EARTH / SURFACE / FACET / INTERFACE: December 2011

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!