Author: Catherine B

The Bayeux Tapestry is an extraordinary historical artifact currently on display at a sold-out exhibit at theBritish Museum in London. This enormous embroidery (about 20 inches tall and an amazing 230 feet long) lays out, in beautiful detail, one of Western civilization’s great inflection points.

Told from the victor’s point of view, William the Conqueror, the tapestry depicts events leading up to the Duke’s invasion of England from his stronghold in France, the vast expeditionary force he assembled to sail across the English Channel, and the pivotal Battle of Hastings, where he defeated Harold, the Anglo-Saxon King of England and his forces in 1066.

The tapestry depicts 58 pivotal scenes and employs dyed wool thread in ten distinct colors displayed on a linen background. One panel famously depicts a craftsman installing a Rooster Weathervane (a Weathercock) above the roof of Winchester Cathedral, illustrating the central role weathervanes played in denoting major Englishbuildings almost a thousand years ago.

But hand-crafted copper weathervanes have an even older lineage than the Bayeux Tapestry. The historical record describes copper weathervanes dating back to Hellenistic Greek times, over 2000 years ago! Other famous historical weathervanes include those employed on Viking Ships in the ninth century, which helped the Norsemen gain the confidence to sail away from the shoreline and cover vast distances over open water.

So, if you ever decide you want a weathervane of your own, knowing it is part of an unbroken tradition dating back over two millennia may add an extra patina to your handcrafted, artisan-made weathervane!

Here at West Coast Weathervanes the summer fruit is ripening and we are enjoying it to the best of our abilities. A hard rain came at the wrong time for the cherries, knocking off the buds. Most in this part of the Central California coast got none. So far we are having a cool summer, unlike those sweltering inland from us. We have had our share of destructive wildfires, and we feel great concern and empathy for those states east of us that are ablaze. If you’ve never had to flee your home and returned to char…it is a feeling like none other.

But back to the summer gardens, the tomatoes are late setting because it has been so cool, many days not reaching 70 degrees. Apricots are finished. Peaches and plums are coming on. It will be a decent year for eating from the garden. Our master vane makers are setting up little outdoor areas to work and enjoy the season.

Gosh, its a bit nostalgic to realize the United States is quitting the one cent piece aka the penny. It’s had a long run…since 1787! We quit the half cent piece in 1857, and for similar reasons: lack of use and expense of copper. Now the coin we call the Penny, a British term, actually the one cent piece, is also trending out of use and too expensive to mint.

So, what to do? We love the copper penny, and the tradition of the penny being a qualified manner of dating weathervanes. Solution: create a custom commemorative copper token that will both display the weather vane’s creation year and it’s West Coast Weather Vanes origin.

An interesting penny story: Some years back we created a large Teapot and Cups Weathervane for the Boston Tea Party Museum. Sealed inside the Teapot & Cups are three coins. One, a 1773 British copper penny bearing the image of George III, marks the year the Boston Tea Party occurred and is the penny that was in circulation in the colonies at the time, as there were no United States and all currency was British. We were so surprised when this penny arrived in the mail because it was bigger than our current quarter!

The US penny has a storied history. If you want to take a deeper dive, a link to the very informative wikipedia page is here.

West Coast Weathervanes

If you were thinking of ordering a custom weathervane for that special someone this Christmas, we will put your project into our schedule at the time of your order and send you a gift wrapped and inscribed copy of The Art of the Weathervane by Steve Miller. We will also include a booklet that could include a photo of a previous version of the selected weather vane, plus any ‘Lucky Pennies’ you might want to have around the holiday festivities for family members to hold and reminisce upon before returning them to be attached to your personalized weather vane sculpture piece.

Just this week we received a Christmas order for a Watering Can Weathervane. The husband gifting this to his wife is excited to have the package for under the tree, and then she can select which flowers she wants represented and any other personalizations. He does know he wants a fairy to be sitting on the handle, but the choice of fairies will also be made by the gift recipient. Truly a gift that keeps on giving. It will be so exciting in spring when their weather vane arrives.

Sotheby’s recently held an Americana themed auction titled “A New Dimension of Tradition: Important American Folk Art,” benefitting the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. The copper and zinc horse-drawn fire pumper weathervane by Cushing & White had a top bid of $437,500. We are thrilled to see this beautiful weathervane, and to know it is being rightfully acknowledged as art. You can see the article about the sale and a picture of the vane here.

We pride ourselves at West Coast Weather Vanes in carrying on this fine tradition of creating American Folk Art. When we saw the pictures of this Fire Pumper Weathervane our expert artisans felt a true kinship with those who have crafted such pieces through the centuries.

We made a beautiful 6 foot banner weather vane for the Martha’s Vineyard Federated Church and we just received this lovely article from The Vineyard Gazette about its installation.

We recently collaborated with the Orchestra Victoria in Australia on a fun project. They asked to use our Pied Piper and Bird Weathervane as the cover photo for the program of their To the Four Winds chamber music concert, showcasing the full capacities of the woodwind family, proffering a rich diversity of coulour*, styles and genres. They graciously sent us an image of the completed poster and we thought we would share it here.  The only drawback was that after hearing about this concert, we really wanted to attend!

*That’s Australian spelling, and our spell check is not pleased about it.