(217) HILLSIDE CLUB:

Edition of 1696 of which 125 copies are signed
1-125, 26 copies are signed
A-Z as artist's proofs;
35 are signed as dedication copies.
Three sets of progressives are signed.

February 1, 2008
16-5/8" x 24"
8 colors
Paper: Mohawk Superfine 100# Cover

Model: Joyce Cellars

Client: The Hillside Club,
2286 Cedar Street, Berkeley, California 94709.

Website: www.hillsideclub.org

Dedication copies:
22 to members of the Hillside Club;   6 to Joyce Cellars
1-125: Saint Hieronymus Press, Inc.
A-Z: Artist's own use

Progressives: One set to Joyce Cellars, two sets to the Hillside Club

“You’ll wonder where the water went if you fill the Bay with sediment.” -- Save the Bay motto, 1961

In 1898, three Berkeley women, Mrs. Edmund Grey, Mrs. Oscar Mauer and Mrs. Sears organized informal tea parties with the women of their neighborhood, later calling their group the Hillside Club. The club’s object was to protect the hills of Berkeley from unscrupulous, greedy developers and to prevent “unsightly grading and the building of unsuitable and disfiguring houses.” They were particularly concerned that roads should follow the contours of the land, and that trees should be planted as screens, so that the view of the hills would resemble a forest, and that houses should be, essentially, invisible. In this they were quite successful, and today the look of the Berkeley hills reflects their efforts.

In 1959, the federal Army Corps of Engineers issued a report suggesting it was feasible to fill about 70 percent of the Bay.

Between 1860 and 1965, the Bay had lost about a third of its 787 square miles of surface area. One project, the Westbay development, called for carving off the top of San Bruno Mountain to fill miles of shallow Bay waters from San Mateo to Palo Alto. In 1961, all but four miles of the San Francisco Bay shoreline was closed to the public.

At a series of gatherings over tea, three Berkeley women, Sylvia McLaughlin, Katherine Kerr and Esther Gulick, resolved to stop and even reverse a century of careless, unregulated urban expansion that threatened to turn the broad and beautiful San Francisco Bay into a narrow, polluted river. In 1961, the three formed the environmental group Save the Bay and signed up members for $1 apiece.

In the intervening 45 years, 13 square miles of diked land have been added back through environmental restoration projects. More than 300 miles of shore is accessible through parks, trails and visitor use areas, and the sparkling Bay and wooded hills delight the sensibilities of seven million residents, and countless visitors.

Every time we look up at the green, forested hills or turn toward the sparkling Bay, let us remember that we owe a great debt to these ladies, and their Berkeley Tea Parties.

(Source on Save the Bay is from an article by Denis Cuff. Contra Costa Times, September 13, 2005. Source on the Hillside Club founding is from the Hillside Club brochure.)