Listen here for a wide-ranging 38-minute radio interview with me by Alastair Gordon, author of Spaced Out: Radical Environments of the Psychedelic ‘60s (2008, Rizzoli), in which he featured illustrations from my books Living on the Earth and Being of the Sun, which I co-wrote with Ramon Sender. Alastair Gordon also interviewed Ramon Sender for this radio series, which was part of Art Basel Miami Beach 2008; you can listen to his interview on the same page. You can pick up a copy of Alastair’s wonderful book here.

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The original drawings and layouts of Living on the Earth are still for sale! Kurkku has had two successful gallery shows in Tokyo in 2008, one at its own Jingumae Lab in Harajyuku, and one at Mirai Garou in Roppongi Hills. Another show is in the works for 2009. There are 178 framed pieces all together, and only 30 to 40 pieces can be displayed at one time in a gallery.

Click here for Kurkku’s online store where they are making the pieces available outside of a gallery show.

The images are gorgeously ensconced in handmade driftwood frames. Half of the proceeds from the sales benefit Artist Power Bank, a Tokyo not-for-profit using art and music to teach environmentally conscious living principles, and which is the parent organization of Kurkku.

Kurkku does not ship internationally, so, if you are interested in buying a piece and you are not in Japan, you will need an agent to come to Kurkku’s office in Haragyuku, Tokyo, pay for the piece in yen, and ship it to you. Please contact me via the Feedback button on this site, and I will ask the staff at Kurkku to find a buying and shipping agent who can help you.

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I neglected to write to you last spring about the publication of Alastair Gordon’s SPACED OUT, Radical Environments of the Psychedelic Sixties (2008,Rizzoli). It’s this gorgeous coffee table architecture book about the wiggy shelters my friends built back in the day. To us, it’s more like a family album. It’s an absolutely fun read/look.

“If you don’t have recourse to memory or the spaces themselves, Alastair Gordon’s crucial new book, Spaced Out, will bring you closer to a time when architecture was expanding its horizons…Architects today have a lot to learn from these hippies.”– Metropolis (6/18/08)

I was thrilled to have my work included in the book, and curious to see which drawings Alastair would choose include. This color page is from Being of the Sun (Harper & Row, 1972), which I co-wrote with Ramon Sender and illustrated and designed myself. The illustrations on the facing page are from my first book, Living on the Earth (Bookworks, 1970, Random House 1971 and 2000, Gibbs Smith, Publisher, 2003).

Alastair wrote about Living on the Earth with a waggish smile in his voice.

I was honored to be in the august company of environmental-activist designers like the folks at Drop City, an early Colorado artists’ commune, whose geodesic domes made of sheet metal recycled from roofs of cars at the wrecking yard became their signature visual.

I met Paolo Soleri, the architect who designed and is still building Arcosanti, back in the 1960s when he did a fundraising talk and slide show at my mom’s house in L.A. As a result, I wrote about Arcosanti in Living on the Earth.

Here’s an interior photo of Soleri’s semi-subterranean home and studio, Cosanti, in Scottsdale, Arizona.  I made a pilgrimage to both of Soleri's architectural wonders in November 2000, during my epic 8 month book tour for the 30th anniversary edition of Living on the Earth and the release of my first CD, Music From Living on the Earth.

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