Lammas Sculpture - 8th August 2018

I’m sitting in the new Craft Barn on a scratchy strawbale. I’ve got a hazel stick in one hand and am pushing swishy clay through a garden sieve. Not so hot today but I’m enjoying the partial shade created by the not-quite-finished shingle roof.

It’s quiet at the barn today so I can get on with another of my favourite jobs – making and applying clay render. From past experience I know the ratio that works best for our home-dug boulder clay is 1 part sieved clay to 5 parts sand. If I use more clay then it will be too strong and will crack.

We’re mixing in a wheel barrow today and using a minimum of water. I’m delighted that it rained last night which means we have water in our collections tanks. However, I elect to use water harvested in the buckets I left out last night.

I use a demister to damp down the cob and clay lump wall before applying the homemade render. My intention is to marry the old and new and ‘tidy up’ the earth wall that in the fullness of time will become the inside of the Craft Room.

I love this way of building. There is something anarchical about digging the clay and constructing a wall from it! It feeds my need to create. It’s also is a wonderful medium for sculpting with.

And somehow I end up adlibbing and making a recessed area that lends itself to becoming a Lammas Sculpture. Plan A is to embed wheat straw in the render. That doesn’t work and is quickly superseded by Plan B whereby I press ears of wheat into the render, then take them out again to leave the print of the wheat.

Broken china dug out of the old house takes shape as a rising sun mini mosaic. I’m satisfied and happy. Beauty and building go hand in hand. Or more to the point, there is beauty in what is handmade. Short video on Facebook