Joanna Kanow: green living, from childhood on
January 10, 2008
. . . continued
Most of us are green immigrants, part of the large group of relatively new converts - last count, about 35 million Americans - regularly buying products that claim to be earth-friendly. We are replacing incandescent bulbs with compact fluorescent, pulling the plug on appliances such as TVs, VCRs, and cell phone chargers, which suck energy like a black hole, and giving up plastic water bottles.
Footnote: An estimated 95 percent of energy consumed by cell phone chargers happens when they are left plugged in. Online research says the for every one million bottles of water that are manufactured and shipped to consumers, 18.2 tons of carbon dioxide emissions are pumped into the air.
But, Joanna Kanow is a green native, whose up-close-and-personal relationship with the natural world began at childhood.
At age 9, Joanna became a camper at Skylake Yosemite Camp, where she spent one month a year sleeping under the stars, mountain biking and backpacking.
In college at the University of California, Berkeley, Joanna majored in Conservation Resources Studies.
“Way before there was an army of green crusaders, my college was full of progressive thinkers and environmentalists.”
Joanna and husband Daniel met while working at a summer camp in the Trinity Alps wilderness near California’s Mount Shasta. They were guides in an Outward Bound-type program that attempted to break down stereotypes and teach acceptance to young people through close encounters with Mother Nature.
“Plenty of kids thought they were tough until they encountered bugs and bears,” she said.
In the mid-1990s, she and Daniel taught in a one-room, off-the-grid schoolhouse powered by solar and hydropower in the little town of Whale Gulch, Calif.
The school had a composting toilet, and I had to build a fire in the morning to heat the facility just like Laura Ingle, the school marm in ‘Little House on the Prairie.’”
Joanna and Daniel lived in a little cabin on a cliff overlooking the Pacific Ocean. Their hideaway was solar-powered.
“It was in this foggy, temperate rain forest I learned the power of alternative energy. Despite the wet, we generated enough energy to live.”
In the late-1990s in Telluride, Joanna apprenticed at Kris Holstrom’s Tomten Farm. “Working for Kris was a total immersion. I learned how to grow food from seed, harvest, compost, and otherwise live a truly sustainable life. Not bad for a girl who had never even owned a house plant.”
At Tomten, Joanna also came to love and admire the off-the-grid culture of Hastings Mesa.
“I lived in a teepee on Lucy Lerner’s land and slept in a field of daisies,” she said. Joanna’s dad was an investment banker. As a girl, she decided the stressful life of corporate America was not for her. She would fight her hardwiring and do social work. Run a business? Never.
Famous last words…
Today, the Kanows own and operate EcoSpaces, a green building design and supply showroom.
Between December 2006 and August 2007, when EcoSpaces officially opened its doors, the couple did their homework, attending national green-building conferences where they met their distributors of state-of-the-art materials.
Today, Eco-Spaces works with about 30 of those distributors and features the latest and greatest green building options in the region.
“We sell everything from roofing tiles made from recycled rubber that look exactly like slate or shingle to insulation made from recycled denim from blue jeans.”
Also on their shelves:
• Decking made from recycled plastic bags, rice husks and wood chips
• Formaldehyde free plywood
• FSC lumber
• Natural clay for walls
• No VOC paints
• Bamboo, cork, rubber, marmoleum, and FSC flooring
• Countertop made from recycled paper, or recycled glass
• Recyclable carpeting
• Decorative paneling made from recycled plastics
“We have green building material alternatives for every conventional material out there. And everything we sell is non-toxic, recycled and/or sustainable,” she said.
As more and more people start shopping with their minds and hearts, not blindly with their wallets, companies such as EcoSpaces should enjoy stronger and stronger customer loyalties.
Locally, Eco-Spaces products are now part of the infrastructure of Alpine Bank, Telluride’s first LEED certified commercial building, Honga’s Lotus Petal, Steeprock Joinery projects, and a growing number of private homes.
“Telluride is the best of all places to have opened our business. No one has to be convinced about going green. People simply need to be shown viable alternatives and they make environmentally conscious choices. We all should be grateful for Glenn Harcourt who pushed green building in this region. Now both towns have adopted green building codes, which Kris and her New Community Coalition are working diligently to firm up. If we all support Kris’s efforts and the growing list of local sustainable businesses such as ours, Telluride could become a beacon for the whole country. We can be the change,” Kanow said.
Already, our town is moving from light to a darker shade of green.
“We have public transportation fueled by bio-diesel and hybrid. Bluegrass and Brews & Blues led the way, but now all summer festivals are going green. A few homes and businesses are powered by solar, with more on the way,” she said.
nna and Daniel first tried to make a difference by teaching kids about the natural world, because they believed planting those seeds in young minds was the best way to ensure they would one day become stewards of the land.
“Today, with EcoSpaces, we are still educating, but our ‘students’ are now our adult consumers,” she said.
In addition to being an entrepreneur and a mom to Ayla and Shaiann, Joanna, a lean machine crowned by a mane of curls, is also an avid skier, biker, back-packer. She is also Doer #438.
For further information about Eco-Spaces, see Bottom Line.
Time in Town: Eleven years, but took three years off to teach in Northern California before returning to town.
Age/Place of Birth: 34/ Los Angeles, CA
Marital Status: Married seven years to Daniel Kanow, my partner in all things Philosophy of Life: Plant only the positive karmic seeds and your life will unfold as it you would like it to. We can make our dreams reality.
Favorite Books: “Monkey Wrench Gang,” Edward Abby; “Clan of the Cave Bear,” Jean Auel; “How Yoga Works,” Michael Roach and Christie McNally; “Siddhartha,” Herman Hesse
Favorite Movies: Most everything I see at Mountainfilm
Favorite Music/Musicians: Norah Jones, Jack Johnson, Ani De Franco, Karl Denson, Buena Vista Social Club and any Putumayo world music collections.
Favorite Animal (s): Pele, the tireless dog. Coyotes on the Valley Floor in the morning river fog, humming birds that come to my window
My Last Meal Would Be: Fresh organic salad greens with veggies picked moments before from the garden, lots of seeds, dried cranberries, sesame dressing over all sorts of fantastic crunchy stuff, and a warm whole-wheat tortilla from the Tortilla Ria.
Tragic Flaw/If I Could Change One Thing About Myself: I can’t spell.
Favorite Retreat: Relaxing in my outdoor sauna on a very cold winter’s night after a long day of skiing.
A Really Perfect Day: Waking up with the whole family in bed, an outdoor yoga session, a hearty egg breakfast, an all-day hike with Daniel and close friends, miles of walking and good conversation to a ridge or a lake, walking through wildflowers, blue bird skies. A healthy dinner prepared for me, dancing to some live music, and songs and stories and cuddles with Daniel, Ayla and ShaiAnn in the big family bed again.
Favorite Hangout: Playing outside at Grey Head with Ayla and Lily
Most Influenced By: My close friends, anyone who is living their dream
Favorite Childhood Memory: My dad helping me lace up my white Adidas soccer cleats before my first game when I was five, telling me just to go out there and have fun.
Friends in School Thought: A tomboy and very philosophical
If I Could Be Something Else: An extreme athlete or travel writer
Person I’d Like Most to Meet: John Muir, Jane Goodall, and Gandhi, His Holiness the Dali Lama
Actor Who Would Play Me: Glenn Close
When I Grow Up I Want to Be: Someone who helped start a “green” elementary school in an impoverished country.
I Would Almost Never: Be violent, wear high heels, drive drunk
How I Got Here From There: I was born in Los Angeles, the youngest of two children. Jerry Measer, my dad, worked for Goldman Sachs for 40 years. He was one of the first executives in the L.A. office. I remember him getting up at 3 a.m. every morning, and being home for dad duties when I returned from school.
I thought I was very different from my dad, but I have learned I have a business sense that I inherited from him.
Merle, my mom, stayed at home to raise my brother and me. But she was always an artist at heart, who has now written two novels, which she is hoping to get published soon. My mom has also been very active in L.A.’s art scene and once worked as a docent at L.A. County Museum. Today, like my mom, my children are my priority. My older brother David holds a masters degree in filmmaking and does market research for an advertising agency.
Growing up in L.A., I went to an alternative elementary school, and started playing soccer in kindergarten.
Summers as a girl were spent at Skylake Yosemite Camp, where I learned to backpack and mountain bike. Eventually I became a mountain guide in the Sierra Nevadas. In high school at the Brentwood School, I was a good student and focused athlete. I was recruited to play soccer at U.C. Berkeley, but wound up joining the Ultimate Frisbee Team, which won the national championship. I also started a nonprofit, Bay Bridges, which brought kids of different cultural backgrounds together for treks in the backcountry.
At Berkeley, I majored in conservation resource studies, writing my senior thesis on the subject of experiential outdoor education. To research that paper, I attended the Association for Experiential Education. That’s where I met Wendy Brooks, who founded the Telluride Academy. Wendy introduced me to people who ran a school in the Chesapeake Bay area. They hired me for my first teaching job.
In the years after graduation and before Telluride, in addition to teaching, I did a number of bike tours, including trips to Hawaii, the north and south coasts of California, and the southern coast of Australia. I love traveling by bike because the only fuel consumed is the food you eat and you are free to see and smell the sights at your leisure.
I was also a wilderness guide and that’s how I met Daniel.
Daniel had just graduated from the University of California, Santa Cruz, where he majored in fine art. At Camp Unalyee, it was he and I and 10 preteens for two weeks. Day by day, he looked better and better.
After the summer, Daniel moved to Taos, where he apprenticed with Ted Egri, a renowned sculptor who created monumental outdoor works.
In 1996, I visited Daniel, borrowed his car and drove to Telluride. I have no idea why, but I had always known that one day I would live here, so I had to visit the place. On my way, I got stuck on Lizard Head due to some construction, so I sat on the hood of my car and took a good look at the valley and the mountains. I knew for sure this was where I was meant to be.
Once in Telluride, I got a job at the Bean and moved into Wendy Brooks’ house. My first night in town, I slept outside under the stars on Wendy’s deck in a sleeping bag in a bivy sack. I woke up the next morning with six inches of snow on me and remember thinking “Yes, this is the extreme place I want to be.”
Telluride fit all my criteria for the ideal place to live: there were no traffic lights, you did not need a car to get around town - a big change after L.A. and Berkeley -
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