all work requires art, by which we fit ourselves to life, to place, to community…
So about a year and a half ago, I built a foot-powered lathe for turning bowls. It’s a very rough structure that works really really well. Power comes from your leg, pushing on a stick, which is tied to a string, which wraps around a mandrel, which spins a chunk …
Thanks to the folks at Farm and Wilderness camps, here’s a lovely video of one of the campers and his new “axe,” and more pix of music-making campers on FB, here. To make your own, download a pdf of the book, Make a Ray Jacobs Rocky Mountain Dulcimer, here. The …
Doug Shafer was playing his guitar at the Portland airport this summer, on that rare day I got on a plane to goto CA (for a day! to build an oven for a writer at Sunset, but that’s another story). I stopped to listen and talk. He had these beautiful …
Here’s a new oven story that popped up one day via Google Alerts. It comes from the founder of The Makhad Trust, a UK non-profit focused on helping Bedouin tribal desert communities. It began with the planting of an acacia tree in the desert and continues, in part, by restoring …
“In the end, we shall have had enough of cynicism, scepticism and humbug, and will want to live – more musically.” This quote (Vincent Van Gogh to his brother Theo), came to me from a friend, just before Christmas, 2012, as I was finishing this gift book about how to …
Muddy Creek charter school in Philomath commissioned this mud project as the initial step in creating an “outdoor classroom.” All 60 kids, K-5, participated in 2 days of playdough brainstorming and design, and six days of mud. Parents and neighbors contributed random prunings of willow, fruitwood, and forsythia that we …
Maya Aviña teaches fine arts at CSU in Pueblo, Colorado. For about the past ten years, she’s been immersed in natural building, which she has also made into the focus of her research at the college. Last year, she invited me to come be an “artist in residence†and do …
Mud ovens in Hawaii: “These bricks, stacked and left to dry for about 2.5 weeks, are the start of a future earth oven at the campus’ Ulumau School Garden. The oven will be used by HPA (Hawaii Preparatory Academy) students, staff and their ohana to bake breads and pizzas, as well …
For a collection of stories to follow-up/add on to Dig Your Hands in the Dirt, take a look at this site, put together by Georgie Donais, which includes stories from: Bill & Athena Steen Candy Vanderhoff Daniel Frenkel/Chelsea Sprauer Ed Raduazo Georgie Donais Janine Björnson jonah vitale-wolff Kat Sawyer Kiko …
Below notes and gifts from Jorie Kennedy, who I met when she was apprenticing at the North American School of Natural Building, last year (2011). You don’t need a book to make an oven. Best is a friend who’s built one, but for friends she hasn’t met yet, Jorie put …
