1987 - 1988
HEADLANDS
THE MARIN COAST AT THE GOLDEN GATE
In 1987 I was invited by the Headlands Center for the Arts (Sausalito, CA) to be part of a collaborative effort to create an artists’ guidebook for the Marin Headlands. The Headlands is a former military defense installation just north of San Francisco and the Golden Gate Bridge. It had been decommissioned by the military and turned over to the National Park Service. The areas was opened to the public and the Headlands Center for the Arts was one of the park partners.
I joined artists Larry Sultan and Mike Mandel, designer Miles DeCoster, and writer Paul Metcalf in a book project that was eventually published in 1989 by the University of New Mexico Press titled Headlands, the Marin Coast at the Golden Gate. The book chronicled the history of the Headlands through text and photographs, and told the stories of the human and military occupation that created the landscape with artifacts now open to the public as part of the Golden Gate National Recreation area.
My part of the collaboration was to make contemporary photographs of the Headlands in reference to the historical images curated by Mandel and Sultan, and the research conducted by Metcalf. DeCoster designed the resulting publication. The fieldwork took place between 1987 and 1988.
Building 99 in early morning fog, Fort Barry parade grounds
View to the sea from artillery observation station
Official and unofficial notices, Battery Townsley
Last light over Rodeo lagoon
Tennessee Cove in fog
Fragment of bunker, Wolf Ridge
Japanese ship leaving port, World War II searchlight station
Exploded shells and spent projectiles on stock page, October 1987
The view seaward in late afternoon from Hill 88
Discovering eroded tiles, vacated site below Hill 88
Ship making port before a change of weather
Pillow basalts: lava cooled under seawater
Plaster faces set to dry in former barracks, Fort Barry
Picture spot in fog, Conzelman Road
The model of Marincello preserved in irony by the National Park Service.
Artist, Conzelman Road
Watching the warships steam under the Golden Gate from battery Orlando Wagner. Fleet Week, October 1987
Broken sign leaning against bunker
Marin Headlands from flight 1171 inbound to San Francisco
Defense icon, entrance to abandoned Nike radar installation on Wolfe Ridge
Seeds found on a walk through Oakwood Valley: oak, eucalyptus, cypress
Entrance to Nike radar installation at the summit of Wolf Ridge
Structure built to shield its canon, Battery Mendell
Folded chert, each millimeter taking roughly 1000 years to form
Witten Harris, qualified as a marksman on the Fort Barry rifle range in 1925
Kent Williams, trained as MP during the Korean War, stationed at Fort Barry
Family photograph from a highpoint at Headlands
Mounting block above Fort Barry rifle range with shield for stray bullets
On a hike overlooking Tennessee Valley
Boys playing soldiers, Battery Mendell
Clouds above Fort Cronkite at sunset
The ballad of Keith and Jan Baron, Battery Spencer
Broken fence above Nike missile installation
Fruit tree planted long ago by farmers, Oakwood Valley
Road washout, Hill 88
Bobcat specimen from a collection of native animals, classroom at the Headlands Institute
Artifacts from the military life of Louis Cresci, E battery Fort Cronkite, 1941-44
Related:
University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque, 1989