Generating Joy Part 5: My Solar Tandem Project
“For over half a century the automobile has brought death, injury and the most inestimable sorrow and deprivation to millions of people.” — Ralph Nader, Unsafe at Any Speed Here I'm welding a mast onto the Sun Pony solar tandem tricycle. This is Part Five of a five-part series about the Ithaca Generator to accompany the Generating Joy show at the Cherry Gallery from 1/23/26 to 3/8/26. I began my professional career as a mild-mannered web designer way back in 1996 when creat
Jan 198 min read
Generating Joy Part 4: Sparky the Giant Rideable Unicorn
Sparky at Burning Man in 2019. This is part four of a five-part series about the Ithaca Generator to accompany the Generating Joy show at the Cherry Gallery from 1/23/26 to 3/8/26. After the success of bringing our Man Alive 30-foot tall bamboo puppet mounted on a 12’ x 12’ quadracycle electric fat bike to Burning Man in 2018, Karl, Doug and I needed to come up with something even more spectacular for 2019. Karl and Doug came up with the idea of building a giant rideable uni
Jan 172 min read
Let’s Make Some Lightweight Solar Powered Boats!
by Laurence Clarkberg The Solar Hopper, an island-hopping day cruiser. I’m on a train with my wife Judy heading north from Miami to New York after having visited family in Puerto Rico. People always ask us why we choose to take the train instead of fly. Over and over again we have to explain that even though it adds a day to our travel each way we do it because trains emit less pollution than planes. We avoid flying because we value this planet we live on, and we don’t want t
Jan 1423 min read
Generating Joy Part 3: Art Bikes and Beyond at Ithaca Generator
by Laurence Clarkberg This is part three of a five-part series about the Ithaca Generator to accompany the Generating Joy show at the Cherry Gallery from 1/23/26 to 3/8/26. Ithaca Generator membership meeting November 2017. This photo was probably taken by Allison Usavage. This is the true story of my involvement with the Ithaca Generator, a small-town makerspace, and Beyond, an innovative artists collective that the Generator gave birth to in 2020. Origin of the Ithaca Gene
Dec 22, 202516 min read
Generating Joy Part 2: Covid Heroes
by Laurence Clarkberg This is part two of a five-part series about the Ithaca Generator to accompany the Generating Joy show at the Cherry Gallery from 1/23/26 to 3/8/26. A happy medical professional wearing a 3D printed face mask made by Ithaca Generator volunteers. These are days that shake the world. Heady times that test our ideals. WYD? My girlfriend Judy and I have been weathering the pandemic by watching apocalyptic movies. First we watched the one in which Bruce Will
Dec 22, 202513 min read
Generating Joy Part 1: Wizarding Weekend
by Laurence Clarkberg This is Part One of a five-part series about the Ithaca Generator to accompany the Generating Joy show at the Cherry Gallery from 1/23/26 to 3/8/26. Karin test rides a handmade broom at Caleb Harrington's Nothing Nowhere pop-up crafts store. It all began in the fall of 2015. It was a few weeks before Halloween and my bike shop intern Gabe Gaydos and I were trying to come up with marketing ideas for Press Bay Alley. Press Bay Alley is a collection of coo
Dec 22, 20258 min read
Hey Rudyard Lynch Stop Manipulating My Friends
My Friend Dave You probably have a friend like Dave. Happy-go-lucky, funny, kind and generous Dave. One day a couple of years ago I ran into Dave at the grocery store and he seemed agitated. He was concerned about something that he really wanted to get off his chest. I paused to listen. “Did you know Biden is spending billions of dollars on immigrants, on people who aren’t even from here!” he blurted out. I was surprised he was putting any of his usually happy thoughts into t
Nov 18, 202524 min read
