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Earth Plaster & Sculpting Skillshop
at Jim McDonald's home in White Lake, MI
Things that can be done with earth plasters!
Saturday, May 29, 2010
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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
- Learn techniques for applying earthen mix as a plaster and as a sculpting medium.
- Receive materials so you can make a small earthen model at the workshop ~ or at home.
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Saturday Schedule
- 10:30 - 1 am Earth Plasters: how to identify soil, locate, mix, apply.
- lunch
- 1:30 - 5 'ish. Linger if you wish. Earth Sculpting.
Fees & Discounts
$40 at the door (pre-register) or
$30 if PREPAID by May 22, 2010
Family or group discounts available, please ask.
Registration (Paypal is great)
What to remember:
- Bring bag lunch to tide you over.
- Wear clothes to get muddy in!
Contact Call Deanne 248 628 1887 or email: ecoartdb@gmail.com
Location: White Lake, Michigan http://herbcraft.org/directions
More information on Earthen materials & natural building:
http://strawbale.pbwiki.com/Natural+Building+Strategies
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 !
"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" !
Materials used: (White flour) jim. Make ahead of time. Earth (clay-sand soil) jim. Screens" 1/8", 1/4". db Shovels db. Buckets. db Tarps db. Wheel barrow.
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