January 06 Newsletter: DF Board & Staff Notes

At the beginning of December DF Board members Joe Hadzicki, Dave Lang, and Scott Skinner met with Paul MacCready to discuss recent developments in power generation using kites; the meeting was recorded and photo-documented for the DF Archive. Watch for a profile of MacCready and an account of the meeting in Kite Journal #22.

At about the same time Martin Lester was observing a workshop to which Drachen had contributed kite making supplies. The workshop, called Tiramisu, focused on creativity in school curricula and was organized by Infinite Arts, in collaboration with Creative Partnerships, both in the U.K. Jose Sainz translated Drachen’s Remembering the Ancestors into Spanish for its school-based Giant Kites of Guatemala project. Having recently retired from his longtime position at Woodland Park Zoo, Keith Yoshida has had more time to advise DF staff on media matters. Stuart Allen, fresh from an exhibit of his photographs at CSU, Stanislaus, California, has pointed DF staff toward a possible photographic resource for its upcoming project about fighter kites. And Bonnie Wright is working with staff media technician Simon Bond to produce a system for wireless data entry of our archival materials.

DF Administrator Ali Fujino, besides overseeing absolutely all things DF, has been actively conferring with both Lesley Dill of New York, (art kite) and Bruce Lambert, of Yakima, Washington (fighter kite) on kite construction and engineering. DF graphic designer Kiyomi Okawa has finished panels for the upcoming Japanese Kite Prints touring exhibit and for the display of kites at the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia. DF Educational Programs manager Cathy Palmer got her feet wet at the Taipei County International Kite Festival and is planning for a slew of 2006 pilot projects in schools. DF program specialist Renea Nielsen has spent time out of the office in California, walking the beach with Mike Rymer and preparing for DF’s project with Scott Haefner to commemorate George Lawrence’s famous 1906 KAP photograph of earthquake-ravaged San Francisco. Simon Bond took a break from his studies at University of Washington to record the DF Board members’ meeting with Dr. MacCready. Jeannie Holland has finished archiving the Leland Toy collection and numerous photo files. DF Kite Journal writer and editor Ben Ruhe has just returned from a tour of Eastern Europe (watch for issue #21). Honorary staff member Jack Masashi Fujino has not only helped with a number of DF workshops but has also carried out the once-every-two-year-inventory of DF stock with an industry and grace that no other staff member could have mustered.