NIKKI GRATTAN

Paper Airplanes

When my friend, photographer Klea McKenna, invited me to help her out for a day on her latest project, I quickly said yes. I knew she was bringing together a bit of local history, a lens-less camera, a wild landscape, and 12 hours of changing light. But I didn’t think too much about what exactly the day would entail, I just thought it’d be fun and out of the ordinary. I really had no idea what I was getting myself into.

Klea was working on the second project in her Paper Airplanes series, a photographic installation that would be comprised of 57 paper airplanes folded out of color photographic paper installed in a giant triangle. The project is based on and inspired by a bit of local history— during WWII, soldiers were deployed to man several anti-aircraft lookout posts along the Marin and Sonoma coast. All day and all night these soldiers looked west, watching the sky and horizon over the Pacific Ocean for signs of enemy planes. But they saw no enemy planes, instead they only witnessed the light change and watched hundreds of sunsets.

Continue reading about making paper airplanes on the windy bluffs of Tennessee cove in the Fecal Face article, “Klea McKenna’s Paper Airplanes.”

Soul Kitchen

I am decidedly not a master chef. Not only do I lack verifiable culinary skills, but I also don’t cook from the heart.

I cook out of desperation, when the rage of hunger in my gut has turned me into an impatient brute, and I start grabbing at whatever ingredients I can put together in five seconds flat. When left to my own devices I eat bowls of cereal and microwave popcorn, toast, spoonfuls of peanut butter, baked potatoes, and when I’m really feeling up to it, I’ll chop up a salad or heat up some Trader Joe’s fried rice.  

Luckily for me, my boyfriend does cook from the heart. It’s a sweet deal we’ve got worked out: David’s the chef and I’m the dishwasher. He treats the preparation of food with a level of respect and love that I can appreciate but have never been able to internalize. He watches practically every cooking show and dreams of the day when we’ll finally have an expansive, fully outfitted gourmet kitchen. To put it in fancy terms, he’s a bon vivant, a gourmand, a gastronome – unfortunately, there are no fancy words for someone like me… 

Continue reading about a day of cooking and communal meal making in The Bold Italic article, “Soul Kitchen.”

Wunderkinder

Some years ago I began hearing about a world of kids and writing that existed in the back room of the Pirate Supply Store on Valencia Street. The more I heard about it, the more magical it sounded.

I imagined navigating a store full of eye patches, Jolly Roger flags, treasure maps, and swearing parrots to finally find a secret entrance to an otherworldly place where brave children writers banged away on old classic typewriters. I could hear the click-clacking of keys, the ring of the return bell, and I could see the sheets of paper flying out into the air and drifting toward the floor, covered in flawless sentences.

And though my imagination got a few details wrong, beyond the shelves and drawers of pirate paraphernalia, simply sectioned off from the store by a short rope and a bolt snap, there is, in fact, a big enchanting room where kids come every day to work hard at reading, writing, and learning. But I only came to know this once I began to volunteer at 826 Valencia.

Continue reading about a day of volunteer work at 826 Valencia in The Bold Italic article, “Wunderkinder.”