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Clayton Lives On

Lairds Landing

By Luke Beard

December 11^th, 2013

"I feel like going somewhere"

A message I received from Jarod (friend and Elepath colleague) one uneventful Sunday a few weeks ago. I rarely hang out with Jarod and frankly , that is a damn shame. It's always an adventure and he's a wildly talented photographer to boot.

We hired a Prius (a real mans car) and headed for Marin county with no real agenda.

Tomals bay

"I just want to go the water, look at it! It's perfect."

"We could go Kayaking?"

We had drove past a bunch of kayaks while making our way down down Route One and each one we saw increased our eagerness to get on the water. The weather was perfect, the breeze was soft and cooling and it became obvious that this was now the plan.

30 seconds later after this agreement we found Blue Waters Kayaking.

"you should head over to the state park"

The kayak instructor gave us a decent overview of what's a good and told us to take a look at the Tomales Bay State park that was about 2 mile across the water. We set sail with little to no knowledge about how to actually paddle a kayak but after about 30 mins of thrashing we stumbled on a small beach.

I'd like to also note we spent 15 minutes slowly paddling towards to a group of seals to try and hang out with them.

"Is that a cabin?"

We aimed for this particular area as it seemed to have an abandoned looking cabin sitting on the edge of the beach.

"dude, look at this"

What we had actually stubbled upon was the abandoned home of Clayton Lewis and it was amazing.

Lewis was primarily known for his work as an envelope artist and jewellery designer. He was also a distinguished painter, sculptor, architect, and furniture designer. For31 years he lived in a group of Coastal Miwok Indian cottages. He built these spacious sculpting and painting studios with a foundry to work in.

In order to help sustain himself, he worked as a carpenter, fisherman, and boat builder, as well as an artist. He also threw some pretty awesomebeach parties and I was told thatJimi Hendrixwould often go and chill with him.

After Clayton's death in 1995 it was voted thatremaining Coastal Miwok Indian cottages should be left standing and be reclaimed by nature. These are also the only buildings that have ever been built on the state park.