art in nature.

  Sometimes you just want to go outside and play.  There is something comforting about a being outside amongst the plants, animals, birds, bugs, sun, air and water.  Its an almost innate part of our programming to be attracted to life and all its parts.  Some call it biophilia, i call it fun!

  About two weeks ago we met with a 'natural' artist named Roger Asay for a lesson on art in nature.  Roger is an artist out of Prescott who works with found natural materials to create subtle, yet breathtaking works of art.  After a short introduction to his work, we went out to Granite Creek Park to create some art of our own.  We split into three groups and got down to business taking inventory of our materials and deciding on a concept.  We had about three hours total to 'perfect' our piece.  This is what my group came up with:



  At the top left of the photo you'll notice a light colored stump protruding from the concrete wall.  That stump is in fact growing out from the wall and has been chopped back.  This was our inspiration.  The walled portion in this photo is actually the side of Montezuma St., a main thoroughfare here in town.  The basin in the middle is Granite Creek, the main waterway that passes through town and eventually makes its way down to phoenix.  And the vegetation is a part of Granite Creek Park.  Our location marks the 'transition area' between this 'natural' park and the man-made environment.

   We decided to play off of the 'tree's' example and make an art piece illustrating the tension between the two areas.  The branches on the left are essentially reaching out like a hand or claw from the man-made barrier as a sort of last-ditch effort to save themselves from being overtaken completely.  The green snake-like bundle of leaves on the right are providing something to grab onto from inside the park.  In a way these two pieces are coming together in a mutual cooperation amongst life forms to work for a better future.  That is the intolerance and ignorance of the human race in it's treatment of the environment.  There are a lot of heavy themes taking place within this work we put together, but they all stem from a loving place.  And we had a darn good time doing this, together!







  Roger Asay and his wife Rebecca Davis both work together in many projects in a similar vein to what we did in a just a day.  Though they obviously put a lot more time in energy into coming up with their concepts and projects.  Below are some pictures of their work.



  Stones from the Verde River placed simply according to color and size gradient.



A bundle of stick formed into a sphere, sanded and polished.

Both artists do some powerful work with such simple mediums.  If you'd like to check out more of what they're doing, click the link and browse their website!

www.asaydavisstudios.com

-nico

Hands on Construction: The Chicken Coop.

  In the last month or so we have been taking classes on construction methods and materials from the Ecosa Institutes associate director Tom Hahn.  A lot of what he has been teaching us has been in the classroom, but we finally were able to get outside and do some hands on construction with natural building materials.  Our job was to complete a chicken coop half-finished by the summer semester in only four days!  When we arrived it looked more or less like this.  Minus the door frame and earth-bag wall.

  Although the summer semester did quite a bit, there was still a lot left. On day one we started by splitting up into groups and tackling different projects.  One group worked on the construction of the Earth-bag wall; one group worked on the framework for the door and one on building the nest box for the chickens.

  Earth-bags are quite easy to make and can be very structurally sound.  They have the ability to resist earthquakes, hurricanes, flooding, fire-damage and severe winds.  In fact, they are often used as disaster relief shelters.  The basic items necessary are dirt, barbed wire, chicken wire and some sort of sturdy woven bag (we used rice bags) (you can also use an earthen plaster on the outside to make the structures more permanent).  You fill the bags with on-site dirt and began by stacking them on each other with a couple strips of barbed wire in between to act as a mortar once compressed by the weight of the bags.  Then you proceed to wrap them with chicken wire and apply any sort of plaster that you'd like!


  On day two we began by making cob together.

Tumblr.

I've been posting a lot on my other blog on tumblr. So feel free to check that out for more current updates.

http://nicholasjjacobs.tumblr.com/

PDX

siguiente el verde (following the green)

  Appropriately enough, our orientation took place in the wilderness area North of Prescott along the Verde (ignorantly pronounced 'ver-dee' instead of 'vare-deh' the spanish word for green) River.  We are jumping into the world of sustainable design and it all begins by following a river named after the 'lush' green lands following the desert expanse that is northern mexico and southern arizona traveled north by the spanish so many years ago.  I'm quite sure they must have been quite ecstatic to see water, vegetation and food for forage when making it to the Verde.  And how fitting that together our path was north along the 'Green' River.  If that is not a sign for being on the right track, then i don' know what is!

makin' fire... one of the four sacred elements.

  After a two-day studio introduction, the ten of us met Cody Lundin after class last tuesday.  If you've ever seen the Discovery Channel's newest hit Dual Survival then you are quite familiar with Cody and his style.  He is very much like how he appears on television; he stands about 5'11" with long blonde braids, piercing blue-eyes, cut-off shorts and bare feet.  Although he comes off as an intense and serious survivalist, he has a soft-spot and is extremely kind-hearted.  After about an hour of pre-trip introduction we had a gear check.  We were allowed to bring two hats (a sun-hat and a stocking cap), three upper-body layers (a t-shirt, long-sleeve shirt and a coat), two lower-body layers (a pair of shorts and pants), two pieces of footwear (hiking boots and sandals), one pair of socks, one pair of underwear, a bowl, a spoon, a knife, two bandanas and for food two small ziplock bags, half-full of GORP (good ol' raisins and peanuts) and sunflower seeds for a three-day wilderness excursion.

tending the fire + ash cakes.

  On Wednesday we left for our trip.  An hour long van ride into the middle of some National Forest, two full water bottles and one very full stomach and we were off on our journey up the Verde.  We led ourselves by taking turns being 'Point' or the leader of the pack, while Cody took up the rear as 'Sweep' the entire time.  It was up to us to make educated decisions about the quickest roots up the river while avoiding long gooseneck and crossing the river when needed.  This experience included a lot of bushwhacking and river crossing... and let me tell you everything in Arizona is on the Defense which resulted is some very thrashed legs.  The scenery along to river was a beautiful and lush green that made you forget you were in the middle of the desert.

makin' cordage.

  Cody taught us many things along the way.  We learned how to 'primitively' bash rocks together to form discoidal blades for use with anything requiring a sharp edge.  How to forage for food; we ate mesquite pods, wild grapes, lemon berries, juniper berries, crawdads, river clams and cattails.  He taught us how to make a fire using a hearth and and a handdrill along with some juniper bark as kindling.  With the fire we made ash-cakes from flour mixed with water cooked over a bed of coals.  We left no trace by cleaning up our fire residue and using the charcoal as sunscreen (which is very effective and obvious for reapplication).  After picking a yuca leaf, we proceded to clean it and make it into reverse two-ply cordage.  Then he even taught us how to make animal figurines out of a single piece of willow.  Cody is a wealth of information that is truly essential to knowing how to truly survive if the opportunity ever presents itself.

the green belt. diamond in the rough.

  It seems that this experience has taught my a lot about what it means to be truly sustainable.  That is to say that in terms of an individual or tribes relation directly to the land.  I bet/ I know many of us would have no idea how to survive if we actually needed to.  Even the small amount of knowledge imparted on us by Cody led to a glimpse of how creative and intelligent indigenous people were and likely still are.  It's really too bad we typically overlook their knowledge in light of our so-called 'enlightened' western selves.  Thats enough ranting though.

  Overall i had a great time and learned a lot about what i means to survive even if it was for on three days.  If this experience was any glint at what is to come, i am excited to learn more about the ingenuity of the human race in relation the natural world.  There are plenty of solutions to  be had, so lets go out and get 'em workin'!

the last hurrah!

Yee Haw,
Nico

approaching the water.

today i approached the edge of the diving board that follows with a head first splash into the world of sustainable design.  i attended my first day of the ECOSA Institute, an ecological, sustainable design program located in the former capital of arizona and wonderfully quaint city of prescott.  it was a great first day filled with alternative education, team building exercises and hopeful solutions for the future.  i can't wait to see what is in store tomorrow.

tumblr.

<- click the link to see photos from my travels!

where's my passport?

I heard that Arizona was the location where the fabled wild wild west was filmed during our days of manifest destiny.  A time when All American Cowboys were screamin' "OO-RAH" while courageously fightin' those not-so-natively American Injans (being our impression at the time, of course).  Those were the days that i wish i could return to.  Days when I could care less about feeding myself, recycling or saving the world (aka being an 'environmentalist' [which p.s. it seems everyone and their mom is these days]).

Though I digress, the great state of Arizona also happens to be the locale where a tipping point is occurring in our widely-talked-about but hardly-ever-mentioned war on the '3rd' world or should i say immigration 'debate'.  I recently(~ a month ago) saw a film entitled 9500Liberty which characterizes this particular issue very well, using the almost insignificant Prince William County, Virginia as an example of what can happen when this issue of 'illegals' comes to fruition.

The aim of the film is to illustrate how most of the extremist stances taken on immigration are just that, extremist aka not a part of mainstream thought.  The film touches on issues of bi-partisanship and this issue's ability to bring back a 'true' aka small-scale local democracy to the U.S.  An interesting approach seeing as many of us haven't had immigration touched upon in our own states, while border states such as AZ are battle grounds because they must take action into their own hands.  Largely thanks to the inaction of the federal government aka the one unifying factor that has a duty to address such international factors (trade, immigration, diplomacy, etc.) amongst each and every one of the fifty states we call the, keyword United, States of America.

Either way, what i found very intriguing and a bit disturbing but, not-at-all surprising was that this film points out that one (yes, one) lobbying agency out of Washington D.C. called the Federation for American Immigration Reform or FAIR is behind almost every single immigration bill in the country.  From the state-wide attempt (SB1070) in Arizona to the county-wide one in Prince William County, Virginia.  This single agency is behind most of the turmoil.  How sad.  Though i suppose realistic and reflective of the world we live in today.

If you haven't seen this particular movie I highly recommend it.  9500Liberty leaves the viewer with a better understanding of the country-wide immigration issue with a local-level, applicable and understandable feel.  Great stuff.

The reason i bring any of this up is that on Thursday, August 12 (~ 1 day from now) I am moving to the great state of Arizona for 4 whole months (until December).  I will be attending a eco-centered sustainable design program located in Prescott, AZ called ECOSA.  The program specializes in educating it's students about sustainable design in a broad sense, using components of the whole system together in placing ourselves on the planet rather than using separate components and trying to make (forcing) them to fit together.  It focuses on things like sustainable agriculture, aquaculture, arboriculture, architecture and landscape architecture.  Essentially bringing everything together and designing lasting relationships between the parts to create a sustainable future.

Now that I (again) find myself 'studying abroad' domestically or 'going domestic' as I like to say, I am going to try and keep my blog consistently updated with my new educational experiences, travels, musings and battles (as I will be working as a border patrol agent with a six-shooter for some extra coin on the side).  I feel like because I will have the internet-webz 24/7 this time around, I can accomplish this goal.  So stay tuned and you might learn something new.  Maybe i'll even post some NSFW pics of the Grand Canyon in all her glory ;).

-nico