We restarted construction on the art studio after its winter slumber. What an gorgeous building it's going to be. It's intended for one artist to sleep and create in during the warm seasons. The front room is for living, office work, sleeping, eating and socializing. It has a wood bench, desk, shelves, and patterns of glass bottles sculpted in the earthen interior walls. There are big wooden beams lining the ceiling. A bed is being built into a little sleeping nook with storage underneath. A task assigned to me and John is to build a wooden shelf above the bed. We've got a radiant design in mind, using alder saplings, that will be beautiful to look up at as you fall asleep or wake up there. Then the back room is a 20' ceiling art studio with tall windows, looking into the woods but still exposed to plenty of sunlight. There's talk of building a kiln in there. Eric, one of the interns, having been a pottery maker for ten years has experience in this. We got right to work with efficiency, joy and ease, singing songs as we shoveled, hauled, hammered, and sawed. I'm so excited to work with these wonderful people.
Then after lunch, Colin Bernard and John Bowers (the “Solar guys”) from Solar Crest Innovation arrived to help us out with our solar hot water panels that got blown off in the snow storm we had last week and also to talk to us about solar heating (not solar power). That's where we learned about the efficiency and general awesomeness of using the sun to heat water and space, of course with an on-demand backup system in place. They were really nice and knowledgeable dudes. Colin took out one of the vacuum solar tubes for demo. In 10 minutes, the copper tip was too hot to touch, but perfect for heating up a cup of java, as they often do on work sites. Using the sun's radiation directly avoids losing energy through conversion. Heating masses, such as water or stone to store and radiate the heat slowly is one of Gaia and Sun's technologies that we should be so thankful for. No solar panels, no wasted electricity, no loss of energy in powering a heating device and storing, inexpensive and few materials, super low maintenance (one moving part), and hardly any waste at end of life. What more could you ask for? I'll talk more about the benefits of radiant heating in other posts.
We finished the day with taking inventory of everyone's skills. Along with many having experience in conventional building, such as carpentry, electrical and plumbing work, there was quite a range of more rare trades skills. I mentioned Eric who can make kilns. Kata makes most of her living by working with metals for stone jewelry, which took my breath when I saw them. So beautiful. There are people who are good with knots, welding, metal fabrication, artistic design, etc. Then there's the more 'natural building' skills. Many here have experience in cob building, plastering, stone work, masonry, woodworking, weaving, salvage, sculpture, straw bale building, and alternative systems such as rainwater collection, in floor heating, solar heating. I put myself down as having experience in woodworking, cob, welding, earthbag structures, green roof design and install, and lime plastering.
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