TABLE OF CONTENTS

ON THE COVER:

A photograph of a salt pond from Cris Benton’s ”saltscapes” kite aerial photography work in South San Francisco Bay. More photography from Benton on page 28.

APRIL 2015

• From the Editors 3
• Correspondence 5
• Contributors 7
• Interning at Revolution Kites  JOE HADZICKI
• The Drachen Collection: A Legacy for Generations to Come SCOTT SKINNER
• Harnessing the Wind for the World CHO BYONG OOK
• The Desert Kite Festival Returns AJAY PRAKASH
• Interrogating the Landscape CRIS BENTON
• Yoshizumi-san: A Permanent Place in the Sun SCOTT SKINNER

FROM THE EDITORS

In every issue of Discourse, there is at least one surprise for me, and in this one it happened with the cover! Cris Benton’s aerial photo impressed me with its beauty and reminded me of layers of beautiful Japanese washi; textures, colors, and patterns from nature, this time captured with the magic of kite aerial photography. In reading Cris’ article, I think you’ll be impressed by his focus and in the utility of his work for a variety of organizations. But I think you’ll be even more impressed with his artistic eye and his beautiful results.

Drachen Foundation friend Ajay Prakash returns to our pages by reviving the Desert Kite Tour in India. Board Member Jose Sainz attended and contributed, documenting the beauty in the Indian skies.

Learn more about the transition of the Drachen Foundation’s collections to the future Kite Museum of Korea. Gathering in the Foundation s torage space in Tieton, Washington, are board members Jose Sainz, Ali Fujino, and Scott Skinner, along with friend of the Foundation Greg Kono, who are carefully packing the kites, archives, and objects included in the collection for their safe travel to Korea. Our target date for the shipment is late summer, and we have one more “packing party” scheduled to finish the boxing of artifacts. It will then be up to the professionals to wedge our boxes into a container for safe travel to Jeju Island in Korea.

Additionally, you’ll learn about the principals on the Korean side of the transition: Sang-Ho

Park and Cho Byong Ook. The kite museum is the brainchild of Mr. Park, and Cho is tasked with making his vision come to pass. Cho has visited the Drachen Foundation collection and he will visit again before shipment in order to prepare his team for receipt. The Drachen Foundation will maintain the collection for online viewing on our website and will continue to build an online collection with input from viewers worldwide.

Drachen board member Joe Hadzicki writes about a unique form of outreach – teaching interns real-life engineering skills through kites. Read the stories of three high school students who refined their engineering, shop, and applied aeronautical skills under Joe’s tutelage. In working with him and Revolution Enterprises, these three were able to see every aspect of small business as well as to refine their personal professional skills. No doubt they will do well in the future.

Finally, many of you have heard about the wonderful kite exhibition at Santa Fe’s Museum of International Folk Art (MOIFA). Following that exhibit, the Drachen Foundation helped kite master Nobuhiko Yoshizumi’s widow, Michiko, place the best collection of Yoshizumi’s lifetime works, as a donation to the Museum. All of the miniature kites that were in the exhibition as well as many more from Yoshizumi-san’s collection were curated by the Foundation, under the watchful curatorial eye of Felicia Katz-Harris of MOIFA who recognized the wonder of Yoshizumi-san’s work.

Scott Skinner Board President

Drachen Foundation

CORRESPONDENCE

Great read all the way through – I spent literally hours reading and enjoying the articles and all the reference videos. Tomorrow I will delve in again. Thank you much Drachen!

CATHERINE GABREL USA

Great issue! Thank you Scott and Ali. RICHARD S. ROBERTSON

USA

I just read the last Discourse, and I’m again honoured to be mentioned in the KAP chapter! Thanks for that nice tribute to my work.

NICOLAS CHORIER FRANCE

Congratulations on the new issue! I’ll read it carefully during my trip south starting next December 18th, this time trying to get to Ushuaia with our motorhome.

PROF. MARIA ELENA GARCÍA AUTINO ARGENTINA

I just downloaded the latest edition of Discourse and found it to be at the usual high standard of excellence.

I was very interested in the article on Korean kites as this is an area where I have been doing some periodic and incidental research.

Likely the Foundation has a copy of Stewart Cullin’s excellent book Korean Games With Notes on the Corresponding Games of China and Japan (originally published in 1895 by University of Pennsylvania, and republished by Dover Publications in association with the Brooklyn Museum, 1991).

This excellent book noted the American ethnographer who explored the culture of Oriental nations through study of the games, art, and dress of China, Korea, and Japan. Cullin had a wide influence on cultural anthropology and shed a lot of light on these nations through his work with the two major institutions that he worked with: the University of Pennsylvania and the Brooklyn Museum.

In the above book Cullin has some excellent drawings and descriptions that are embodied in pages 9-20.

Incidentally, Cullin had some extensive involvement with the World Columbian Exposition (Chicago World’s Fair of 1893). It was at this Fair that William Abner Eddy studied the Malay kites shown in the Indonesian exhibition and as a result furthered the development of his tailless kite.

I have also been gathering some early newspaper pages and articles on Corean (sic) Korean Kites that shed a bit of light on these kites. These articles do not provide the insights that Cullin and other scholars have

done, but do add some interesting popular culture notes about Korean kites and how they were perceived in America.

If any of this material sounds as though it would be of interest to you I am most willing to forward it for your use and study.

As with all gatherer/researchers, I do appreciate attribution for any assistance that sharing these resources may provide.

We all gain by sharing our finds and learning and I hope to be of help to others as they are to me.

BOB WHITE CANADA

Bob, thank you for your careful reading of Discourse. I think it might be interesting to include much of what you mention in the next issue since my intent on writing about Korean kites this time was to elicit response. We’d love copies at your leisure.

SCOTT SKINNER

DRACHEN BOARD PRESIDENT