I am often asked why am I researching Varda? If I say, "humm, I dunno." You would say I am not in touch with my feelings. If I say, "Cuz I feel like it." You would say, "She doesn't know."

The newest owners of the Vallejo felt it was important enough to spend the necessary funds on restoring her and I wanted to know why anyone in their right mind would do such a thing. My Father had assured me this rotting, rusting, 'beyond repair' old vessel could never be restored.

With photos by Paul LeClerc, I began the vallejo.to website to document the progress on cleaning the boat and redoing the roof (which Hernry and the Anchorouts did and fixing the roof took almost 2 years). Next I covered the trip to drydock (which professionals did and it took 2 weeks). Neither way do you really get what you want, but paying for it sure gets your disappointments over faster.

Stuart Brandt, a neighbor one dock over, did a book called "How Buildings Learn" and I think the Vallejo could be a poster child for it. First of all the Vallejo pre-dates indoor plumbing and urban electrification. She is a relic of the 1800s "hand-made" craftsmanship. When the ferrying life of the Vallejo ended in 1946 she pioneered squatting rights in Sausalito. She became a nexus of East meets West with Alan Watts and participated in the 1967 Summer of Love when the SF Oracle held a summit here. Like her much less grungy sister ship "The City of Seattle" also known as the The Yellow Ferry, the Vallejo refuses to fall as did the Van Dame and the Issaquia. The boat's tenacity provides a role model for my project.

You can't know the Vallejo without knowing Varda and vice versa. It was Varda who talked Gordon Onslow Ford into buying the Vallejo in 1949 just before it was going to be broken up in the shipyard. One story goes that the Vallejo was at Arques' yard down in Marinship and Don caught three guys poking around and possibly scavenging on it. So, when he asked them what they were doing they replied in the only respectable way they could with, "We want to buy it!"

Most people have a vague idea about Varda as a collage artist who lived as a 'bon vivant' and sailed every weekend with voluptuous nubian maidens and lots of good food and wine.

But Varda's story is so much bigger. I get to experience the thrill of detective sleuthing when I discover information on him. Like when I first learned Varda was born in Smyra, Greece 1893 but had to move to Alexandria before his teen years because the Turks reclaimed the city. And corroborating the story that Varda danced with the famous Vaslay Nijinsky and the Imperial Russian Ballet in London during 1914-1916 at a time when Ballet was considered 'modern' dance. And that Varda shared a studio in Paris with Braque and knew the Dadaist and Cubists. In 1922 Varda built a studio in Cassis, southern France, with Roland Penrose who became Picasso's dear friend and personal biographer.

I get to travel through Big Sur, Monterey, Carmel, etc in search of Varda stories for he moved to the area at the invitation of Lathrop and Helen Hooper Brown who bought 7 of his mosaics at his first show in America, held at the Neumann Willard Gallery in New York in 1939. Lathrop Brown was college roommates with Franklin D. Roosevelt and remained his aid de camp all his life. Varda invited Henry Miller to move to Big Sur in 1944 and Henry stayed with him for several weeks until he found his own place. Varda taught art classes at the Monterey Peninsula College. He also taught at the Seven Arts Center in Carmel where Salvador Dali held court when he traveled through. In Valyermo at Saint Andrew's Abbey Varda started a summer art workshop with mosaist Louis Jenkins that is still going on. They still hold an arts and crafts festival every September.

Making the website on Varda and the Vallejo has been like putting down roots. It has become a way to get to know my community. I am meeting organizations and city officials who promote local history. Phil Frank of the Sausalito Historical Society had a studio the 1970s on the Vallejo in the old Dancing Girls cabin. Arthur Monroe, a Beat artist now with the Oakland Museum, encourages my emails with, "keep at it!" Julie Warren, an Historic Landmark Commissioner, came by with Muguette Beroud visiting from France, who was old friends with Varda. The San Francisco Maritime Parks and Recreation did an article on the Vallejo in their June 2002 issue #62 of the "Sea Letter" magazine. Chris Hardman of Antenna Theatre has done countless interviews with people regarding Sausalito History and Characters.

The Vallejo and it's history are certainly valuable treasures worth preserving. I've invited you here to introduce you to my project and to solicit your help. I need to make copies of Varda's artwork, maek contact with his friends and people who knew him, make copies of photos, film, stories, newspaper articles, memories, etc. And if you will tell two people to tell two people… well, maybe I will find all the important pieces of the Varda and Vallejo puzzle.

- Heide Foley Sept. 13th 2002