Green Woodwork Space – Mk II

During the harsh storms of December and January the original bender structure built to act as a shelter for the Green Woodwork space partly collapsed!!

Partly Collapsed bender structure looking very sorry for itself!

Lessons were learned and, as well as using more woven willow and hazel in the roof of the structure to give it strength and stability, I decided to also insert living willow uprights in-between the hazel already used. This provided a much stronger structure which will only grow in strength as it gets older (with a minimum of maintenance).

Bright and Happy Green Woodwork Space – Mk II

I wanted the space to provide lots of light, be made from found materials only, be open to having a fire inside and also provide shelter from the rain. The “living bender” structure created does all these things and is also adaptable to different weather conditions, where we can add tarpaulins if it is needed, and easily remove them if there is a long, hot summer (we wish!).

Inside the cosy new space

The new space enables me to permanently have the pole lathe set up without the worry it will get damp and wet. The bird poo on the lathe bed also indicates my avian friends are also enjoying the space, which brings a smile to my face.

The pole lathe set up (finally!)

Initially I wanted to have the pole lathe cord through the roof connected to a sycamore tree branch which stretches overhead. However, this meant I had to face the wall at the rear of the structure. Instead I decided to use a bungee cord wrapped around the horizontal roof strut.

Pole Lathe Bungee

The space is modifying and finding its own place within the orchard where it sits. I hope to document its development over the coming months and years.

What!? Another cup of tea?

NB; Tripod, chain and hook used in the photo above care of David the on-site blacksmith!

 

Green Woodwork and Sustainability

I believe the starting point for any attempt at a sustainable community is to explore the existing resources of that community and develop effective strategies to maximise their usefulness for that community. This includes methods that will care for, maintain and maximise the natural life of those identified resources and the ecologies they are connected to.

At Plan-It Earth Eco Project we have lots of willow and hazel coppice that has been poorly managed in the past (or neglected) as no one person has dedicated the time needed to manage the resource over successive years. It is quite a commitment to become a coppicer as you need to get the trees into a coppice cycle and the crop takes 1, 2 or 3 years (or longer!) to come to harvest. How many people in this age of instant gratification can wait 3 years before they even begin to make the chair they have in their mind? Much easier to go out and buy the wood, make the chair and sell it in a few weeks.

However, for me the chair in the above example is simply the end product. The relationship built with the trees themselves, and the ecologies they are connected to, is the real goal. Out of this relationship new and surprising methods of economic production are created to the benefit of the trees, ecologies and the human community.

After spending the Winter and Spring cutting, snedding and sorting the willow it is time to look at what we can create out of the wood we have. There are varying sizes and quality of wood as much of the coppice has been cut over the Winter months to bring it back into rotation. After a great ‘Meeting of Minds’ with Rachel and David Smart Knight (who own Plan-It Earth Eco Project, the following projects were suggested for developing a work plan for the Summer months.

 

Living Willow Structures – “The Nest”

Jan 2011 – Having been invited by Annie Lovejoy (at the Caravanserai Project) to return to Treloan Coastal Holidays and produce something from Jude and Tony’s Portscatho coppice. My first thought was to build up the living fedge we had started the previous year. However, having looked at it only 1 in 4 of the living stakes had rooted and taken!! I was amazed. Willow grows everywhere, it’s usually the case that you have to manage it to stop it spreading!! Well you live and learn. I think the problem was the clay rich, highly compacted ground which sat on top of gradually disintegrating granite, combined with a necessary cut and plant in August 2009…but I might be wrong. Any willow experts out there want to give some advice?

Anyway. Instead of flogging a dead horse Pete and Debs who run the campsite said they would rather have a willow structure created in which kids from the campsite could come and play, shaded from the Summer sun. I was more than happy to oblige and found these fantastic ideas for willow structures in a Norwegian book Angel had given me.

Pete and Debs very impressed, and with a whole load of volunteers from the UCF MA: Art and Environment course to lend a hand it was something I thought we could finish in a day. Optimistic I know, but…

Mac and I went down the day before to the coppice to find and amazing crop of willow. Most wands were 6 – 8ft long thick as your thumb and no side soots. Perfect. We also pollarded a couple of older trees that were about to fall over, and planted some new trees. We left some work for the MA students to do the next day and retired to our beds. I was privileged to stay in “the Eco-Pod” on the campsite. A really amazing little wooden cabin, overlooking the sea with its own little wood burner and looking like something out of Hansel and Gretel!

The MA students duly arrived and we all went down to the coppice to finish off our work from the previous day and extract the willow to use on the structure. The larger logs we stored at the campsite to season for charcoal burning in the summer.

We didn’t get started until after a long, long lunch of local produce (very tasty). And began by marking out the holes to place the long straight willow uprights for the skeleton of the structure.

Pushing in uprights for the structure

Good to see Daro getting stuck in!

We then did a simple 3 stick weave around the bottom of the structure for about 4 – 5 turns to secure the uprights in the ground and provide stability to the structure. After that it was a case of bending the uprights into the centre, tying them together and hanging a weight (my rucksack) from the centre point to provide the “rounded” shape we were looking for.

Bending the poles.

It’s worth  noting that some of the poles were not long enough to reach, so thanks to the student who came up with the idea of placing an “O” ring of woven willow over the centre and tie the shorter ones to that. Group mind working well. Phew!

Uprights tied, weight hanging, bottom woven and “O” ring tied off.

Then all that is left is for everyone to grab sticks and randomly weave them into the structure. The more sticks you weave the stronger the structure becomes. It’s also the fun bit! Bending the willow wands to take advantage of their inherent strength works the best, and curves look much nicer than straight lines.

The “Nest” starting to take shape

Cold, but happy.

Once there are enough sticks woven into the structure, the weight in the centre can be removed….and voila. It stands up by itself and is remarkably strong.

Night draws in.

The finished nest.

The finished structure can comfortably seat 12 adults in a circle, and the uprights should hopefully take root and grow to produce more wands to weave in.

Note: The structure takes a large amount of willow to construct. We used 16 x 12ft – 16ft poles and 5 bundles of 4 – 6ft wands to make the finished nest. We could easily have used more!

Willow Management At Drift Reservoir

It’s always a mad dash in the early year to get the willow at the various sites cut before the sap starts rising, and nesting birds start to settle. I thought I had it all under control until I was approached by Dave Parker, who is responsible for the bird-life, hides and habitats around Drift Reservoir (Grid Ref: 431295). Its less than 1km from my home across the fields, and so was too tempting a coppicing opportunity to miss.

Dave planted a reed bed to encourage water fowl to breed and provide a habitat for other wildlife some years ago and this has established really well. Unfortunately the willow on the banks surrounding the bed have also flourished, and started to encroach into the bed itself.

 

Willow Encroachment Into Reed Bed At Drift Reservoir.

When we went down to have a walk around I noticed what a fantastic willow crop this made. The willow competes for the light with the reeds and grows tall, straight and strong with no side shoots.

So, as a management plan we decided that I would come down, cut the willow each year in Dec / Jan and remove the brambles around the banks, letting new growth and more diverse species thrive.

I cut the willow in February, and Vanya and I transported the crop back to Plan-It Earth Eco Project for snedding and sorting last week (Mid March).

There are also willow along the banks which need managing, but when I last looked the fisherman seemed to have taken matters into their own hands! Looks as though I will have to be earlier next year. A sobering thought that in these times of immediate gratification, I will have to wait a year until I can rectify mistakes and another year after that to reap the harvest. Good old Mother Nature teaching me the value of correct action and patience!

 

Coppicing Plan

Hugh down at Bosavern Farm has organised for some volunteers to help us with coppicing the willow on 1st February 2011, but before we can start cutting we need a plan of action. It is most important this year that:

1. The willow is maintained as a windbreak for the crops to be grown in the field
2. More willow can be re-planted on the North / East boundary of the field to provide further shelter.
3. Any remaining willow can be used to produce hurdles, baskets etc and the skills needed can be passed on to the local community.

The Plan.

 

Setting Up The Green Woodworking Space

Why Green Woodworking?

I am really interested in complete “cycles” presented by natural materials, and their usefulness to communities aiming to live sustainably. These cycles are varied and may be the process from a calf being born to a pair of leather shoes, or a lamb to a woolly jumper.

The cycles I am currently focussing on are those presented by trees.

I am exploring this at Plan-It Earth education project ( http://www.plan-itearth.org.uk/) as part of a long term residency by setting up a green woodwork space, coppicing willow and hazel they have growing there and then seeing what we can produce from the natural materials. This will hopefully provide a forum for people interested in the many crafts associated with these trees, present opportunities for passing on some of these skills to interested people and also create ideas for generating new income streams for Plan-It Earth and the local community.

Green Woodworking Space.

The first thing to do is to set up a sheltered space suitable for working with green wood.

Green Woodworking Space Under Construction

Here I am using 2 – 3 year coppiced (bendy and overgrown!) hazel tied together for the vertical uprights of a bender frame. This will be ringed with thumb thick hazel rods tied at 90 degrees to the verticals to provide stability and strength enough to cover the frame with canvas tarpaulins.It is very important to me to use materials found ‘on-site’ to create this structure. The goalpost uprights (for the main supporting structure) are made from an old telegraph post, the crossbar made from a fallen sycamore trunk found in the road.

Chopping Block and handy string holder!

The goalpost arrangement used as the main supporting structure for the verticals is also used as the pole lathe supports at one end. A brake is also positioned to come from the pole lathe uprights.

‘Brake’ running off pole lathe bed.

Note: The brake is pegged and also tied temporarily with rubber inner tube.

The verticals were also lashed to the “crossbar” of the goalpost as the poles were not long enough to go over.

Hazel verticals lashed to crossbar.

The knots used to tie the poles together were simple slip knots finished with 2 half hitches or a hunters hitch using sisal string.

Tying two poles together for verticals.

Clearing The Willow

To help with the clearing of the undergrowth from around the willow Hugh drafted in help from the Wild Penwith Volunteers..

http://www.cornwallwildlifetrust.org.uk/conservation/Living_landscapes/wild_penwith_living_landscape

A group of about 12 people came together to clear the brambles, and Cooch Grass from the willows and rabbit proof fence which surrounds the field. The fencing not only protects the crops, but also means we can cut the willow low to the ground when we coppice as the rabbits will not eat the new emerging shoots from the stumps.

Using a combination of shears, sickles, slashers and croppers we spent the day working hard and managed to clear all the willow and most of the 200m boundary.

After a well deserved tea break in the polytunnel, I gave a demonstration of coppicing and sorting one tree. Taking the volunteers step-by-step through the process and the decisions made when cutting depending on what the wood will be used for.

Thanks to the Volunteers, and for me it was a pleasure to pass on some skills and knowledge.

We have decided to coppice the willow on 1st February 2011, as we also need to re-plant it on the Northern boundary (to provide another windbreak there) at the same time. Getting it fresh into the ground as near to the growing season as possible gives a much better chance of it rooting and sprouting next year.

If you are interested in joining us and learning some basic coppicing skills (for free!!) then contact Hugh at Bosavern Farm. See you there!

Bosavern Community Farm

Bosavern Community Farm (http://www.bosaverncommunityfarm.org.uk/) is based just outside St Just in West Penwith, Cornwall, UK. The community have been granted an 18 month lease by Cornwall Council who are the owners. In that 18 months they must demonstrate that the farm is a viable concern and the local community can keep the farm going.

Hugh (the current farm manager) and Deb (the project co-ordinator) asked if there was anything I could do with a willow windbreak planted by the previous owners which protects crops in the main growing field from South Westerly winds throughout the year.

The willow has been partly coppiced around 3 years ago; it has 3 – 4 rows of trees spaced 1/2m apart and is about 70m long. Whatever we decide to do the first thing to do was to clear all the undergrowth from around the trees and for that we needed some volunteers….

Willow Crab Pots – Portscatho Grid Ref 875347

After many months waiting, Allan and I had the opportunity to visit John Hurrell in Port Looe. He had agreed to demonstrate to us how to make crab pots from green willow, but would not cut the willow until the leaves fell from it. Growing and coppicing willow to make crab pots is an art in itself so maybe there will be a blog post about this soon; for now I’ll go through how to make the pot itself from freshly cut willow wands.

It took a day to make the pot and John had donated his time and expertise for free, so many many thanks to him.

The following are notes and photos and miscellaneous drawings to guide anyone who may want to try to make a pot themselves, but also an experiment in preserving the knowledge. Much can be gained from communicating the method of crab pot manufacture in this way but really you have to learn directly and practically from someone who knows how to do it. Like so many of these dying skills it is a case of learning through doing. Of making mistakes, being corrected and refining your skills.

Traditionally in Cornwall the crab pots (200+) would be made during the cold and stormy Winter months to be used the following Spring and Summer.

The starting point for each pot is a stand secured firmly into the ground with an 8″ disk fixed horizontally on its top at waist or mid chest height. This disk would then have 12 holes drilled through it around the circumference. Into these holes you place your thicker sticks as “ribs”. Thinner willow sticks are then used to “ring” the crab pot (i.e. they are woven to create a spiral around the pot securing the ribs and giving the pot shape).

In the following notes, taken directly from my sketchbook, some of the drawings are stylized aerial views from above, and some are shown from the side. Hopefully, you should be able to tell which is which even if you can’t read my writing! Good luck!

Portloe Willow Crab Pots

Ringing the pot - 1

Ringing the pot - Close up

Ringing down the pot

Inserted forcing rod

Forcing rods tied into existing ribs

Ringing to base - almost ready to be lifted off stand

Ringing technique - 1

Ringing Technique - 2

Ringing Technique - 3

Ringing Technique - 4

Lifting Off

Preparing for bottom of pot

Tying off centre

Putting in "chine" - rim for bottom

Bending ribs in to form bottom of pot

Weaving in the bottom

Weaving in the bottom - 2

Finishing off

Weaving the tail

The tail

The finished pot

Research in Brazil – January 2009

In January 2009 I travelled to Brazil to visit 2 communities in very different environments who live in a sustainable way with their surroundings.

I intended to travel to Brazil to live with the sustainable and ecological communities living in the valley of Matutu in the Minhas Gerais Mountains and Ceu Do Mapia in the heart of Amazonia. There I lived with the communities for a period of time and wanted to exchange skills, ideas, organizing principles and processes useful to ecological and sustainable communities in other locations. Particularly the UK.

I have been developing a practice which explores how artists can usefully work in their local communities considering the twin issues of Peak Oil and Climate change. The opportunity to travel and live with well established sustainable communities would inform this research and strengthen an ongoing body of work.

Matutu

The community of living in the valley of Matutu are situated 30 miles East of Caxambu in the Minhas Gerais mountains. Approx. one days travel North of Sao Paulo. The valley is high in the rolling mountains (not sharp Alpine peaks…think more high sierra rolling grassland interspersed with woods). The community of 150 people are nestled at the end of the valley, surrounded by cliffs and waterfalls on three sides. They own the land all the way up into the mountains to the water sources (and each household process all their sewage and waste water individually) which means the water from all the waterfalls is potable and drinkable! A new experience for me.

The community produce all their own fruit and vegetables which they grow organically.They have their own cattle used to produce milk. A dairy which produces fresh yoghurt and cheese. Horses do a lot of the work in the community carrying heavy objects, ploughing, herding cattle and providing transport in the mountains.The community has two schools for the children, and every child is encouraged to attend University at the appropriate age, either in Brazil or abroad. Each family in the community have their own trade and income, but the basics of shelter, food, water and fire are communal and each member of the community has their own job to do for these. (e.g. basic food is planted, grown and gathered communally, then distributed amongst all the community; but individual families can grow their own extra food which they keep).

There is a spiritual aspect to life in the community, involving the drinking of ayahuasca, which acts as an important cohesive force in resolving disputes and bonding the community as individuals in a group with common purpose, and the land on which they live. Although the spiritual is ever present in all aspects of life this spiritual aspect is not the main focus of the community. This spiritual aspect is strange and alien to a Western secular culture such as ours, but is vitally important to the people living in this community. A gong is struck at 6am and 6pm every day, and everyone spends a few seconds of silence to hear it and be quiet. No matter what they are doing. Speaking to Guilherme (the first person to settle here and facilitator of the spiritual side of life), he expressed how the gong acts like the heartbeat of the community. A reminder to the community of something beyond the day-to-day concerns of living.

Aside from the inherent knowledge base and skill of the people who live here, what impressed me most was how this community organises itself and interacts with the outside world:

• Community wide decisions are made in “clusters” of individuals who gather on a project by project basis. The more involvement an individual has in a project, the more decision making power they have in that project. Current projects include: Education, Fire Fighting, Hydro power, cafe and gift shop. The Fire fighting team have become so proficient that they are called in by the Brazilian government to fight fires in other communities – a bit like a Fire Fighting Special Forces!!
• The community has decided to make itself difficult to access by the outside world but not impossible. For example the only road in, or out, of Matutu is a red dirt road. Accessible only when dry and then really only if you have a 4 x 4 (or battered old style Volkswagen beetle, which is the vehicle of choice for many members of the community for its front wheel drive and lightness). Rather than replacing the road with asphalt the members of the community only repair it when it gets really bad. They like it that way. Any visitors must park vehicles at the entrance to the valley near the gift shop and cafe (which sell produce made in the community) and hire a guide if they want to go walking in the valley. I like this approach as it does not close the community off from the outside world, but restricts access to a manageable level which preserves privacy and the fragile ecosystem which exists in this place.

I hope to return to Matutu one day to learn a much as I can of the knowledge and skills the people possess. To bring that knowledge back to the UK and implement the relevant bits in the communities in which I work.

Ceu Do Mapia

Crossing The Bridge To Santa Casa

Ceu Do Mapia (Mapia) is a “Santo Daime” spiritual community in the heart of Amazonia. 1 days travel down the Purus river tributary from Boca De Acre and 2 days travel from Rio Branco. Very isolated when the river level drops away to nothing in the dry season, and boats cannot get to the community.

The community has regular visitors from the rest of the world (“visitantes”) who come to drink ayahuasca and take part in religious ceremonies. The centre of the community (both metaphorically and physically) is an amazing star shaped wooden church where the ceremonies take place.

From my own observations, and conversations with permanent residents in the community, the challenges currently facing the community centre around it’s interaction with the outside world and an nflux of wealth to a few individuals. In short the same problems facing communities throughout the developing world.

I spent only a week or so living in Mapia (not enough to establish myself in the community) but the traditions and skills I was looking for there did not seem to surface. However, my time there was magical in ways which are only now becoming apparent. The individuals I met in that week were lovely, and there is a definite magical quality to the place itself. Hopefully the commitees in the community can address the challenges they face and build the harmonious and peaceful place in the heart of the jungle they hope for.

So, next is a plan to establish links with communities in the Peruvian Amazon and travel there in 2010 for further research…

Viva Maia! Viva A Igreja Da Floresta! Viva Jurema!