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Earth Plaster & Sculpting Skillshop
This workshop is being rescheduled. Date to be determined. Check the website next month.
July 16 -18, 2010
Friday 5p - Sunday 4p
. Attend one day or all days. Details below.
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Earth plaster is an incredible aesthetic as well as a highly functional and sustainable material. In this hands-on class learn the essentials to be comfortable using this medium many ways.
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Earth is the basic material used in adobe, rammed earth & cob homes. And earth is the primary ingredient in strawbale wall plasters, earth ovens, earthen floors, benches and sculptures! When simple local ingredients (sand, clay and fiber) are mixed together, a very durable natural material is formed which you can use as a sculpting medium or plaster to "naturalize" your existing dwelling, or use in a future natural structure you will build.
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In this workshop you will learn how to
- Identify and locate the materials needed to make an earthen mix used in natural building
- Make a batch of earthen plaster
- Hands-on application of earthen mix as a plaster to existing walls
- Hands-on construction of sculptural elements such as a bench, tree, niche.
- Receive materials so you can make a small earthen model at the workshop ~ or at home.
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We will also tour the earth-plastered Strawbale Studio and you will see the Rocket Stove Heated Bench, the wattle & daub Spiral Chamber, an Earth Oven and a number of earthen applications in the main (conventional) house: earth plasters over dry wall, sculptures, sconces and an earthen bench.
The earthen plasters will be applied to current projects.
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Schedule ~ subject to possible modifications
Friday 5 - 9 pm
- Gather for supper together, Tour the Land, Slideshow & Discussion: Plastering & Sculpting with Earth. .
Saturday 10 a – 8:30 pm.
- 8:30 Opening Circle
- 9:00 am breakfast
- (9:30 tour for new arrivals)
- 10 am Earth Plasters: how to identify soil, locate, mix, apply.
- 5:30 pm tour of buildings is desired.
- 6:30 pm supper.
- Evening bonfire, socializing, music or browse resources.
Sunday morning through 4 pm.
- 8:30 Opening Circle, then breakfast.
- 10 am Make an earthen mix suitable for sculpting
- Practice on boards, or walls
- Lunch
- Apply finishes to seal or color walls or sculptures.
- Make a model to take home, or take home the materials to do so.
Fees & Discounts
$115 prepaid by June 16. $125 pre-paid by July 5. $140 at the door.
- Early Bird Prices ~ Pre-paid by June 16, 2010
Friday $25, Saturday $60, Sunday $45, All 3 days: only $115
Pre-paid by July 5.
Friday $28, Saturday $65, Sunday $50 All 3 days: $125
- After July 5 Pre-register, then pay at the door.
Friday $30 Saturday $75, Sunday $60 All 3 days: $140
- Bring-a-friend Discount ~ subtract $10 from your fee
- Some scholarships available. Ask if needed.
- Meals shared ( bring some food & we will share cooking & cleanup)
- Free lodging available on site: some indoor beds, cots & outdoor camping space.
Contact Call Deanne 248 628 1887 or email: ecoartdb@gmail.com
REGISTER
Location: Rural Oxford, MI. Private residence. Receive directions when you register.
More information on Earthen materials & natural building:
Presenter: Deanne Bednar has been doing natural building since 1996, was a co-builder of the Strawbale Studio & the Kensington Kid's Cottage and other small structures. She has done construction with a variety of wall techniques: strawbale, wattle & daub, light clay & compressed earth blocks.
Working with earth has been a focus of her work which includes many sculptural details ! Photos of her earth sculpting work has been featured in the Hand-Sculpted House, Mother Earth News & other publications.
"Direct Connection" & "Re-skilling are the themes of her work: Creating a joyful relationship with the earth, stones, trees & plants of this place to create buildings, soil for growing food ~ and coming together with the community & friends to learn skills and co-create a future that is fair & sustainable. She has a degree in Social Ecology, illustrated the "Hand-Sculpted House" & "The Natural Plaster Book" , authored numerous natural building articles, and taught art and sustainable future at the middle school level for 28 years and sculpts with earth.
New words:
- "Plerk" (Play + work !)
- "Skillshop" (Skills learned in a workshop format...only its fun ~ not work)
- "Cob" (an old english word meaning "rounded lump or mass" used in natural building to refer to the shaping of clay, sand & straw into a loaf-sized mass that could be thrown to the people making the wall out of it) So cob is a shape, a building material & a wall construction technique. "We mixed cob to make cobs for the cob walls of the cob house."
- Thus we can now say we are creating a new "Vocobulary" !
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