Architecture LIVE 11
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| I make the first door frame and install this. This portal offers access to the enigmatic interior of the frame. From there I view the broad exterior over which a gathering moon presides. I dream then of being immersed in clay slip, pressed upon and forced into a dark chamber where indeterminate debris pummles my body. |
| I take this as an allegory for my life, encouragement to push myself out into the world to source the straw which is becoming increasingly vital to the sheltermaking. I juggle this commitment with bouts of filming and travel planning, recognising in that endeavour the pull of the antipodes on my soul. |
| I go to Strokestown on the strength of a hunch. A woman in a hardware shop directs me to a nearby house with a tractor parked outside. I explain at the door that I am looking for straw and am directed further up the town to an agriculture supplier. There I get a name and a phone number of a man who will sell me straw. |
| He arrives the next morning and surveys the scene. He even knows where I can source better clay than what I have managed to obtain myself. I am well impressed. |
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| Encouraged by his promise to deliver 15 bales as soon as possible we tackle into the formwork. The sense of enclosure which this creates pushes my focus out to the west where the cows, of late, have chosen to spend a lot of time. This is the unsullied vista, the dreamland of the setting sun. |
| It is Lughnasadh. Light yielding to dark. The full moon must content itself with temporary radience. It probes the dark and brushes against our dreams. The quiet dilgence of our lives is relentlessly scrutinised. |
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| We hasten our progress and summon via text messages aid to our quest. The straw bales are delivered and the first is rolled into the vacant interior. Alanna performs a short ceremony to acknowledge the commencement of the walling. Clay slip is sprinkled on the threshold and we give thanks for assistance rendered to the project thus far. |
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| A tsunami of progress follows. James, a carpenter and volunteer assembles windows frames in a flash. Thomas mixes huge batches of clay slip. The first walling is installed into the formwork. The space assumes a busy aire. |
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| Progress continues at a pace and the fledgling walls grow tall. The frame takes on a more defined and robust character. Muddied hands and clothes become the order of the day. Laughter fills the site and excitement encourages us all forward. The tactile quality of the clay-straw is familiar but new. |
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| When the temporary shuttering is removed the building takes on new character. The clay-straw infill presents its face to the world mimicing a past still entrenched in our bones. The mixing process activates this knowing, drawing it outward allowing us to learn the technique at lightning speed. |
| I am stunned and excited simultaneously, relieved and disturbed. A poor response to our texts for help provoke the realisation that people do not really want to shelter themselves or to take full responsibility for their lives. The muddy and tactile clay-straw world offers a freedom akin to birthing. Swaddled in clay slip we emerge squaking and confused into the real world. Sundered from the long suffering mother we find ourselves drawn back to the protecting womb for succour. The shock of the outside world is too much to bear. The potential of freedom is frightening. |
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| An avalanche of realisation carries me away. Suddenly I understand the resistance to the notion of building our own homes. It is fundamental, primal, retarded and unsustainable. The potential of our own lives is too much to bear. Our wish for anonimity drives us to the nearest product or situation where we can unburden ourselves of our individuality. |
| Suddenly it is all so simple, so easily explained. Our sheltermaker genes know all. It is simply a matter of activating these by plunging in. For those committed to being unborn the threat of success is too much to bear. For me this is a waystation on the long road. I feel relief, joy and tired in my bones. I begin to understand the situation of me being here, in this place, at this time. The EconoSpace seems to be emerging from another dimension, a hologram of the past superimposed on the here and now. I run my hand along its flanks, pat it hard, finger strands of protruding straw. I stand back half in wonderment, half in awe. Can this really be? Can it really be this simple? |
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| Sloughing at the clay pile or mixing slip, I am awash in mud. The rhythmic certainty of the mixer encourages me past my resistances into a new place. I revel in this funk and squalor, half-mad. Nothing however can deter my enthusiasm. The scent of success is too strong. I follow this slavishly like a predator, ignoring rain and the aches in my bones. At the slightest opportunity I run my hand across the walls or thump them reassuringly. Cars slow to better determine just what is going on. Something familiar and something new juxtaposed. Past and present coinciding. |
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| Architecture LIVE 12 |
| Architecture LIVE 10 |
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