Mr. Wei stands in his small store in a large shopping complex in the center of Tianjin. He wears a well-fitted but slightly fraying suit, and lounges against the counter as a young couple looks over the small collection of kites adorning the walls. The kites are of the typical varieties one would expect from from a Tianjin-style kite shop – sparrow kites, goldfish kites, but mostly the eagle kite, Tianjin’s specialty.

“The eye sees what it has been given to see by concrete circumstances, and the imagination reproduces what, by some related gift, it is able to make live.” – Flannery O’Connor

Working on historical kites with, most of the time, a minimum of information is quite a job of guessing, trying to get a touch of feeling or understanding of the original inventor’s thoughts about construction, design, and his aeronautical knowledge.

A Cyanokite is a kite made from a cyanotype. A cyanotype is an art print made with blueprint chemistry. The August 2008 Discourse featured kites made from cyanotype prints [1]. The prints were made by Susan Robb and they were made into kites by Scott Skinner and Nobuhiko Yoshizumi.

How long does it take to curate a collection and put it up online? The Drachen Foundation can now speak from experience, and the answer is not pretty – almost 10 years!

Among all the kite items that we have amassed in our 13 years as the Drachen Foundation, the Cody Collection has been one of our most interesting. What has happened since 1996?

This year is the centenary of the first powered, and some say controlled, aeroplane flight in the UK. It was made by a middle-aged American who was probably better known at the time for his storytelling and theatrical skills. He also made a few kites and flew them wherever his travelling theater pitched up for a performance.

Revolution took its 20th birthday to the UK to be a part of the kiting scene in Europe, and what a birthday it was, and even more, what a way to have a birthday party. Myself and team iQuad and even Joe Hadzicki took off for this once in a lifetime event and congregation of Rev fliers. The first stop on the European tour was Portsmouth, England, where we took to the field as both a company and as a group of many nations and beliefs to fly Revolution kites. In attendance were no less than 8 to 10 teams …

After 20 years of Revolution Kites, Ali Fujino at the Drachen Foundation has asked me to look back and recount some of the highlights.

Big projects start in small ways, and so it was with this fall’s Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) celebration in Oaxaca, Mexico. Almost two years ago, former Drachen Foundation employee Melissa McKelvey dashed through Seattle – to and from Mexico – and in her wake she left a Mexican kite, crudely framed and bridled, but with beautiful graphic treatment.