Learn to Make a Rammed Earth Charcoal Tool for Art Making
Learn to make a pieces of art from earth and charcoal, that can make more art.
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What's this about?
This is about a give and take relationship between us and our natural environment. Relenting some, not all, control
We strive to control so much. Often to our own detriment. Our landscape, our natural environment, takes the brunt of it. We want beauty and colour and modernism stability, longevity impermanence. We want curatorial control. I do not wish to take that away entirely or tell anyone to cease their expressions of individuality. But I do ask that we relent some of that control in the form of an open dialogue with our surroundings.
I have chosen to specifically look at rammed earth as a material/technique. Unstabilized, slightly off ratios of clay-silt-sand and not perfectly made, rammed earth. And I have chosen to do this both publicly and privately, as well as in the middle of the rainy season and with very simple tools.
It has worked, and it has been fun to test, collect, make, carve, sculpt, stack and decorate. I have created countless angular blocks with all types of dirt mixtures. I have embedded charcoal and created a robust drawing tool. I have made mini crushable earth building blocks, as well as a public fire pit that got crushed. And I have made a large architectural-inspired sculpture that encourages and facilitates the interaction of already present plants and animals in a decorative non permanently disruptive manner.
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