Flash forward 40 years. That cabin grew from a photography studio into an enclave that looks like a cross between Viking village and bohemian hangout, and evolved into today’s OceanStudio.
“It is so inspiring, at an age when more sensible folks are looking forward to retirement (I’ll be 68 in August), to be totally immersed in what feels like the most meaningful and exciting phase of my life so far,” said the soft-spoken, sparkly-eyed Powers.
 Left to right, Christopher Hedge, Michael Powers and Scott Dewar sit at OceanStudio in Miramar. |
“It’s a completely different world,” said Hedge. “It’s a place to improvise and create and think freely.”
Entering the enclave, one is confronted with a unique village of buildings with shingled roofs and scattered artifacts, and the entrance to the rooms that form the nexus of OceanStudio. Wood-paneled walls, a great deal of color, an overhead loft and side rooms filled with humming high-tech equipment hint at projects under way here.
“We wanted to create a world with a lot of organic stuff that would complement the cerebral stuff we’re doing on the inside,” said Powers.
Hedge demonstrates some technical gadgets that deliver a serious range of sound effects that could couple with images to produce a variety of moods. Lightning sticks, for example, manipulate sound and imagery. Other effects produce sound that changes in pitch as the artist passes or cups his hand over it. A “Zendrum” produces a whole library of percussion effects with which he improvises.
“It’s a cool instrument,” Hedge said. “I love it.”
In another corner, Dewar bends over a chart of thumbnails of photographic images. He chooses one and, using his laptop, overlays effects and colors.
“It’s wonderful to come here and turn to the things Chris and I can collaborate on,” said Dewar. “Here, there’s an opportunity to be together and work together.”
The two became acquainted as students at San Francisco State University. Dewar settled in Moss Beach in 1984 and Hedge established a recording complex in San Francisco until discovering the Miramar complex.
“I was always oriented around the visual,” he said. “You run out of things to do with notes.”
He and Hedge put together Magnetic Poets in 1999, to combine visual art and music to “create new experiences.”
The results included a venture in which they involved performers from around the world to play music together for one month at the Olympic Games in Torino, Italy. They also include Telluride MountainFilm Festival winner “The Good Fight” about octogenarian pilot and river runner Martin Litton.
Current plans include an even more ambitious production for this summer’s Olympics in Beijing.
Helping out on the technology and multi-media end of things is young Magnetic Poet Patrick Alan Hart. Originally from the East Bay, he met Powers in 2007 but was familiar with the Coastside from childhood, when his father took him to see the ocean as an infant.
Collaboration, in a place that fosters creativity, is how the group works, said Hart.
“You could do about anything because this place always changes,” he said. “There’s always energy flowing through. It’s not cold, hard office space, but has opportunity for spontaneity.”
It’s been that way a long time.
Beginning in the late 1960s, Powers put together his two loves, adventure travel and photography, along with his brother Pat and friends Mark Fraser, Jerry Koontz and Ted Porter, and created Impact Photographics, using medium-format cameras and an enlarger. They sold their early efforts at Peninsula art fairs, and then incorporated the then-new medium of photographic posters and cards into humorous and inspirational photography.
The next step was mobile 35-mm cameras, digital cameras and expanding technology. OceanStudio continued to produce projects along conservation and outdoor adventure themes. Members representing a wide range of skills traveled to sometimes exotic locations. The result has been films for television, still photography and large-format photography books, group exhibitions and multimedia presentations.
“In a place like this we build art to last,” said Hedge.
The sense of community that bonded the group from its inception has lasted.
“Those of us who were part of the original Impact group recall how our success came in great part from the synergistic, nearly tribal sense of community and shared purpose that we shared,” Powers wrote in a statement about OceanStudio. “The free exchange of technical skills, creative discoveries and marketing opportunities that naturally occurs in such a shared-use facility is stimulating and empowering for everyone involved.”
“The way we work here is very organic,” said Hart. “Like neighbors on the same block, 20 or 30 years ago when they actually talked to each other.”
That kind of collaboration underlines the OceanStudio goal. Freely exchanging technical skills and creativity, working through travel, media, conservation and publication channels, “the OceanStudio Alliance strives to nurture a deeper understanding and empathy for the natural world,” wrote Powers in his statement.
“This seems to attract people,” said Powers. “I honestly believe this property is a power space.”
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