The following article originally appeared in the Times-Advocate newspaper on August 29, 1994. I had a column on North San Diego County's backcountry, which was close to my heart because I'd grown up in Valley Center, but I was always looking for a way to get to Mexico. I'd met Chris at a Chamber of Commerce Sundowner where he'd hauled an oak log into the parking lot of a small shopping center and started sculpting away at it.
Chris Marszalek usually feels at home sawing trees on the top of Palomar Mountain.
This month, however, Marszalek — better known as Chris the Woodcutter — was cutting trees, but it felt a little strange because he was standing on a hill in Tijuana.
"Usually when I look I see forest, so it's wild to look up and see houses for as far as I can see in any direction, And the only "trees" to saw were the Coulter pine beams and eucalyptus poles Chris had hauled down with him to build part of Colonia Esperanza's new school, designed by renowned architect James Hubbell."I've wanted to work with Hubbell for a long time, so it wouldn't really have mattered where the project was. I would have found a way there," Chris said.
Besides cutting wood, Chris also sculpts it after hours. The invitation to work with an architect and artist of Hubbell's stature on an international project came as a surprise to both men.
When Chris first got a call from Hubbell asking for wood to finish a roof, he thought it was just another order until "Jim" said the delivery would have to be planned around a trip to Russia, where Hubbell was designing an amphitheater.
Hubbell was also surprised.
"I didn't know anybody was still cutting wood around here," said Hubbell, who lives in Santa Ysabel.
The eucalyptus poles cut on a ranch near Lake Wolford will be used to build a greenhouse that will be built at the entrance to the school.
"The first thing someone sees lets them know what you think is important," Hubbell said. The greenhouse will be a classroom to teach the students (grades 1-7) how to grow plants to 're-green' Tijuana.
"So little is growing around Colonia Esperanza," Hubbell said. "It's important for young people to know how to grow things so they won't be trapped by progress.
"It's like learning to swim; if you know how, you can decide whether or not you want a boat, but if you don't know how to swim, you had better buy a boat. The same holds true for learning about sustainable agriculture. When children aren't taught about nature, they don't know they have a choice."
Chris didn't cut down living Coulter pines to supply the school with beams. When Hubbell asked for beams, Chris immediately thought of a stand of dead trees he needed to remove from the Southern side of the mountain.
"As a result of the Western pine beetle, there's about 4,000 dead trees on Palomar," Chris said while bolting an Alaskan mill onto the 36-inch bar of his chain saw. "It's a wonderful feeling to see this tree go into a project like this to re-green Tijuana. It completes the cycle." While their fathers plastered the vaulted ceilings indoors, Alejandro Lara, 8, and Rigo Cruz, 7, watched Chris work with his chain saw. It was a rare opportunity. Not only are there few pine logs in Tijuana, there are even fewer 6-foot-plus gringos with mountain-man beards and roaring chain saws.
This is the second school that the Americas Foundation has asked Hubbell to create in Colonia Esperanza (El Jardin de Los Ninos opened in 1991). The current project includes the greenhouse, administrative of-fices, classrooms and caretaker's residence.
Eventually, the Americas Foundation would like to use all of the property by adding an amphitheater, auditorium and library. This isn't a piecemeal project," Hubbell said, "but an effort to get it all together in one place so students can learn about all their choices."
Another major part of the curriculum at Colonia Esperanza will be a water reclamation plant based on new technology developed at EcoPark.
"The pollution problem in the Tijuana River will not be solved just because a new plant is built. A lot of pollution comes from drainage, with no thought given to planting and control," Hubbell said.
According to Hubbell, the people of Colonia Esperanza saved the hilltop for a school, but just because construction is under way and classes are already taught in one of the completed classrooms does not mean the school is established.
For an artist whose work resides in palaces, Hubbell is anything but a prima donna.
"When I work with crafts people, I have a lot of control, but down here, it's the first time for many of the people to make something like this, so I have to improvise around what they can do," he said. "It's like sitting in with a jazz group. You listen to what they're playing and then you play along with them. I always improvise anyway.”
The music they're playing at Colonia Esperanza is developing into something new. "Every time I cross the border, it's like a thread has been stitched and as I go back and forth, the thread pulls Tijuana and San Diego together.”
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