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Racing down out of the mountains to make it on time to @root_general for tonight's excellent gathering. #fresno #trackingthunderbirds #californiafieldatlas All the broken hearts of the world glued back together, seeds behind the tiny owl's eye - open and shut at dusk and dawn. The sun, wind and moon gardens on the ridge of our rebirth sprout us new, washed and in our prime. What ever fear you had before, now burns away in the silence and light. #trackingthunderbirds On cool, late summer evenings in the California high-desert I can't seem to let enough light into my skull to recoup all the beauty - we gather here in the silence to listen to the mountains drum and the angels at sunset sing. They've got one song and it is the only song I ever wanted to hear. #trailpaintings #californiafieldatlas #trackingthunderbirds As the parade continues and new friends join like seeds or medals, I see a heroic garden and a constellation of proud hearts - an emerging bloom that will stun the world with its beauty. The collective strength of these singing souls whose forged chain rivals any force on the planet for steadfast resolution toward justice, sustainability and a healed, rewilded future. I have my life's work ahead of me: to draw the circuit between these flowering pulses of light - I can't wait to get to know you, to learn from what you have to give, and to count you among my very best friends. #trackingthunderbirds #californiafieldatlas I have hiked, camped, sweated, slept, dreamed and continue to adventure in all of these places, but that is not this story. The #californiafieldatlas is a catalog of an eternal face. The effort of all these maps cumulates in the democratizing of the geography; the hinterlands get as much attention as the big show-stoppers of California, like Yosemite and the Redwoods. The Field Atlas is about describing California's core systems of geography, ecology and topography and how those individual systems conspire together to become greater than the sun of their parts. #trackingthunderbirds Back inside the desert - a moment when after walking miles, my eyes merge with the sun's, and the dust has me armored in the kind of perfume dry teeth can't begin to say. All the stars will parade soon and we will wait. #trackingthunderbirds

OBI KAUFMANN

P.O. Box 3170
Oakland, CA 94609
1-925-951-7501
email: coyoteandthunder@gmail.com
@coyotethunder
the nature of nature, in four parts
ESSAYS; The Human Ecology

the nature of nature, in four parts

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Posted on January 26, 2015 By coyoteandthunder ESSAYS; The Human Ecology Posted in ESSAYS; The Human Ecology, TRAIL PAINTINGS; The Art-worlds of Obi Kaufmann

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Obi Kaufmann

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Racing down out of the mountains to make it on time to @root_general for tonight's excellent gathering. #fresno #trackingthunderbirds #californiafieldatlas All the broken hearts of the world glued back together, seeds behind the tiny owl's eye - open and shut at dusk and dawn. The sun, wind and moon gardens on the ridge of our rebirth sprout us new, washed and in our prime. What ever fear you had before, now burns away in the silence and light. #trackingthunderbirds On cool, late summer evenings in the California high-desert I can't seem to let enough light into my skull to recoup all the beauty - we gather here in the silence to listen to the mountains drum and the angels at sunset sing. They've got one song and it is the only song I ever wanted to hear. #trailpaintings #californiafieldatlas #trackingthunderbirds As the parade continues and new friends join like seeds or medals, I see a heroic garden and a constellation of proud hearts - an emerging bloom that will stun the world with its beauty. The collective strength of these singing souls whose forged chain rivals any force on the planet for steadfast resolution toward justice, sustainability and a healed, rewilded future. I have my life's work ahead of me: to draw the circuit between these flowering pulses of light - I can't wait to get to know you, to learn from what you have to give, and to count you among my very best friends. #trackingthunderbirds #californiafieldatlas I have hiked, camped, sweated, slept, dreamed and continue to adventure in all of these places, but that is not this story. The #californiafieldatlas is a catalog of an eternal face. The effort of all these maps cumulates in the democratizing of the geography; the hinterlands get as much attention as the big show-stoppers of California, like Yosemite and the Redwoods. The Field Atlas is about describing California's core systems of geography, ecology and topography and how those individual systems conspire together to become greater than the sun of their parts. #trackingthunderbirds Back inside the desert - a moment when after walking miles, my eyes merge with the sun's, and the dust has me armored in the kind of perfume dry teeth can't begin to say. All the stars will parade soon and we will wait. #trackingthunderbirds Tomorrow morning I will give a 20 minute public presentation, introducing the #californiafieldatlas at the @mojavedesertlandtrust headquarters in #joshuatree. Bringing this work to my friends at this excellent organization is a dream come true. I will be donating 10% of the sales of the book to the MDLT, so please come down and get your signed copy. #trackingthunderbirds #californiafieldatlas At some crushing moment I dissolve into the spiraling and enchanted California honey - the sweet torpor of all the folly and glory humanity ever had to offer, polished like a silver bead before creation. What a mess of diamond knives! What a tapestry of skulls and flowers! What a garden of resilient devastation! There is no separation from this moment of excellent clumsiness - a parade of broken histories and wounded ecologies - that makes me myself at all. Californians have always been interested in directing the land to mirror their own biographies. #californiafieldatlas #trackingthunderbirds Everyday we gather more creative kindred into what for me amounts to a network of light across California; determined individuals who rail against the current political miasma by insisting on paths of sustainability and compassion and it is my distinct pleasure to be counted among them. #trackingthunderbirds #californiafieldatlas I took the measure of love and watched my math turn to ash, as if the flaming finger of some prime mover, bending light between stars flattened the amplitudes of my wave experiments to make all my results equal one. I spent so many years building the most complex equations - functions I was sure would offer designs to get us to the sun and back, making all space and time instantaneous. Instead I found more beauty than I could have calculated; rich landscapes of such tidal gravitas that I was happy to watch my work burn. The trackless stars bounce their infinite points pulsing into one booming noise that I can only register as what I came for in the first place: a place to begin and a place to end. #trackingthunderbirds The Los Angeles days line up like electric jewelry; the eyes of my heart, buttons of lightning, black on dusted angels skating - never for a moment do I fall out of love, surrounded on all sides by light piled up to defend the tiny raft. The maze, populated only with so many poets, lovers, compatriots, and beings of pure sunshine who have me singing humility, passion, and focus. #trackingthunderbirds By design, the sliver of personal truth revealed through the #californiafieldatlas is an interwoven array of the science of aesthetics and the aesthetics of science. The ethical poetry at play is not concerned with "what" - as in what is this butterfly? What is that flower? In the way a field guide works. It is not interested in "why." As in why is California, for example, shaped the way it is. I'm not searching for historical truth. It is not concerned, perhaps surprising for a book calling itself an atlas, in "where." The Field Atlas is most concerned with "how." How do Earth, Air, Fire and Water interact to dynamically shape our collective experience of place? How does the effect of these living systems on one another speak to the contextualization of our home and more importantly: how does Geographic Literacy work to coalesce and sustain community. #trailpaintings Our society is built on stories - from the fiction that is money to the transcendent assumptions of a collective reality - from the illusory narrative of how death works to the falsity of the wild world being inherently and savagely dangerous. In my most-perfect dreams, I map California as a circle as big as the horizon that we can all fit into - us and the ghosts of those who have come befor and who will come after. In my most-realized process, I am charting a course not only of our continued human residency here over the next one hundred or five hundred years, but over the next ten thousand years. Let's go ahead and trust each other enough to begin that conversation. #trailpaintings #trackingthunderbirds #californiafieldatlas I've named all the oaks behind my home in the Rock Creek Preserve. The oak closest to us in this picture is Little Dragonfly. I'm getting ready for the Southland leg of my #trackingthunderbirds book tour to celebrate the #californiafieldatlas. I am so stunned and beside myself with the sincerest gratitude at the success, straight out of the gate, for this thing that I've spent so long bringing to light. I am a bit blinded right now with the new landscape of what this is and what this means. It feels like I've been in a tunnel, or a cave, and have no emerged at noon in the bright sunshine and my eyes haven't adjusted yet. Please be patient with my pace of individual correspondence, as it is lacking - and stay updated with the tour here on Instagram - or at my website www.coyoteandthunderl.com. Last night we sold every single copy at the launch party at @issuessop and I thank you so much for coming out and partying with me. Tomorrow I am @levis - if you want to come, I need to get you on the list, so please Direct Message me. Saturday is @northmenswear - then onto @righttribe, @fldwrk, @seaweedandgravel, @anzaborrego and the #borregoartinstitute, @mojavedesertlandtrust and @rootgeneral - I will miss my oaks, but they will be here on my return and I can't wait to see you out on the road. The first wave of books takes flight. Thank you all so much who ordered a copy from me directly thus far. They are on their way. If you have not ordered your signed first-printing from me of the #californiafieldatlas you can either join me at one of my #trackingthunderbirds book tour stops across the west (check www.coyoteandthunder.com for latest tour information) - or you can order it from for $65 domestic - includes taxes and shipping, email me at coyoteandthunder@gmail.com. Tonight I will see you all @issuesshop for my hometown launch and send off - 20 Glen Ave. Oakland. 5pm to 8pm. Geographic literacy is the baseline for any plan of collective sustainability. ­­Geographic literacy is a basic knowledge of one’s place, its systems of ecology, its historic narrative and its political trajectory. What a joy it is to conceive of one’s place in the world on many different levels of scale. What a joy and indeed a power it is to be able to expand one’s thinking and to be able to name the systems at work from the very small to the very large. What a joy it is to be able to know the workings of your bioregion and be counted among its honored and productive citizens. What a joy it is to begin to understand the workings of this, our most wild and cherished home. Join me tomorrow night for my hometown launch of the #californiafieldatlas - my long awaited book published by @heydaybooks - at @issuesshop - 20 Glen Ave. #oakland 5pm to 8pm. I am often asked about where the inspiration for the book, the Califorrnia Field Atlas came from. I often answer with the regular refrain of my love for nature, or belief in the conservation movement, or that I have always wanted a complete catalog of the best of my artwork as it approaches a full portfolio of nature and its living systems across California. Although I am beginning to suspect the biggest reason I wrote this book - why anyone attempts a massive creative project that swallows years of their life without any guaranteed return - is to save themselves and their world. This book is my anchor. This book is my well. I set my stone with great hope against the chaotic roil of the 21st century. I feel that I now have enough energy and strength to reach out and grab others as they float ungrounded past - we will link arms - we will form chains. In my atlas, there is very little direct talk of humanity and its urban veneer that now jackets California - but by doing so, I've filled in the negative space and from one perspective, have made a book about nothing but humanity and its dance with the natural world. #californiafieldatlas #trackingthunderbirds <<< Today the #californiafieldatlas launches in #sanfrancisco @theperishtrust 12pm to 4pm >>> ///Sunday morning vision\\\ Let me sing of and for the California I know – my living home – let me sing to those who understand how to listen. There are those who understand how to listen and those who listen are those who understand. There are those that understand that the common good will quickly become the new measure of wealth, and the common good will be defined as leaving the most intact, optimized system of biodiverse resources and ecologies - through this we reward ourselves and our species survives its adolescence. There are those who understand the ethics of conservation and stewardship and who see value in a rewilding path toward ecological restoration. There are those who understand that living things are not things at all, but neighbors. There are those who understand that all nature’s work in California is alive and part of a singular whole. #trackingthunderbirds #trailpaintings I'm going supernova with pure excitement. I can't believe the day is finally here: the book has arrived and I'm packing up the family and hitting the great, wide, beautiful road on the #trackingthunderbirds #booktour celebrating the #californiafieldatlas. I posted a new batch of words, media snippets and even pages for the thing itself today at www.coyoteandthunder.com. I can't wait to see you out there on tour. The truth is I'm overwhelmed and completely awash in gratitude by the response to the preorders for the #californiafieldatlas. Thank you all your patience as I make sure that they're all inscribed correctly, packed nicely and go to where they are supposed to go. I will be taking orders indefinitely for signed first printings. I sell them for $65 and that includes shipping and taxes, it just takes a week or two. If you can make it to one of my tour dates, at this point, that would be faster, the list price is $45. Email me at coyoteandthunder@gmail.com

Obi Kaufmann Art Archive

In Defense of the Western Wilderness…

  • Conservation Alliance
  • Ventana Wilderness Alliance
  • Condor Trail
  • Yuba River League
  • Los Padres Forest Watch
  • Pacific Crest Trail Assoc.
  • Klamath Siskiyou Wild
  • Yuba Salmon Now
  • Friends of the Inyo
  • Western Rivers
  • Wilderness Land Trust
  • Los Padres Forest Assoc.
  • Friends of the River
  • California Wilderness Project
  • The Wilderness Society

The Storytelling Sponsors…

  • Six Point Brew
  • Outlier Clothing
  • Poler Stuff
  • Workhorse Rye Distillers
  • Revist Products
  • Duckworth Co.
  • Topo Designs
  • Dogfish Head Brew
  • Indigo Fera Jeans
  • Havstad Hat Co.
  • Winston Made
  • 18 Waits
  • Iron & Resin
  • Danner Boots
  • Third Eye Headlamps
  • Orox Leather
  • Freenote Cloth
  • Frost River
  • Ticla
  • Sierra Nevada Brew
  • Juniper Ridge
  • Leatherman
  • Tin Cup Whiskey
  • Union Wine Company
  • Freeman Seattle
  • Brass Arrow
  • Wood and Faulk
  • Osprey Packs
  • Icebreaker
  • Alite Designs
  • Kern and Hyde
  • Bulldogge Books
  • Winter Session
  • Kletterworks
  • Jungmaven
  • Madden Equipment
  • Snow Peak
  • Hydrapak
  • Westerlind Outdoor
  • Oakland Surf Club
  • Otter Wax
  • Tellason
  • Rook Town
  • For holding up the trousers
  • Ft Lonesome
  • Oli Rose Collection
  • Peg and Awl
  • The Coast and You
  • Gnome Life Records
  • Bridge and Burn
  • Crawford Denim

The Storytelling Retailers…

  • Pilgrim Surf, New York
  • Spartan, Texas
  • Stag Provisions, Texas
  • Art In The Age, Philadelphia
  • Kitkitdizzi, California
  • Beam & Anchor, Oregon
  • Love Adorned, New York
  • Cameron Marks, California
  • Una Mae’s, Chicago
  • Marion and Rose’s Workshop, California
  • Make Smith, California
  • Denimheads, Czech
  • Small Home Studio, New York
  • Rivet, New York
  • Cedar and Hyde, Colorado
  • Blok Hill, New York
  • Deus ex Machina, California
  • Neighbor, California
  • Armitage & McMillan, Colorado
  • Cotter Barber, New York
  • Ball and Buck, Massachusetts
  • Standard & Strange, California
  • Mohawk General Store, California
  • Bespoke, California
  • Individual Medley, California
  • Seaweed and Gravel, California
  • Fellow Barber, New York
  • Union Made, California
  • Asher Goods, Washington
  • Forage Modern Workshop, Minnesota
  • Fleur, Chicago
  • Rail and Anchor, Michigan

The Storytelling Artists…

  • Jered Nelson, Pottery
  • Nathaniel Parsons, Carving
  • Claudio Martonffy, Architecture
  • Peter St. Lawrence, Ceramics
  • Crystal Morey, Sculpture
  • Alison Tharp, New Media
  • Derek Weisberg, Sculpture
  • Steelee Faltis, Illustration
  • Dave Higgins, Illustration
  • Julie Harleman, Proprietor
  • Kate Williams, Director
  • Chris Sewell, Proprietor
  • Chris Adamiak, Maker
  • Greg Hennes, Snake Oil Salesman
  • Mikael Kennedy, Photography
  • Jeff Thrope, Consultant
  • Alana Douvros, Designer/jewelry
  • Marisa Haskell, Designer/Jewelry
  • Josh Chen, Designer/Branding
  • Ali Golden, Designer/Clothing
  • August Varlack, Acupuncturist
  • David Polka, Graphic Design/Art
  • David Lyle, Paintings
  • Ciel Bergman, Paintings
  • Gus Elg, Audio Mastering
  • Rachel Craven, Textiles
  • Lauren Wolf, Designer/Jewelry
  • Eric Bowley, Studio Arts
  • Tom Bonamici, Ecological Arts
  • Merrick Rhodes, Photography
  • Skyler Greene, Producer
  • Nirav Patel, Photographer
  • Patrick Dunaway, Illustration
  • Matthew Decker, Tattoo
  • Kirby Stenger, Photography
  • Rod Hipskind, Art Director
  • Cory Jarman, Road Paintings
  • Drew Heffron, Art Director
  • John Casey, Illustration/Painting
  • Brody Leven, Adventure/Storytelling
  • Gale Straub, Storytelling/Photography
  • Yumiko Sakuma, Journalist
  • Kelly Ishikawa, Photography
  • Eric Kvatek, Photography
  • Frederick A. Bouchardy, Perfumer
  • Nicholas Weinstein, Herbalist
  • Brian Caraway, Paintings
  • Catherine Meng, Poetry
  • Lena & Matt Reynoso, Gallery Owners

The Storytelling Media…

  • MAKERS WORKSHOP
  • RAWRDENIM
  • A CONTINUOUS LEAN
  • MONOCLE
  • GRIST
  • CAMPTREND
  • HUCKBERRY
  • MOHAWK
  • RACKED
  • JACKTHREADS
  • ANCESTRY QUARTERLY
  • SELVEDGE RUN
  • DESERT & DENIM
  • CAPSULE SHOW
  • ECOCOLO JAPAN
  • ITS MY DARLIN’
  • SOLIFLORE NOTES
  • WILDERNESS COLLECTIVE
  • THE ATLAS MAGAZINE
  • REFUELED
  • @coyotethunder
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  • tumblr
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