Siler City Central Park Project is granted $15,000 of seed money through NC STEP!

This Monday night, at a Siler City Town Council Meeting, delegates from Siler City’s NC STEP Leadership Team presented our proposal to the Town Council. The proposal outlined a number of proposed projects which could utilize the $100,000 STEP Grant awarded to Siler City last April.

Among these many visionary, practical, well derived, and inspired projects, was the Siler City Central Park project proposal to transform the vacant lot (1.5 acre) behind the NC Arts Incubator into a downtown ‘Central Park’, to be utilized and enjoyed by locals and visitors to Siler City alike.

Original Vision

My original intension for this park was to preserve the space as an open natural space.

I have always found the space to be special. Its is sort of washed out looking, but has a small stream running through it, and I've have always felt possessed a certain idylic calm, and charm.

Over the years, I had occasionally discussed the idea with adjoining Courtyard Cafe Owner, Joan Underwood (also a landscaper), who had expressed interest in the idea of developing it as a green space. I had also discussed the idea with local Artist and Activist, Roger Person, and last year, Roger invited me to join the discussion/process with NC STEP, seeing it as chance to possibly make a proposal.

Developing Vision
I have spent many an evening, leaning against the concrete footings of the old gas tank, watching the sun set over that field.
But I realized that now was time for action, a window of oppurtunity.

So afternoon, before an NC STEP meeting, I took a few hours to pace the field out, and  drew up a plan.

Added Market Shelter/pav.

List key features- Market oriented inwards towards space.

Containment. Restoration of creek.

The team.

I have assembled an awesome team.

Dan Sundberg, a Landscape Architect, and Builder of Parks, through his company, United Biospheres.

Murial Eylers- Market Manager of the Siler City Farmer’s Market

Ann Bass- Director of the NC Arts Incubator, and a Landscape Architect

Joan Underwood- Owner of the Courtyard Café, Landscaper/Horticulturist

Roger Person- Interdisciplinary Artist, Gallerist, Activist

Pam Hawe- Systems Analyst

Diana Hales- Retired Publicist
Zoanne Adams- Chair of Siler City Merchants Association

We have since been joined by:
Donald Dones, Parks Superintendant
Sue Szary, Fiber Artist and Community Organizer 

Some Supporting Cast Members

Paul Horne Park Planner for the Town of Pittsboro

Amanda Sands- Soil and Water

Gabriel Soltren- Urban Planner, Film Maker

Project Embraced by NC STEP Leadership Team

At a certain point in NC STEP process, we had to decide as a group which of the many projects we were to move forward with. So we voted on which projects would receive how much of the funding they were requesting. Though I wasn't able to attend the meeting where we voted, we were quite encouraged to learn that of about 30 proposed projects, the Siler City Central Park project received the most votes, putting it at the top of the list for funding!

VICTORY!
Somewhat Miraculously, on Monday, the Siler City Town Board unanimously agreed to support our entire proposal! They said that they were grateful for what we were doing for the community! It was really nice to know that they appreciate what we at the Leadership Team are doing, and that we have their support!

Now, with the Town Council's blessings, we are moving forward to turn this dream of a park into a reality! 

Learning Curves: Laying A Forking River Of Pavers

Well, it has been another glorious week spent working as an assistant to Sculptor / Tile Mosaic Artist / Landscaper / Gardener, Janice Rieves. And I believe this week she employed all of these particular super powers on this job (though not all of those that she keeps).

This was actually a first time for us both laying cast concrete pavers! It was to be a challenging learning experience for us, but ultimately, a very rewarding one...


By the time I arrived on the scence, (back from helping the Scrap Exchange move the last of their treasures out of the collapsing Liberty Warehouse), Janice, with the help of some other masons, had already traced the course of the path/s, excavated it, and filled in the cavity with a base of rough gravel.
I couldn't have arrived at a better time!

Not so fast! My first task was to finnish out the french drain, that the previous workers had begun by roughing out.

I actually enjoy this work quite a bit. When I was a kid growing up in the woods of Carolina Friends School, a major recess obsession was building dams in the creek. Of course, the really fun part about building dams, is releasing the flow of water through the stream; watching it ooze and course down the bobsled shoot of its bed.

Assuring this consistant drop in elevation is not always an easy feet!



But it is very satisfying once you obtain it.

Then, to commemorate this (and keep the way free), we dropped into this pit a writhing black serpent to gaurd its course..

Snaky Black Line

A Convergence

and then tied it in to the main drainage line that circumvents the perimeter of the house.

Then we filled it up with Gravel.

The result, a ravine, running parallel to the 'road', beautiful in its own right.

Ravine

Now, drainage in place, we moved on to the really juicy stuff..



This was exciting project for me personally, because, aside from getting to work more with Janice, for more great clients; laying uniform depth pavers (as apposed to natural rock stepping stones) is something that I have always thirsted to try. There is something about the process of 'screeing', or creating a smooth base of fine gravel (on which to lay the pavers), which has always appealed to some part of me (probably the obsessive German part..). So it was very satisfying to finally get the chance to try my hand at this. (though I have done some similar work with cobble stones, which are not as regular or smooth).
It was every bit as fun as I had imagined.


On the other hand, I think Janice and I were also both a little bit reserved and suspicious about these concrete pavers. Would they look too artificial?

Well, the truth is, they do have a quite different feel than the more naturally random shaped chunks of stone I think we both are used to working with.

However, that said, these pavers, in their uniformity, do have their own virtue, of cohesity, a unique capacity for tightness. And of course this knack for the grid can easily lend itself to very rectalinear designs, which have their place, and can be interesting in their own right.

However, if you know Janice Reives at all, you know that, while she is capable of this kind of stitchery, this is really not Janice's style at all.

And so it seemed that she was determined to push them beyond this 'one-liner' mode, into something, paradoxicaly, more flowing...

And I think, in the course of working with them, we both came to recognize,  the potential for grace and dance in a stucato rhythmic river of such 'stones'.

Projecting Super Path Paving Powers

Of course, we had to overcome some steep 'learning curves' in working with this material.

Abstraction

But by and by, I think we came to develope ways to speak, and create with these tools, perhaps even learning curves in a new way....

I think Janice and I discovered something this time around.
And that is that we both share an intuitive sense of line.
And when we have found/devined/struck upon the 'right' line, we found, with some suprise, that miraculously, we both can recognize it/feel it.
I think this was kind of a revelation to us both, that the other could recognize the harmonic resonance of a curve, that just felt just right, in our bodies.

Now thats my kind of learning curve.

A Convergence

How this works is a mystery to us both, but perhaps is something worth exploring in the future.

Edible Forest Permaculture Workshop @ Blue Heron Farm

This December, My good friend, Perrin Heartway, got together with some of his like minded neighbors at Blue Heron Farm, and decided to convert the emtpy meadow behind his house into a forest! But not just any forest. An Edible Forest...

And to do this, he enlisted the help of anyone willing and interested!
First, he, and local BHF Herbalist Tony Mayor selected plants that could feed humans.
Meanwhile, local BHF Illustrator Extraordinaire Stacye Leanza whipped up a knock out poster summon the army!
(This poster yours truly posted around). To this call, 30 Permaculturists answered!

And so it was, that on a crisp winters morning, 30 strangers converged at Blue Heron Farm.
As we each arrived, Long Time Blue Heron Barbara Lorie, seeted, greeted us, and commanded us to park our cars in the meadow, and park our potluck dishes at the Eriksons'. I don't know about you, but I do as Barbara tells me.

 Once we had duely deposisted our dishes, we trickled into the ever-cozy abode of Bruce and Sue Saunders, where hearty smells filled the air.

Breakfast Is Served!

There Bruce and Sue, were cooking up a pan cake storm!

Kiss The Cooks!
 (Bruce and Sue Saunders worked all morning to
refine the recipe, and make bitter acorns into pancakes.
The result, absolutely DELICIOUS! 

A Satisfied Customer: Jasper

Next, We all gathered in the space that Bruce and Sue have created to play music in (where I should be right now, at band practice, incidentally).

There, Perrin led us through the days activities, with Co-organizers Tony Mayor and Murray chiming in as needed.

Pre-Workshop Discussion led by Perrin Heartway

CHARGE!
Then we marched up to this empty meadow, where Perrin had layed out our weapons for waging forage, for man and animal alike.

Earth-Moving Equipment

ADULTS AT WORK

Horticulturalist / Herbalist Tony Mayor surveys his materials

And Then, my friends, we got down to business..

Some made stakes

Others Shoveled Leaf Mulch

Some of us Shlepped

Eric Yablon, Laborer In Time

Youth and Work

ADULTS AT PLAY!

Adults At Play

Adult At Play 2

At the edge of the split

Gotcha! Adult At Play 3

Trying to breed Wheel Burrows
(unsuccessfully, stubborn things)

ACCOMPLISHMENT!

As Perrin well said:

Someday, our children's children might know this field as a forest, 

and enjoy the sweet fruits of our sweet labor.

Blue Heron Fence Building

Deconstruction

This past few weeks, I have been working for a friend, Gustavo Ocoro, helping him with his deconstruction business.
I met Gustavo a couple years ago, at Reuse Conex, the US's First National Conferenece and Expo of Reuse, held in Raleigh. I was presenting my Reptire artwork there, as part of the Reuse Exhibit, but also attended the conference, at the organizers behest.
I am glad that I did, because there, at an impromptu meeting, forming a local chapter of the Reuse Alliance, who organized the event, as we went around and introduced ourselves, I was suprised to learn that the person sitting to my left was struggling to launch a reused building supplies store in none other than Siler City!
In our discussions afterwards, he shared a little of the quagmire of regulations the he had run into there.
It is a shame that hard working entrepreneur such as this got caught up in what appears to have been a quite unwelcoming debacle in Chatham County. The upshot of this is that I recently learned that the Chatham County Economic Development Corporation, which was established in part to help bring new business to the county, has learned much from the plight of Gustavo, and perhaps other earnest entrepreneurs, and worked hard to create a system by which entrepreneurs can get all of the necessary officials in one room together. This, to my mind, was an act of practical Brilliance on the part of the EDC. They got down to the heart of the matter, asked what needed be done, and did it! I love it, and my hat is off.
Unfortunately, for Gustavo, AND for Siler City, this proactive measure came to late.
But the upshot is, Fortunately for Gustavo, and Durham, he has found a partner, and perhaps a more receptive audience, and probably a better market, at the the Cordoba Center for the Arts, also the new home of The Scrap Exchange.

And thus, Gustavo's business, and the Scrap Exchange are now neighbors together, and it seems like his business is doing well! I ran into him there one weekend, and he asked if I would like to help, as we have discussed this since.

Last week, we scraped out 2 upstairs bathrooms, down to their bare framing, for a remodel in Forest Hills.
Now this was no pretty task. It involved cutting and gingerly extracting hulking sections of both wall tile, and a beautiful white floor tile. Under the skilled hands of Gustavo and Bob, these came out like the gems that they are.
The cloud of dust was almost unbearable, and the sharp metal lathing on the back of the chunks of wall tile made it truly unpleasant to haul down two flights of stairs to the truck. However, we gleaned some really nice pieces.
Also there for the gleaning was two large cast iron bathtubs, each weighing, they estimated 250-300 lbs!....
When I learned that that they wanted me to help carry these down two flights of stairs in this mansion, I thought they had to be kidding. They weren't. There was NO WAY I thought. Here am I, have just showed up on this job/site, working for $10 / hr, and I am probably going to ending up surfing on this thing, down this flight of stairs, and punching a hole the size of a truck in the wall below it. And more likely, the tub is going to end up surfing on me! I don't think so! I told Gustavo, that I really did feel at all sure that I could safely get this thing down his client's flight of stairs.

He said he had a harness that would make it possible (a shoulder dolly, which I had never encountered). So I agreed to try out the weight, and see how it felt, on the condition that if I didn't think I could do it, we'd make other plans. Well I was completely amazed to find that with this device transfering all of the weight to my legs and hips, it was actually a bearable load!
And thus, step by careful step, we walked this massive tubs down these polished stairs, out the door, across the lawn and onto the trailer! Twice! Afterwards, I felt the particular rush of a survivor, who has, by being careful, and using the right tools, escaped the jaws of death or debt, and even accomplished something that I didn't think was possible. Somewhat how I felt after the reception for the Reclamation exhibition. What can I say, it feels great to not be dead!

This week, we were extracting hardwood flooring from a house about to be demolished. It is a beautiful old house, and the bathtub has this beautiful white tile surround. Like the last house, it is going to be difficult for me, who once aspired to lay tile, to destroy an artisans perfectly completed and functional work. However, the reality of the situation is, that what we don't extract, the bulldozer will destroy.
And so we plow forward, with more nimble hands, preserving what we can.

Perrin's Fence

Perrin has invited me back for some more projects.
Now that we have got him and his family-of-four squared away with firewood for the winter, we have a fence to build; before it the ground gets too cold to drill into.

Last week, we got things set up, and even a few holes drilled, with the farm's ancient tractor and auger.
It was a first time driving a tractor for me, and I must confess, a little bit of a thrill.

Next Friday, we hope we will be able to get most of the rest of the wholes dug out (Perrin is a holistic Vetrinarian the rest of the week).

One of the joys of working on this project with Perrin, was to see a guy, about my age, interacting with and working around his family. Living a bachelor, artist life as I do, this is somewhat of a foriegn world to me, and I found it really pleasurable to experience vicariously. Did I envy it? Not sure...

Ah, Fatherhood, how I envy ye!
I don't know what was happening behind me at this moment,
but its looks like it wasn't good!..

Maybe from time to time. Perrin's wife, Jenny, is one hell of a cook, and they were both very very generous in sharing this warm bounty with me through our work together. And his kids, Cedar and Wren are cute as buttons.

And of course, it was just a pleasure just to be there in the scenic surroundings of Blue Heron Farm.
The golden field that greets you as you enter Blue Heron, and approach Perrin and Jenny's house, has always been a favorite Chatham county sight for me. It has always been sort of a landmark for me, in terms of realizing that I am in a different, and special place...