By Sal Maccarone Building a wooden structure without the use of nails, screws, fasteners or adhesive is not by any means a typical approach. It is time, patience and specific knowledge that can make such a thing possible. Wayo (or Japanese style) wooden architecture reflects the sensitivity, environment, and the “affection for gentle spaces” prevalent in early Japan. The Wayo ...

By Sal Maccarone The first time that I became aware of the Gateway Arch was from the air. On my way to give a woodworking seminar in St. Louis, Missouri, the plane was in a final descent. We banked for the downwind leg, and there it was just below. A magnificent stainless steel sculpture that was reflecting the Mississippi River, ...

By Sal Maccarone History would prove that 1927 was a great year for the opening of hotels! While the Ahwahnee Hotel in Yosemite National Park was being built, another future icon was also breaking ground some 2500 miles to the west. Thanks to the Matson Ship Lines, who had just started providing steamer travel from California to Honolulu, there would ...

By Sal Maccarone Sometime during the spring of 1985 while restoring the 1901 Mariposa Hotel in downtown Mariposa, I began a conversation with an elderly gentleman who I first thought was a passerby. He eventually asked me about my experience with scale models. I had recently submitted an architectural model to the Mariposa Board of Supervisors that was used as ...

By Sal Maccarone Impressionism is a theory and practice in painting that simulates reflected light through dabs and strokes of paint. This painting approach was originally conceived by French painters who lived and worked during the late 19th century. The Impressionist movement received its name as a result of a Claude Monet work titled “Impression Sunrise.” This painting received a ...

By Sal Maccarone During the 1880’s while the west was still being won, the transcontinental railroad had finally reached a spur of land on Glorietta Bay near San Diego, California. That is where the rail line ended. This last train stop on the Coronado Peninsula eventually became the city of Coronado, and as with so many rail stops, it was ...

By Sal Maccarone Long before the invention of moveable type and the printing press, wood was used as a means of transferring imagery, and for reproducing important documents in print. A form of woodblock printing was implemented by the Chinese to print books more than 1000 years ago. As a means of printing on cloth, the earliest known examples date ...

By Sal Maccarone During the year 1990 I was just finishing up work for the grand opening of the Marriott Tenaya Lodge in Fish Camp. I had signed up for a big scope of things to do, and that made the project exciting because of the art that I was allowed to create. The owners and design team of the ...

By Sal Maccarone Created for public areas, Street Art is usually quite thought provoking. Where some forms of defiant, and vandalistic graffiti are offensive, there are other forms of street art that can be very uplifting. As the most hybrid form of artistic expression in the world, street art can change the entire character of an otherwise drab, or dismal ...

By Sal Maccarone There was a time when hotel lodgings were very basic, consisting only of a room with a bed, a nightstand and a common bathroom at the end of a long hallway. That all changed somewhere along the way as luxury hotels were conceived and then built. Here in America, that change happened as a direct result of ...