Outlaw Builders: Film Screening & re-release of the 1972 Publication Outlaw Building News
by Owen Gump
Saturday, February 15, 2020: Outlaw Builders: Film Screening & re-release of the 1972 Publication Outlaw Building News with Inverness architect Jim Campe, and launch of the Sim Van der Ryn digital archive by artist and archivist Owen Gump.
In 1971, UC Berkeley professor Sim Van der Ryn and colleague Jim Campe held a studio course for undergraduate students on Van der Ryn’s West Marin property adjoining the Point Reyes National Seashore. The course, “Making a Place in the Country-The Outlaw Builder’s Studio” was an experimental seminar involving on-site building construction where students collaborated in building their own shelters and communal buildings, and lived together on the property for the course’s duration. Using wood salvaged from demolished chicken coops in Petaluma and materials found on site, the 30 students constructed a temporary, back to the land, D.I.Y. communal village.
The seminar included on-site workshops and demonstrations by local artists and craftsmen including designer Gordon Ashby, sculptor J.B. Blunk, builder and author Lloyd Kahn, and the artist Gordon Onslow-Ford. At the course’s conclusion, the students compiled their findings in The Outlaw Building News: Making a Place in the Country, Spring ’72, an underground publication that quickly became popular among the Bay Area’s counterculture community.
Jim Campe, the course’s instructor, will screen recently re-edited and never before shown Super-8 film footage documenting the seminar. Several of the seminar’s participants-many of whom went on to successful careers as builders and architects-will be present to discuss their experiences living and working in West Marin.
The film screening coincides with the launch of the Sim Van der Ryn Collection, an online digital archive from the personal collections of architect, author and educator Sim Van der Ryn. A West Marin resident since 1969, Van der Ryn is an internationally recognized leader in the fields of green design sustainability. He taught architecture at the University of California, Berkeley for 35 years; founded the Farallones Institute in 1974 to research “ecologically integrated living design;” and was California’s State Architect in the late 1970s during Governor Jerry Brown’s first term. He is the author of numerous groundbreaking books on design and planning and the recipient of numerous honors and awards. In 2019, Van der Ryn generously donated numerous materials from his archive to the Anne T. Kent California Room at the Marin County Free Library. The collection comprises approximately 1800 objects including photographs, slides, plans, drawings, videos, notes, and ephemera. Artist and archivist Owen Gump will show images from the Collection and discuss Van der Ryn’s importance within the architectural history of Northern California.
Please join us on Saturday, February 15, 2020, at 4pm at the Point Reyes Presbyterian Church, 11445 CA-Hwy 1, Point Reyes Station, CA 94956. Presented with the Anne T. Kent California Room, Marin County Free Library, and Point Reyes Books in conjunction with the exhibit An Incomplete History of Community Publishing at the Edge of the Earth at the Jack Mason Museum of West Marin History, Inverness, on view through February 28, 2020.
Originally published at https://annetkent.kontribune.com.
