Clinton D. McDowell (Mister Bambu) studied Architecture for 4 years in Texas, between 1965-1969. He has worked for architects in New York City and Texas and chose his BA in "Environmental Design" in 1971 at Texas A & M University and 'Discovered' bamboo around that time. He is fascinated with the enthusiasm for bamboo.
He has lived in Tepoztlan, Morelos since 1975 where he has designed gardens since the '70 's. He tends to botanicalize & highlight multiple species of chosen genera according to an overall plan and is a specialist in native plants, ornamental, medicinal, and utilitarian. His first bamboo 'home' was built in a tree for a client at the time. Since that time he has thoroughly studied the bamboo plant & proper, beneficial, lucrative management practices and is astounded by its potential. He has traveled in many states of the Mexican Republic noting abundance as well as sparcity of bamboo species, native and introduced.
Clinton has made endless bamboo things properly cut, cured and harvested from mainly private gardens of Tepoztlan, Cuernavaca and the state of Mexico. He exported 'rain sticks' from the late 80's til early 90's from his workshop. He was invited to help the village of Tepoztlan form a municipal nursery to propagate native plant species for their 're-distribution' in the mountains around the village and in private gardens of the residents (including a native species of bamboo: Chusquea circinata). He has colaborated with authors Johan van Lengan....'The Barefoot Architect' and David Farrelly's 'The Book Of BambOO' from the 80's. In the late 70's (along w/David) they scoured the collected works of McClure, David Fairchild, and E.A. McIlhenny's information on bamboo at the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, DC. From these studies, little known information was obtained on research studies of Koichiro Ueda (Living Treasure of Japan) on siviculture techniques and cutting of bamboo that has been practiced for over 30 years. He knew the now famous Colombian architect Oscar Hidalgo L. in Mexico City in 1979 when they shared a private stroll thru the Gardens of Coyoacan.
In 1993 he had the opportunity to design and build his own home using some of the information studied and applied for many years and apply it in innovating techniques. Today he continues to design private gardens, cutting, curing & harvesting bamboo, finding new sites, new plants, discovering exotic bamboos for sorting, sharing with colleagues .... and .... now sharing courses for the growing number of 'Bambuseros' in Mexico.
Read more about Mister Bambu at Clinton's Facebook pages
