TABLE OF CONTENTS

NOVEMBER 2013

DRACHEN FOUNDATION 20TH ANNIVERSARY ISSUE

• From the Editors
• Correspondence
• Contributors
• Reviewing Two Decades BEN RUHE
• The Wonderment of Scott Skinner ALI FUJINO
• Comments on a Fearless Leader DRACHEN BOARD AND STAFF
• Highlights from 20 Years SCOTT SKINNER
• 20 Years of DF, 20 Years of Prism ALI FUJINO

FROM THE EDITORS

This issue celebrates the Drachen Foundation’s 20th year and has led all of us on the Drachen board to reminisce about those 20 years. I recall sitting with trusted friends in Long Beach, Washington and talking about what this foundation might be: an archive, a repository, a source of information, and an instigator of workshops, publications, and kite events. I knew that with Ali Fujino as administrator and Ben Ruhe as a worldwide correspondent, we could do things that no other organization in the world could do. Enthusiastic support of friends like Ed and Bonnie Wright, Bill Lockhart and Betty Street, Wolfgang Schimmelpfennig, Peter Malinski, and Jorgen Moller-Hansen convinced us that we might have a chance.

We have traveled a long and winding road (just like the Fab Four said) to come full circle and become, again, that repository of kite information, only now we have the opportunity to move forward as a virtual organization – one whose website holds encyclopedic kite knowledge, ready to be shared with the world. Our future is on the World Wide Web, and yet we can continue to be a living, breathing, interactive source of kite knowledge. Our site allows kite enthusiasts from around the world to input data into our real and virtual “collections” – photos, historical documents, personal recollections, kite plans. There are no limits to what can be inputted and then permanently archived on the site. While social media like Facebook have made it instantly gratifying to upload images and information, investing a little more time to do the same thing on the Drachen Foundation site gives a donor the assurance that his or her information is searchable, seen by the worldwide community of kite fliers and educators, and permanently nested into a larger database of like information.

I think the most important aspect of this seemingly fundamental change is that we still will be responsive to the amazing people who walk through our virtual door. We received a letter from noted kitemaker Helen Bushell recently. Helen raised some very interesting points as she took time to look back at a number of the kite treasures in her collection. Taking a very global look at her kites, she saw things she hadn’t seen as she acquired them: a series of Matsutani kites whose images were slightly altered from woman to pig, or the mostly male faces adorning Japanese kites and their similarity to warlike figures painted on Thai kites. She says, “My Japan kites can be arranged ancient to modern. I reverse them and find four cut-out-of-paper-and-rearranged designs that look like the ancient Longevity/ Fertility symbol that I brought back from the Dao Monastery on Mt. Taishan back in 1984…. It is like a hook, or open mouth, with a morsel (egg?) and says (sic) something else in another direction.”

Helen’s final thought is the one I like the most. She asks, “Are any other kite people reading their collections?” We are at the point, now, that it is time for us to read our collections, to mine for nuggets of information, to add forgotten stories, to bring to life personalities, and to ensure that our twenty-year legacy continues with active service to the world kiting community and any who come to it.

Scott Skinner, Board President

Drachen Foundation

CORRESPONDENCE

Thank you for the article on Lois Card [in Discourse issue 14]. We had many a great laughs together. I still have the little hand painted (by Lois) box cutter she gave me in Junction years ago. I have been thinking about her for the longest time and now I know why.

KATHY GOODWIND

Seattle, Washington

An acknowledgement , apology, and correction: It was our oversight in neglecting to properly credit all the images used in Frits Sauvé’s article appearing in Discourse issue 14. All the images appearing on pages 32, 35, 36, 37, 39, and 40 should have been credited to Thom Shanken/David Tuttle and were used and modified without their knowledge or consent. It should further be stated that the image appearing on page 46 should have been credited to: © Christie’s Images Limited 2010.

ALI FUJINO

Drachen Foundation