans-Am race was for the U-2.5 half of the series only: Datsun 510s, BMW 2002s, Saabs, Alfa Romeos. But that's what I was interested in, since I drove a pretty heavily-modified Datsun 510 myself. And there was a Formula Vee race also. The U-2.5 Trans-Am race was won by John Morton in a BRE Datsun 510. Ektachrome slides.

Fun Fact: my Datsun dropped first gear getting out of Laguna Seca at the end of the day (wouldn't have had anything to do with too much street racing, I'm sure) so every time we had to come to a full stop Cathy and Bobby would have to get out and push just long enough for me to slip the clutch in second and get the car back underway. Made for an interesting trip home to LA...

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This might be John Morton in the race-winning BRE Datsun 510

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An Alfa Romeo leads a Datsun 510 down the iconic Laguna Seca Corkscrew

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Formual Vee. bzzz...

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Trans-Am Race at Laguna Seca Raceway, California October 1971


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Los Angeles Auto Show 1971

Background (such as I recall it): uh... well... This is the Los Angeles Auto Show, in 1971. Notables: an Alfa Romeo 33 Spider Prototipo Speciale, a 1966 Ferrari 275 GTB, a 1965 Ferrari 250-275 LM, and a 1963 Ferrari 250 GTO, a McLaren M8D, a Lamborghini Miura, a Porsche Tapiro concept car, an F-Production Triumph Spitfire. With Cathy and her middle brother Bobby. Ektachrome slides.

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Los Angeles Auto Show 1971


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Blanchard Wood Boat Repair, Seattle Washington June 1977

Background (such as I recall it): I was one of a group of partners who bought a Blanchard Senior in early 1977. It was orginally moored alongside a houseboat on Lake Union. By June we all agreed that we had to have her hauled-out so we could do some "basic maintenance". hahaha. "Basic Maintenance". It was a wood boat. We ended up replacing a lot of the deck and reworking the beams around the mast. Repainted the hull, didn't like the color we first chose, and repainted the hull a second time. Stripped and varnished the cabin exterior. Did some repair work at the fore end of the keel and painted the bottom.

This sloop was Gunter-gaff rigged. The mast is somewhat shorter than it might be otherwise, and the gaff significantly longer. The gaff is pulled up much more closely to the mast than in most gaff rigs, sometimes almost vertically. This gives as much sail area as a conventional gaff rig but with a shorter mast height. Local benefit: we could clear even the Fremont Bridge without having to have it opened!

FUN FACT: the hull was strip-planked. Rather than the hull being planked conventionally with wide-ish wood planks that were then caulked, the hull was made up of myriad square cedar strips about 7/8" square, each nailed onto every rib. And no caulking. None. When the boat was lowered back into the water the hull immediately flooded because the strips had shrank. You could literally see sunlight and down to the bottom through the hull when it was first lowered into the water. The boat sat hanging in the slings overnight, and by the next day the strips had swollen-shut enough to render the hull (reasonably) water-tight, and it could be pumped out. Soon after we got new moorage: down at Rainier Beach on Lake Washington. Ektachrome slides.

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Blanchard Wood Boat Repair, Seattle Washington June 1977


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Climbing Mount Olympus, Washington September 1975

Background (such as I recall it): OK, full disclosure: we didn't actually *summit* Mount Olympus itself. The bottom-middle picture shows what we had left, or how close we got, your call. A two-night, three-day hike, starting down on the Hoh River. With buddies Bill and Paul. Glacier Meadows, Blue Glacier, East Peak, Middle Peak. We used crampons, ice axes and ropes out on the Blue Glacier, but forty years later I don't recall it as being that big a deal. And there's one inexplicable photo of my dog Sisu lying on a snow field. I can't imagine I took him with me, but he was Sisu (the smartest, most ... competent dog I've ever known) and I was me, so maybe I did. Ektachrome slides.

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Middle Peak.

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The view from our personal summit on Middle Peak. Mount Olympus is across that saddle. The vertical trails are the footprints of those who've made the final approach. At least to the crux move, which is on rock. I think...

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Climbing Mount Olympus, Washington September 1975


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the Nineteen-Seventies: California: Joshua Tree National Monument, California April 1971

Background (such as I can recall it). Road trip; day hike. Joshua Tree National Monument, California. In my old 1965 Triumph Spitfire, with Cathy. I loved the California deserts and hiked and camped out there a lot. The way the stark landscape exposed the earth's structure was a major motivation for me to minor in Geology for several years at Cal State Long Beach. Ektachrome slides.

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This slide actually became a painting I did for one of my art classes at Cal State Long Beach...

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And ... the obligatory Joshua Tree pic...

the Nineteen-Seventies: California: Joshua Tree National Monument, California April 1971


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the Nineteen-Seventies: California: Wild Oats, Huntington Beach California 1973

Background (such as I can recall it). This is a storefront sign that my buddy Bill and I painted for a hippy arts-and-crafts co-op in Huntington Beach, California in 1973. The store was Wild Oats; Bill and I and a couple other potters from Cal State Long Beach sold pottery here. Bill and I were really into Art Deco and Aubrey Beardsley at the time; that heavily influenced the graphic design style we used. Ektachrome slides.

Then, compare and contrast the corner of Pacific Coast Highway 101 and Main Street, right at the Huntington Beach Pier, in 1973 and now. Wild Oats was in the south side corner building with only an alley and a parking lot between it and 101. Now, not so much...

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Wild Oats at the corner of Main and Pacific Coast Highway 101, 1973

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Wild Oats at the corner of Main and Pacific Coast Highway 101, 1973

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Google Earth view, the corner of Main and Pacific Coast Highway 101, now.
Wild Oats was at the arrow

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Google Street View, the corner of Main and Pacific Coast Highway 101, now.
Wild Oats was at the arrow

the Nineteen-Seventies: California: Wild Oats, Huntington Beach California 1973


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the Nineteen-Seventies: Washington: Aurora Bridge Scenes, Seattle Washington June 1977

Background (such as I can recall it): these were shot at the same time as my buddies and I were doing major repairs on a Blanchard Senior we'd bought in a boat yard out west along the Ship Canal toward the Ballard Bridge. Shot during a short stroll across the Aurora Bridge. Check out the Twin Teepees. Ektachrome slides.

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Yes. The Twin Teepees

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the Nineteen-Seventies: Washington: Aurora Bridge Scenes, Seattle Washington June 1977


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the Nineteen-Seventies: California: Mount San Gorgonio California, October 1972

Background (such as I can recall it): No clue. An overnight solo hike to the summit of Mount San Gorgonio, California. Mount San Gorgonio is the tallest peak in Southern California at 11,503 feet. The freeway in the last couple shots at the end (this is 1972) might be Interstate 10 out to Palm Springs. Maybe. Ektachrome slides.

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the Nineteen-Seventies: California: Mount San Gorgonio California, October 1972


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the Nineteen-Seventies: Washington: United States Bicentennial Celebration, Granite Falls Washington 1976

Background (such as I can recall it): these were shot at Tom Miller's place in Granite Falls on July 4th (or so...) 1976. I knew Tom through the Seward Park Art Studio, where Tom worked in stained glass. Ektachrome slides.

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the Nineteen-Seventies: Washington: United States Bicentennial Celebration, Granite Falls Washington 1976


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