and everything at the same time,” Harrison says of the compound. “When I’m here my days are multifaceted where sometimes I’ll be working on soap packaging with Jeff [Hutchinson] or running up to the house to talk to someone about how the [kitchen] tiles are laid out or designing garden boxes.” Augunas adds that Harrison “makes everything come together like a story.”
“We like to support our friends and
the artists who make stuff for the farm that we can share with other people. Those artists in turn become more visible which creates a symbiosis,” Augunas adds.
It’s easy to see that Augunas understands people and how to put them in the same room to galvanize ideas. At Zuma Canyon Orchids, he, Harrison, and Jahangard work like a band, each bringing a different set of skills to the stage until everything starts to harmonize.
Left to right: Lifting the orchard table into avocado groves. Artist Ido Yoshimoto carves an offering bowl from a fallen eucalyptus tree on the property.
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under sculptor JB Blunk, carved an offering bowl and ceramicist Jonathan Cross made brutalist stools that sit near a long, serpentine table that a local worker carved by chainsaw
traditional uses of plants on the land, the traditional uses of the land itself, and the ecology of the land.” Hutchinson and Jahangard are in constant contact, exchanging insights on ecology and exploring what can be crafted from the farm. “My job here is to maximize the harvest,” Hutchinson adds, pointing out that you can easily sell a plump green avocado but also use the oil from that fruit to make soap. While nothing Hutchinson has made is yet for sale, he teases a list of shareable offerings ranging from candles, teas, tinctures, incense, and other products sourced directly from the land. As Augunas notes, good things take time to come together. He adds that he and the team are calling the through line of what they’re practicing at Zuma Canyon Orchids “ancient future technologies.” The small team comes and goes as they please, seemingly free yet connected to the land, like the creative communities that have come before them. “It’s kind of hard to describe. It’s anything
Clockwise from top left: Artist Jonathan Cross and some of his hanging vessels. Garden boxes that track the path of the sun. Hutchinson distills essential oil from lavender.
from a fallen eucalyptus tree. “We like to support our friends and the artists who make stuff for the farm that we can share with other people. Those artists in turn become more visible which creates a symbiosis,” Augunas adds. Another friend who has gotten involved with Zuma Canyon Orchids is Jeffrey Hutchinson, the director of the apothecary, who has a background in herbalism and botany. Speaking in a calm and meditative tone, Hutchinson describes what he does at Zuma as “ethnobotany,” adding that he looks “at
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ISSUE 01
THE GREEN ALBUM
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