Kiko Denzer

Kiko Denzer’s Sitemap

A yurt of sticks and mud

IMG_4767

2011 has been a year of yurts, w/two opportunities to try out this simple design of sticks and mud — a more permanent adaptation of the traditional, portable, Mongolian design. One was for a friend and neighbor. The other was a workshop at Aprovecho Institute, as part of their sustainable shelter building series. Lots of people helped! Both were made with locally harvested bamboo and fir poles (arranged reciprocally to make a self-supporting, conical roof w/a central skylight, which I’m still trying to figure out how to cover cheaply…) Here’s a little picture book about the whole process.…

Open publication –

Video: clean & hot: how to light a fire in your oven

top-down-fire

How you prep and lay a fire makes a big difference to how things work — or not — in your oven (and other stoves). It’s really pretty simple: dry fuel, small sticks (plenty of surface area), plenty of space for fuel and oxygen to mix — and put your kindling on top, so the fire burns down, clean and hot, like a candle. The video here is a (pretty poor) attempt at sharing some pix of how I do it. It’s too long and wordy — a rough draft. I’ll try and get the next edition done soon! Meanwhile, …

Tribal Genealogical Patterns: A Universal Language?

[download this pattern as an envelope design here]

’the folk has thus preserved, without understanding, the remains of old traditions that go back sometimes to the indeterminably distant past, to which we can only refer as “prehistoric”…’ Had the folk beliefs not indeed once been understood, we could not now speak of them as metaphysically intelligible, or explain the accuracy of their formulation.

—    Ananda Coomaraswamy, “The Nature of ‘Folklore’ & ‘Popular Art,’” Quarterly Journal of the Mythic Society, 27, Bangalore, 1936.

 

Carl Schuster, a little-known art historian, spent about thirty years of his working life wandering the world, …

Links

www.intabas.com/kikodenzer.html (also click on “Maya’s homepage”)
http://www.pegasusartgallery.com/artist.php?id=20111207_56&sub=1&artist=kd&name=Kiko%20Denzer&info=0
www.cobcottage.com
New Village Press, Publisher of Works of Heart, building Village through the Arts, …with Heather Beal, Kiko Denzer, Alicia Hokanson, Annie Lanzilotte, Clare Marcus, Pamel Michael, Kate Yee, Eds Lynne Elizabeth & Suzanne Young. See also their other books on Community and the Arts
Michael Pollan on Community Ovens, The 36-Hour Dinner Party, in the New York Times
Living More with Less, 30th Anniversary Edition, Herald Press (there’s an entry on “Cob House Life” a little ways down the page)
Little House on a Small Planet, by Shay Salomon & Nigel Valdez Continue reading →

Solstice, 2010: bring in the mud! (into the house, that is)

about 300 pounds of masonry moderates a small space

This time of year I don’t usually get too muddy, but I brought some mud into my office last month so I could have a better and more efficient source of heat — finally! This little “heater hat” effectively turned my little iron box stove into a mini-masonry heater — with an oven! (note the wooden door on the right, just above the iron stove door). The wood that used to over-heat me, briefly, in the morning, now keeps me comfortably warm all day, and into the next morning (depending on how long I fire it and how cold it …

Continue reading →