Any Communities out there into land art?

Hello,


We are a couple wishing to return to the land and live the permaculture principles which we hold. Professionally I am stone mason who does landscapes and environmental art installations. My girlfriend does gardening for my clients, grows vegetables for us, is taking a pdc class and we are both artists working in various media.

Now what we would love to do, ultimately, is create our own spot--a permaculture art center, with gardens that are also art installations, with beautiful natural homes and many land art installations from various natural materials. Some of the projects we have in mind include a dry stone sculpture wedding chapel/possible revenue source, spiral gardens built with my dry stone styles, the lithadelic throne (fun stuff, sure to delight visitors), the Angel Gateway and plenty more--we've thought a lot about this and have many designs and a plan drawn up, but currently lack the funds to buy the land and the community to help us build it all. SO in the meantime, I'm wondering--are there any permaculture communities out there that would be able to accommodate us who would like to have a structurally sound piece of dry stone land art upon their land?

One example of what I do:



Been doing stone masonry and landscape work for 17 years, self employed for 7 years and for the past few years I've been at a point where my skills are about equal to my vision. Also work with logs, bamboo, clay--any natural materials and have experience in all phases of construction.

I do this kind of work professionally for wealthy clientele--who treat me kindly and are awesome and all that, but I'd rather take this into a different arena, I'd like to get into cob.... Building fancy yards for the wealthy is starting to feel limiting. I like to build functional art pieces from natural materials and like to be around people who are working to do what is best for the land and best for the people. PM me or hit me up here.

I could also add that as a contractor I come with some resources, such as tools, heavy equipment and construction skills...I figure there has to be many farms and communities who could use the sport of help we bring. Right now, I'm thinking it'd be a cool lifestyle for us, if we could find an agreeable community, set up camp for six months, help out with farm work/building work--and produce some awesome stone work or similar, then scoot after 6 months to go do similar at a different place.

Regards,

Devin

"Any Communities out there into land art?"

We certainly are!!
We have done a certain amount of stone work, functional, beautiful and Ceremonial. We always love more.
We were asked by Original People Elders to build a particular thing, involving standing stones and "cairns".
And we really like stone walls, monuments, circles, art, carvings and such.
We have a farm museum, people living and visiting here all the time, homeschool co-op, and teach classes on homesteading skills.
Stone Garden Farm www.ohiofarmmuseum.com. Give us a look. And give a call.
Jim & Laura

Thak you for your response. I am just beginning to check out your site--like what I see. Very cool!

he Museum of Western Reserve Farms and Equipment is seeking to preserve the tools, machines, knowledge, abilities and stories of the master tradesmen and women who are no longer among us. On our fifty-eight acres, located in Richfield, Ohio, we are collecting the equipment used by every trade typically found in a small community of 150 years ago

Ancestral skills and artisan trades are quite important, I believe. Your class schedule looks pretty cool to me--from what I can see so far, I think we'd love to be involved with what you do and we may be in touch.

We have been "growing" with our Land for 35 years now. Aside from a medicinal herb labyrinth garden and rustic cabin/fairy house, our version of land art is a geodesic dome year round greenhouse (see 'East Coast Solar Domes' on www.wisewaywellnesscenter.massagetherapy.com). Appreciate your work, open to ideas.

You should post more pictures! I love what I see thus far.

Devin, have you found a place yet. I would love to talk to you as I've been in to some of the very same things you've experienced working for the wealthy and then wanting / seeing/feeling like there is some thing more to do. I've come up with a unique land design I call the pi-tia land use system which, without going into great lengths on the scientific principles involved, duh, really boring stuff, it creates a toroidal vortex on the farm. The part I love is not just making a creation that feeds you but visually inspires you while you live in harmony with the land. I've started with 30 acres but it's 12 month growing season here.

You can see from the below, we could really use some better land art that could function as small group discussion seating! We don't have a lot of wood, the main resources are stones and earth.

Thank you everybody for responses.

Thomas, I'm interested to read more about what you have going on in Texas. The Creek looks great. It's raining hard today so i will be inside and working on a landscape design--the one I'm working on is all toroidal, toruses everywhere at this point, so you mentioning your pi-tia system catches my attention. ...


Cassie, okay, more photos:

These are REALLY cool. Not sure if I have ever seen anything like it. I think the second is my favorite. It's like that little spiral comes alive when it comes up off of the ground. Good work.

Devin, beautiful stuff. Thanks for sharing.

Devin, Your work is beautiful. We are a newly forming collective permaculture camp with 160 acre of raw forested land. I just posted on permies.com that we are looking for a Natural Building Coordinator. We are flexible and willing for you to visit or start a dialogue. We have plenty of clay, wood, and lots of shale and quartz on the land. We live in hiking distance to a small limestone cave which is completely undeveloped and rarely visited and we have envisioned eventually leading nature awareness and primitive skills hikes there with children, and adults. The 160 acres is all hilly and we have been imaging earth sheltered buildings. We are all also creatives and would love to incorporate art and creative expression into the designs of our community.

The Natural Building Coordinator post:
INTRODUCTION

We are a newly forming collective permaculture camp located in the Illinois River Valley of Southern Oregon in a vibrant community that is already implementing the changes we seek, and is ripe to become a leader in wide scale permaculture application. We are currently 7 adults and 4 children living unplugged and off grid on 160 acres of raw forest land. We do not have running water or any modern conveniences. We do have a well and are working to get a system in place to establish irrigation for growing our own food and solar showers, etc. We live simply and primitively and have thus far been laying the foundation for building our vision.

ABOUT CAMP RAINBOW
Camp Rainbow is a NEWLY DEVELOPING spirit-centered nature awareness and self reliance skills camp and research center for low-cost energy-efficient technologies that promote freedom and preserve natural resources for the next seven generations.

MISSION
Camp Rainbow promotes freedom from money and unites people to make Earth green again.

VISION
We share a dream. A vision of peace and harmony where all peoples unite as one tribe. The Rainbow Warriors awaken to their mission. Honor and bravery return, igniting the Great Give Back. A return to Love, a spiritual evolution, a wildfire that will catch burning down destructive stories to make fertile ground for the promised land of our dreams.

The land is free. Everything is shared. Everyone is cared for. All are equal. There are no social classes or casts. All are one people respected as divine kings and queens. Money disintegrates. Souls elevate, free of all addictions and fear. All hear the universal voice sing. There is no government. The only law is that of the Creator, God, Great Spirit, One Love.

We rely on each other now. The clans are connected by a vast web. Love guides. Mother Earth provides abundance. We are, all brothers and sisters, taken care of. We are all loved. We are all one love. All together now.

ETHICS
Camp Rainbow is guided by the three core ethics of permaculture:

1. Care for the earth: Provision for all life systems to continue and multiply. This is the first principle, because without a healthy earth, humans cannot flourish.

2. Care for the people: Provision for people to access those resources necessary for their existence.

3. Return of surplus: Reinvesting surpluses back into the system to provide for the first two ethics. This includes returning waste back into the system to recycle into usefulness.

SEEKING NATURAL BUILDING COORDINATOR
We are now ready to start building a Spirit House which will also be our common house for this winter season. We envision this house as a natural building made primarily from materials off the land and recycled and salvaged materials. We intend to track resource use for this project and demonstrate how cheaply and efficiently we can build by being resourceful and sharing with our community. We are interested in building earth sheltered dwellings and utilizing the abundant clay and wood we are blessed with on this land. Other building projects on our agenda are an outdoor kitchen, 2-chamber composting toilet, sauna/bath house, and a pit greenhouse. We have mainly been researching and envisioning these buildings while spending time with the land. We welcome your ideas and creativity in the design process but the collective will have the ability to approve or reject designs to ensure they meet our ethics and collective values. We want the building process to be a collective venture and are seeking the right person to help lead our team in this department!

We are seeking someone with building and construction experience, and ideally with natural building experience, to join our collective as a Natural Building Coordinator.
The idea team member is someone who:
* is an early riser
* can motivate a team to work together on a building project
* isn't afraid to take charge but also knows how to accept feedback and work as a team
* has excellent communication skills
* is generally characterized as positive in word, thought, and deed
* aligns with Camp Rainbow vision, values, and ethics
* and possesses the basic building and construction skills to lead the crew on our building projects. Our team has some natural building experience and limited traditional construction and carpentry experience, but we are ready to follow the lead of the right person on building projects.

COMMITMENT
Our goal is for each member to contribute 20 hours a week toward the collective. This can include working on building projects, growing food for the collective, childcare watching someone else's child, cooking for the collective, organizing and collective business work, or working outside the land to earn money to support collective land payments and other needs. Worktrading outside the land in exchange for food or other support coming to our collective land also counts towards this goal.

COMPENSATION/BENEFITS
No one in our collective is compensated for our work with money. We are working together to model how through cooperation we can reduce our collective dependence on the money system. The main benefits you would receive are living in community in a beautiful forest, a vibrant community, eating healthy living food prepared with love, being surrounded by an extended family of mutual support, and being in an environment of constant learning and plenty of opportunities for growth and giving back to the community. Together, we intend to model the change we want to see in the world. We see ourselves as part of a paradigm shift, creating living solutions, and being a prayer in motion. This work and lifestyle feeds our spirits and we would like to share this other people who's paths align with ours.

LODGING
At present we do not have any dwellings or shelter to offer. Lodging would be camping or bring your own temporary shelter (van, bus, tipi, yurt), or build your own eventually. Please see our website http://www.iloverainbowcamp.com for more information on our vision. Also, to get an idea for the work we are engaging in with the surrounding community, please visit http://www.trailoffood.us

FOOD
We currently share dinners and food and would consider sharing lunches as our team expands or as regular work sessions are established. While we envision growing all our own food or trading for food grown by neighbors in the future, we currently have small garden space (as we are hauling our water and have not yet established fencing) and aim to purchase locally sourced, organic, vegetarian food whenever possible. Our collective kitchen is vegetarian. We emphasize raw living foods in our meals.



INQUIRIES:
Reya @ Trailoffood .us
serious inquiries only: 415-971-9576

Namaste.

Cool stuff--thank you for your reply.

Hi Devin

Like your idea.
When you can find the time, we should talk, as there is lots of potential here.

K