In the Mix

Ready for Takeoff

Oakland Aviation High Schoolers Soar Into the Working World

    Its home is a squat prefab building on Earhart Road bordering the Oakland Airport. But despite the drab facilities and cracking paint, Oakland Aviation High School cuts very clear objectives. Each student is expected to graduate with college credits and/or the experience necessary to start a career in aviation.
    Oakland Aviation was born as a public charter school in 2006. Students receive a comprehensive high school education as well as hands-on experience in one of three areas: aviation maintenance technology, transit security authority or business. Aviation classes are taught at the College of Alameda’s Aviation Maintenance Technology program and the business focus includes a required internship.
    Enrollment is capped at 120. Most classes have 17 to 20 students: a large majority comes from Oakland; 40 percent are girls. Ingo Mar Raigoca, a 15-year-old sophomore from Oakland on the aviation maintenance track, says the small-school feel at OAHS, with the opportunity for individualized instruction, is “much better than a big public high school.”
    “What made me come here were the college classes,” says sophomore Julia King, 16, from Oakland. “They expect a lot from you.” Those high expectations are generated as much by the teachers, who come from all over the Bay Area to work in this innovative environment, as by the rigorous program requirements, which include an eight-hour school day, school on Saturday once a month and a dress code. “The purpose of the longer day is clear to everyone,” says principal Jay Dunlap. “We are working extra time to first catch up to grade level, and then to surpass grade-level expectations. Last year, our average student entered our program three years below grade level in mathematics and English language arts. Most kids came in math-phobic, and if you polled them now, they would probably say that math was their favorite subject.”
    For more information about Oakland Aviation High School, visit www.aviationhighschool.org.

ABOUT A DOCENT

At Home on the Docks

    Ninety-four-year-old Howard Smith is the baby of the family. At 97, his older sister has three years on him and still lives alone in San Francisco. “She’s a widow and I’m a widower, and we still have our own homes,” says Smith, who has lived in Oakland since 1949.
    But good genes (his mother died at 98) are only part of Smith’s secret to longevity. He works several days a month as a docent on the USS Potomac, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s “Floating White House” docked at Oakland’s Jack London waterfront. “I love to talk to the guests who visit the ship,” says Smith, who served in the Coast Guard during World War II. “Of course, I didn’t serve on a ship as nice as the Potomac,” he laughs, as he lovingly runs his hands down the shiny brass rails of the presidential yacht.
    When Smith isn’t giving tours, his still-agile fingers are tying and “whipping” fancy lines for the ship—a skill that must also be “in the genes.” “I’m pretty good with my hands,” admits Smith, who says his mother was a seamstress and used to let him use her pedal-operated sewing machine. Over a century old, the iron workhorse still operates today.
    But you might say Smith is a workhorse himself; when he’s not at the waterfront, he’s restoring broken chairs and making birdhouses and feeders. He’s a bit of a Doctor Doolittle, too. “I’ve had scrub jays come in, and I’ve worked with them and finally gotten them to the point where they were eating off my lap,” he chuckles. His names for two of the blue-crested characters are Gus and Asparagus.
    Speaking of vegetables, you can add gardening to the list of Smith’s talents. The sunny spot off his deck boasts rows of peas, carrots, basil and other favorites.
    One of Oakland’s most active seniors (he still has his license and drives around town), Smith has a zest for life that can be summed up in a single phrase. “When I get attached to something,” he says with a wink, “I stick with it.”

Chew on This

TuttiFoodie.com Brings the Adventure Home

    “Let food be your adventure.” That’s the tag line for the Oakland-based Web site TuttiFoodie.com—and the inspiration for site owner Lisa Schiffman. Referring to herself as a curator, Schiffman culls through tastes, books and experiences, and posts them for her readers in efficiently and neatly designed archive categories of “Foods,” “Drinks,” “Escapes,” “Blogs & Books” and “Recipes.”
    “Oakland has a really strong food heritage,” Schiffman says. “I started off with East Bay things, from June Taylor Jams to Scharffen Berger chocolate. Spirits companies are making things by hand,” she says. “Things here are adventurous.”
    Schiffman’s own adventure started off in the wine industry. While working on recipe pairing, she says, she opened her palate to new and different flavors. She has never turned back. TuttiFoodie has a worldwide audience (the blogs and books, for instance, “cover everything from dining in Sumatra to the best in Fair Trade foods”), and as a haven for foodies, the recommendations tend toward the obscure and the gourmet. But the focus is often local, like the story on Clark Summit Farm in Tomales, and there’s plenty for Oaklanders who aren’t interested in amchur powder or stuffing squash blossoms.
    Close to home, Schiffman was instrumental in helping Montclair Elementary School launch its salad bar: TuttiFoodie donated a dollar every time a parent filled in the school’s lunch form requesting a salad bar. Schiffman’s contribution made up the difference between the school’s available funds and what was needed to finance fresh greens. Inspired by the experience, Schiffman is working on Lunchbox newsletter and possibly a kid-oriented cooking contest on TootieFoodie.
    Around town, this foodie loves the breakfast polenta with maple syrup at Caffé 817 in Old Oakland, the comforting quinoa with coconut milk at Cafe Gratitude in Berkeley and the French country–Cal fusion cuisine at Trio Bistro & Grill near Lake Merritt, proving you can simultaneously explore new flavors both globally and locally.

OAKLAND MADE

Good Dharma

    Jacqueline Dharmapalan smiles as she reveals what seems to be one of South Asia’s best-kept secrets. “Wine has always been in that culture,” she says. “It’s just not promoted. It’s always been wine and women—that goes back thousands of years.”
    As CEO of Oakland-based Dharma Estate Wines, Dharmapalan is making that connection explicit by adorning her company’s bottles with silk labels that bear classical images of Indian women, images taken from her personal art collection. “In every vintage we change the art,” she says. “The labels are peel-able and numbered, and you can keep them and reference a lovely piece of art back to the wine.”   Dharmapalan has searched far and wide to develop the cultural motifs used on Dharma Estate bottles—incorporating designs from India, Sri Lanka and China for the imagery, and searching out printable silks in Thailand for the labels.
    Dharmapalan and her husband, Jonathan, took an unusual route to winemaking. The couple met while immersed in the stress and grind of the high-tech industry. “As technology was progressing, we wanted to come back to things that grounded us,” Dharmapalan explains. Each had ties to the land that drew them toward wine production. Jackie Dharmapalan is originally from Goa, India, where for generations her family has farmed cashews and produced a popular local liquor, feni. Jonathan hails from Sri Lanka, where he spent his early years on farms and tea estates in the countryside.
    Wanting to start “from the ground up,” they bought 500 acres of raw land just north of Clear Lake, Calif., in 1995. (Appreciating Oakland’s diversity, they keep one home near their city office and another at their vineyard estate). While her husband continued to work as an engineer, Dharmapalan launched her first wines under the Monte Lago label. The first release, with a 2000 vintage, scored high in Wine Spectator magazine and was served in all of Emeril Lagasse’s restaurants in Louisiana.
    With the success of the Monte Lago label, in 2007 Dharmapalan created the new specialty line, Dharma Estate Wines, to “bring our rich history and culture” into the business while producing both Bordeaux (Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, Merlot and Petite Verdot) and Rhone (Syrah, Petite Syrah, Grenache and Mourvèdre) varietals.
    Her next goal is to place these elegantly presented wines in the many Asian-fusion restaurants that Dharmapalan believes will warmly welcome the “exotic complexity of fine wine complemented by fine art.”
    Dharma Estate art can be viewed and wines ordered online at www.dharmaestate.com.

Wellness Gate Links Life and Art

    It might seem odd for someone who is strikingly energetic, enthusiastic and alive to call herself a “living artist.” But when the artist known as Tomye (she prefers not to use a last name) explains why, you get it. “A good many artists are only appreciated and supported once they are dead,” she points out, her argument bolstered by much of what hangs in the larger galleries and ratchets up prices into the millions at Christie’s and Sotheby’s. “But I want to encourage people to support living artists.”
    Tomye, program coordinator for the past 10 years at Oakland’s recently revamped Studio One Art Center, is herself an artist producing right here, right now. She is also arts and cultural program director for West Oakland’s Prescott-Joseph Center for Community Enhancement, which promotes self-esteem and healthy, economically self-sufficient families through education, skills training and cultural programs. In her role at Prescott-Joseph, Tomye has been central to a project that indeed promotes living artists in the community.
    Last year, when a new fence was constructed for the center, a new gate was needed, as well. Tomye suggested the community become involved in the creation of an art gate. Oakland’s East Bay Community Foundation gave $4,500 in seed money. Prescott-Joseph was required to come up with matching funds, which they did after Tomye and Prescott-Joseph executive director, Washington Burns, secured donations from 28 individuals, all of whom will have their names inscribed in what is being called the Wellness Gate.
    Tomye worked on the gate’s design, which called for recycled and newly fashioned materials including stained glass, the sides of a wrought iron bench bought from salvage, copper, mirror and various other materials. Her butterfly theme represents the metamorphosis that takes place when people participate in Prescott-Joseph projects. For many, she points out, the support they receive represents the difference between death and life.
    See the Wellness Gate at 920 Peralta St., and learn more about the center at www.prescottjoseph.org.

A 21 Grand Experiment

Oakland's Pivotal Avant-Garde Art Space Hangs in There

    The address may have changed, twice, and it may have recently run a gauntlet through the city’s use-permit bureaucracy, but the unique arts and performance space 21 Grand has kept its name and lofty goals intact, providing a room in Oakland for visual and musical artists to push the boundaries. Birthed at 21 Grand Ave. in July 2000, it was moved to 499 23rd St., until that building was torn down to make way for condos. Since 2005, a former warehouse at 416 25th St. (just off Broadway) has been home. (Two homes, actually, as 21 Grand also houses Smythe’s Accordion Center.)
    The simple space owes its stimulating atmosphere to the far-from-mainstream mix of visual and sound arts overseen by exhibitions director Darren Jenkins, who curates the installations, and executive director Sarah Lockhart, who books the music.
“We encouraged experimental work,” Jenkins says, “and now we see people doing more experimental work because they know there’s a place for it. Since I moved to Oakland in 1996, I found I was always going to San Francisco to find the art and music I was after.
I got involved with and curated some shows at 2310 [the spiritual predecessor of 21 Grand, on Telegraph Avenue], and some of us who wanted a more active Oakland arts scene created 21 Grand.”
    The nonprofit 21 Grand provides exhibition space for artwork that will never make it into for-profit galleries and improvisational music that isn’t guaranteed to draw a large crowd—or possibly any crowd at all. “Darren and Sarah have worked tirelessly to provide a venue for the fringe-music community,” says multimedia artist Dean Santiomieri, who has taken advantage of 21 Grand to perform his electronic, music-video and spoken-word works, often all at the same time. “There is a large alternative-music community in the Bay Area, and 21 Grand is one of the very few venues for us.” Santiomieri recalled the 60th birthday tribute to composer Anthony Braxton, “where the 60 musicians outnumbered the audience.”
    Continuing to present shows while working toward compliance with city and ADA regulations, 21 Grand has scheduled a group art exhibit curated by Lian Ladia in March, and the 16-band International Noise Conference, curated by Weasel Walter and No Doctors, on April 10.
    21 Grand, 416 25th St., gallery open 4 p.m.–8 p.m. Thu., 4 p.m.–6 p.m. Fri., 1 p.m.–6 p.m. Sat.-Sun., (510) 444-7263, www.21grand.org.

Have You Seen This Man?

Oakland Artist Creates 'Missing Husband Pillow'

    When Helena Keeffe’s husband, Joseph, embarked on an eight-month fellowship, the Oakland artist channeled her creative energies into a cuddly craft to keep her company in his absence.
    “We were communicating via Skype [a computer-based telephone system] while Joseph was away, which left me staring at my computer screen a lot and thinking it would be fun to make a slipcover for the computer with his picture on it,” Keeffe says.
    As she played with the idea, she created her Missing Husband Pillow, which was recently featured in the national magazine Craft.
    Creating unique works of art is nothing new for Keeffe, who makes art projects that serve as catalysts for social engagement. Her husband pillow is one of her more personal endeavors.
    “When my friend Cynthia’s husband went away on an 11-month fellowship, I sent her a Missing Husband Pillow of her own,” Keeffe says with a smile, “complete with humorously illustrated instructions for its potential therapeutic uses: You can cuddle it, hug it or even throw it across the room.”
    Although Keeffe decided not to sell her pillows, for Oakland Magazine readers who might also have a loved one in the military, away at college, or traveling on business, she is sharing directions on how to make a pillow.
    Keeffe is now working on a series of temporary public projects with the City of San Jose and has also embarked on a project with Laguna Honda Hospital in San Francisco, where she is holding drawing workshops for hospital patients. Their designs will then be transferred to fabric and made into scrubs for hospital staff.
    “The goal of my art is to encourage people to see things differently” Keeffe says, “and to promote creative engagement in daily life.”
    Visit Helena Keeffe on the Web at www.helenakeeffe.com.

WEB EXCLUSIVE
Missing Husband Pillow Instructions:

Step 1: Transfer a photograph of the missing loved one to a piece of medium-weight cotton fabric. You can do this using an iron-on transfer printed on an inkjet printer (this material can be purchased at most art and craft supply stores) or a silkscreen. I manipulated my image on the computer before silkscreening it to make the image more graphic and to erase the neck and shoulders, leaving only the face.

Step 2: Cut around the face leaving a border of 2–3 inches.

Step 3: Trace this oval shape onto a second piece of fabric for the back of the pillow. I used cotton lambswool, but any soft, fluffy fake fur will do.

Step 4: Cut out a 3–4 inch-wide strip of the same furry fabric, making it as long as the circumference of the oval front piece, and adding 1 inch to the length for a seam allowance.

Step 5: Sew the ends of the strip of fur together face to face, leaving a ½-inch seam allowance, so you are left with a ring that is the same circumference as the oval face piece. Fit the oval onto the ring, right sides facing each other, and start pinning the two pieces together with straight pins. You may need to adjust the pins to make the oval fit properly on the ring. Sew all the way around the edge of the oval/ring, leaving a 3/8-inch seam allowance.

Step 6: Repeat step 5 using the oval cut from the furry fabric and attaching it to the ring in the same way, only leave a 3-inch hole in the seam.

Step 7: Turn the sewn shape inside through the 3-inch hole.

Step 8: Stuff the right-side-out pillow with polyester fiberfill (available at most fabric stores) or an alternative pillow stuffing such as buckwheat hulls (for a more beanbag-like feel) until it is as firm as you would like it. Using a hand-sewing needle and thread, close up the 3-inch hole.

There you have it!

DIALOUGES

Dorothy Dugger: BART General Manager

    She runs one of the biggest transit systems in the nation. Yet, Dorothy Dugger is as modest as a southern breeze when it comes to her role as top dog at BART. The girl who grew up on a chicken farm in Alabama sees her job more as a calling—a culmination of life experiences.

How did an Alabama farm girl end up in Oakland?
    Well, it’s been a long time since I’ve been at home on a farm. I’ve spent most of my adult life in an urban setting. I moved here from Manhattan, which is as dense an environment as exists in this country. So while I love the outdoors, and I love to get my hands in the dirt and do a little gardening, I’m really at home in the city.



You were a child of the ’60s, pushing social justice and protesting the Vietnam War. How did that experience mold your ideology?
    I went to a liberal arts college—Macalester—in Minnesota. The whole school was oriented around the notion of impact and involvement. It was a time of heightened activism and I was fully involved.

Do you see your role at BART as an activist for social change?
    One of my colleagues said we’re not just in the transit business; we’re part of the global warming solution. We all know about changing light bulbs in the house, but switching one commute a week to transit can have the impact of changing five light bulbs in your home. It definitely is an easy way to start to make the kinds of shifts that we as a society are going to have to make.

How about you? You can’t really take BART to work since you live so close to the office.
    True, but I do ride at least once a day, and sometimes three or four times a day; usually to a meeting, or socially, if I’m going into San Francisco.

I don’t imagine you’re reading the paper or staring blankly into space like other commuters.
    No, I’m usually taking notes: If there’s a car that needs cleaning or the temperature isn’t right—if the air conditioning in the summertime isn’t working on a car, I make a note. But I must say that the system is generally in pretty good shape.

What’s your worst nightmare regarding BART?
    Safety. Every day 350,000 people are putting their safety in our hands as they step on the system. I don’t go to sleep worrying about that because we have 35 years of great track record in terms of performance, but the worst nightmare is obviously some terrible accident.

Aside from safety, don’t you ever just want to take a pressure washer and scrub down those trains yourself?
    Six hundred sixty-six cars is a lot to clean for one woman. I’m not sure I could have as big an impact as if I worked to get the car washer fixed. We are in the process of renovating all of our car washers. We have one in each of our four yards. Hopefully, next year at this time you’ll be seeing a shinier fleet.