Back Bay open to interpretation

Alex Coolman

NEWPORT BEACH -- An event at Shellmaker Island today will give the

public its first introduction to the pleasures of a Back Bay Interpretive

Center that will be unveiled later this fall.

The event, which runs from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., won’t showcase the

actual facility of the Peter and Mary Muth Interpretive Center, set to

open in October. That building, at the intersection of University Drive

and Irvine Avenue, is still under construction.

But today’s festivities should introduce the public to the kinds of

things the center hopes to offer, said Lisa Miller, president of the

Shellmaker, Inc. dredging company and the director of the event.

“People don’t really know what ‘interpretation’ means, so we came up

with this event to sort of kick off the whole idea,” Miller said.

Specifically, the day will offer “creation stations” that are both

entertaining and educational, such as gyotaku, the Japanese art of making

fish prints; creation of murals; and creating clay sculpture.

All of the activities, which are designed for both adults and

children, are intended to impart a lesson about the Back Bay environment,

Miller said.

“The whole thing is based on education.”

This approach to understanding nature, which tries to provide a

greater context for physical encounters with the environment, is

something that Newport residents haven’t been able to obtain easily in

the past, said Jack Keating, the president of Newport Bay Naturalists and

Friends.

“People have been able to come to the bay just to enjoy its beauty,

but we haven’t had a place where people can go to have the bay

interpreted for them.”

The benefit to the “interpretive” approach, he said, is that it makes

it possible to pick up on many details that might otherwise be missed.

“An individual might look at the mud and say ‘Gee, that’s mud.’ What

they need to know is that mud is the home to a huge number of critters

that live there and provide food sources for many birds and other aquatic

creatures that live in the Bay,” Keating said.

Shellmaker Island is at the end of Shellmaker Road in Newport Beach.

For more information, call (949) 640-6746.