Spirit of the Time

So much of life at Cob Cottage is about process so its rare that I can share photos of finished, or at least somewhat finished projects.  Here’s a follow-up on the last post showing the sculpture that I did on the mantle of the big dining room fireplace and some photos of the finished rumford in the Ridge House.

My first ever photo with Ianto!  Here we are celebrating the inaugural curing fire.  This rumford was built mostly during the two-day “Pyromania” course that we put on at Cob Cottage Company.  I went back for another full’s day work to bring the whole shape to completion and will go back for a half day to do final shaping on the main volume.  The project has served as a great inspiration to me and left with me with many lessons.  Amongst them: 1) Believe when you’re laying your first brick, as insignificant as it may seem, that great things can happen. 2) Never underestimate the capacity of a group of people, all headed in the same direction, to create beautiful things all-of-a-sudden.  3) Engage in processes actively and be present as they evolve.  4) Materials and shapes speak to you.  Listen.  5)  There is a moment in a natural building/cob project where the object you are are making takes on a life of its own and then you are much more at its service than it is at yours’.

Another in a series of Rumfords that I have built at Cob Cottage.

After a year and a half of living and working at the Cob Cottage Company – initially as gardener and then mostly heading up maintenance and acting as lead builder, I have moved into journeyman phase.  Here are some photos of my time there – hopefully they will reflect the magic of the place!  I am so grateful to Ianto Evans and Linda Smiley for all that I learned during my time with them.

I hadn’t been back to Indonesia, where I grew up, for 9 years.  My mom’s 60th birthday was a big enough reason to finally make the big trip to re-visit the amazingly exotic and-yet-so-familiar environs of Bali, Java and Singapore.  Besides my mom’s birthday in Singapore, the hilight for me was returning to the island of Bali which has given me, almost daily, the inspiration to pursue combining art and function in a life dedicated to craft.

Besides revisiting places and friends in Bali and discovering the new ways it has evolved, my main activity was building my mom a wood-fired cook stove.  I researched traditional stoves in villages around where we live and then combined what I’ve learned about building fuel-efficient

stoves and sealing the smoke inside a chimney path to come up with a design.

I attribute much inspiration to the great information  and design provided by Richard Jussel through the MHA website.

Here are photos from the proces of building this clay cook stove…….

soil-sand ratios to find the best mortar mix

sifting volcanic sand

Rafi, my assistant, and I in the mixing pit

the base

Rafi on stone detail

creating the smoke pathway

we used fired brick for a more durable top surface and chimney…

… and lath (probably overkill) to hold the plaster and prevent expansion cracks

my mom gets in on the plaster action (plaster made with beach sand we collected)

steel fabrication team comes and we secure the stack

a wok we buy at the market makes the perfect rain hat

my mom and Ibu Kerni, our friend and guide to village life, next to finished stove

Rafi and I celebrating a finished project

a priestess’ assistant comes to help make the proper offerings for the first-fire ceremony

the first fire

fying peanuts

more photos when the rest of the building is finished!

This is Mauricio and Gilda’s floor that I just finished. Included are photos of the general sections of the floor and details of the initially awkward spaces that I had to fill which turned into abstract homages to elements of nature and our ways of interacting with it. This project was a good experience in the age-0ld idea that limits can be boundaries which encourage creativity. Mauri and Gilda did not buy even ONE ceramic tile. The tiles you see are all recovered from the trash piles of the three main hardware supply stores here in town. Some come from incomplete boxes and most had broken corners which a normal mason would not consider working with. While I’m at it I’ll include photos of their bathroom I created some months ago.

The photos for this entry were all taken by the wonderful photographer Eva.

Hey folks! Spring is in full action so there’s little time to stop to sit down at the computer… luckily the beauty all around us offers plenty opportunity for reflection:

The first floor of this building is the ceramics workshop where we are working and the second floor is where Eva and I lay our sleepy heads to open ourselves up to the dreamworld. Somewhere in between and all around is where our life is happening and therefore we are grateful to call it home.

This is Mauricio Petinaroli’s bathroom in the process of being born. Eva has some great photos of it at http://evalarevolution.blogspot.com/ .

A bicycle powered flour mill that Simón VandenHeede and I have built to take out to the Rio Azul for Alex to use. I am excited about mills in general and want to learn more about making rolled oats. I think these processes are so important for circumnavigating the “market” and being able to harvest, process, and nurture ourselves with gifts from the soil.

Solar ovens…. they sound pretty outlandish don’t they? They are one of those great things that you’ve got to experience to believe (like many great things in life!). On a relatively sunny day, without either wood or gas, it is possible to cook grains, beans, sweet treats and always have hot water on supply for cooking or cleaning. Being able to cook without having to use earthly resources, whether they come from the forest backlot or municipal networks, feels good… feels non-violent…. feels liberating…. feels hopeful. It is one way we can tangibly receive the celestial energy that the sun sends us on every revolutionary day of our lives (if the clouds are not winning the cosmic battle!)

The basic design for the ovens comes from a publication by Aprovecho, http://www.approvecho.net/ . The main design challenge that I dealt with on this series was making the assembly and dis-assembly of the large reflectors easy. In our daily use of the one we have in the Azul, we found it to be a tedious, but often necessary process when big winds come, to take the reflectors off and then put them back on again when wanting to use the oven again. I went with a compound system of hinges that allows the whole reflective surface to fold down and protect the glass surface when the oven is in storage. I would call this design change a good improvement and a good step towards making the oven a smooth-functioning and perhaps some day a more main stream part of life.

I am very enthusiastic to hear about other experiences in solar cooking and would be happy to publish them on this site. The following photos are different views of the ovens. In one you’ll see the probes that Alejandro, our good scientist friend, has installed to study the performance of the ovens. (The photos don’t show clearly that there is a door on the back wall for placing pots and pans).

Cooking with the sun… why not? Yet another of the apparently infinite possibilities in which we may interact with reality in this miraculous life we are given. Recently, I have received many reminders of how important it is to start every day with openness…. to recognize that our habits are helpful but can hold us back from new ways of being in this world. It is so important that we continue to experiment and feel the freshness which each new breath offers us!