#and then think of a viable project to use up all of my collected scrap yarn because the bat sweater won't happen for another year minimum

[robinsnest2111]

the sudden urge to sew historically inspired stays...

[godsill-james]

SuGo: The fruition of the collective efforts of young minds: 2nd Phase

These past few weeks have been detrimental to efficient progress and full of revisions. In my last blog, I have mentioned that we already have decided on what to propose for our Venture Proposal but after presenting, we are advised to scale it down. After that, we have come to realize that we have to reconsider our ideas and make revisions to fit for a start-up business. It was quite a tedious process with us having to undergo multiple brainstorming sessions and discussions. At times we had come to an impasse with our thoughts and had to scrap the initial thoughts and move on to another thought train. The process was repetitive and exhausting. Eventually, the team came to another scaled down version of the initial plan of “SuGo” as we had deduced after multiple discussions that it was the best course of action. Based on the initial data and statistics that we have, we hypothesized that the students situated throughout the dormitories were the most viable targets for the revised plan for the venture. Why? Dormitory policies prioritize “freshmen” or 1st Year Students. As such, we have also garnered from our data gathering that respondents were also dormitory residents.

 Several time has passed, the team had performed validation interviews to test our hypothesis directed towards dormitory residents it was quite an embarrassing yet fun process as we get to explore such various needs of the students only to find out that despite the disparities of needs throughout, it all mostly led to the point-of-pain that we have garnered which can be remediated by “SuGo”. So what have we formulated? We scaled down “SuGo” to a more manageable one by placing focus on dormitory-based students. “SuGo” now entails its goal to provide ease for students who live in dormitories as they are mostly freshmen who are still adapting to the life in the university as well as the seniors who need convenience in order to redirect their attention to what they need to take care of. When we talked to our respondents and as stated earlier, it was of their nuisance to go to the market or to purchase food especially during early times where they need to prepare for classes and after-class hours where they were exhausted to do tasks. Why? The sight of having to walk a substantial distance to buy goods in which the time taken would have been used instead for more important purposes is quite discouraging. Even in our team’s personal experiences, we think of it as quite a chore having to do all that at the start and end of the day. With this, we have come up with our revised plan, the new "SuGo," where we will be delivering meal plans for the students who are in dormitories. We heard them, and we will do something about their problem. With SuGo, they don't have to stress themselves over what to cook and where to eat. We will give the dormers a more comfortable life with our service.

Although “SuGo” was scaled down to a more feasible plan, our main objectives still remained the same; giving the students the convenience of not having to travel lengthy distances all the time, thus, saving them their time and energy alike. Scaling down doesn’t necessarily mean that our initial plan was inadequate, it was satisfactory, however, there were factors that we, the proponents behind “SuGo” subconsciously failed to recognize which led to where we are now, in terms of our business venture’s progress. The experience I gained throughout our validation process was quite awkward yet enthusiastic as we asked our prospects questions that have some parts that I, personally consider as awkward. But despite that, our team still collaboratively participated and brainstormed as thoroughly as possible so as to not unwillingly fail to recognize factors again that would affect us and it is also to help us sustain our business venture project as we move onwards. Lastly, through those interactions with the students of the University, specifically those who are currently residing in the University’s dormitories, there were a lot of valuable data that we gathered which would tremendously help our project’s development and future.

[georgecunninghamillustration]

Contacts with Industry

Recently, I have contacted a multiple different artists/illustrators asking them a few questions. Here are the questions I asked the talented, fine artist and illustrator, Caitlin Hackett (Go check out her work beautiful here).

Have you always wanted to work in the creative industries and now you are, have you ever experienced any struggles causing you to re-think your approach to it? Do you have any advice you wish you had known when starting off?

C- I spent most of my life as a young adult planning on going to college to study wildlife biology. Although I have been drawing and painting for all of my life, I never really thought of being an Artist as a career path. It was not until I attended a pre-college program for Fine Art at CalArts in southern California as a junior in highschool that I started to consider a career in the arts as a viable path. Even when applying for colleges I applied to a mixture of schools for science and schools for art. I wound up deciding to study Fine Art at Pratt Institute in NYC, partially just for the adventure of it if I'm being honest. I didn't know much about what it took to be a professional artist, or even what it meant to create Art under such constant pressure. It was a tough learning curve and I did consider dropping out or changing majors from Fine Art to one of the Communications Design majors offered after my freshman year. I wound up sticking with it though, I saw a show of Walton Ford's paintings at the Brooklyn Museum that changed my whole perspective on what it meant to be an artist and what constituted "real art". I don't think I had any real idea until my senior year at Pratt though just what it meant to live as a full time Artist. The huge pressure of having to constantly create, the struggle of having to market yourself and brand your work, and to work as the sole proprietor of your own small business. It's not easy being your own boss and having to deal with all of the difficulties of managing clients and gallery relationships on your own, it was a steep learning curve for me after graduating with my BFA. As an introvert it was particularly difficult to learn how to deal with clients, write contracts and grants, and put myself out there to meet with gallerists. Much of being a professional artist is simply office work, sending emails, writing contracts, keeping a schedule, etc. It's not quite as romantic as it's made out to be in popular culture haha, but it is rewarding to be able to create the work you're passionate about for a living.

Did you find that you have developed your own style over time and do you think this style has been created on the foundations on what influences you as a person and a practitioner?

C- I've always been interested in animals, wildlife biology, fairy tales and mythology, so the style of my work flowed naturally from those interests. I collected illustrated fairy tale books as a child, as well as encyclopedias of animals and bones, so much of my style comes from copying from those illustrated tomes and scientific illustrations as a kid. I also grew up in rural northern California, hiking and camping in the ancient redwood forests and swimming in the cold Pacific ocean, so I loved to draw from the nature around me.

Do you ever struggle with finding time to create personal work just for your own enjoyment? 

C- This is certainly one of my biggest struggles as a professional artist, there is rarely enough time in a day or a week to create all of the work that I am hired to do for commissions, as well as completing my gallery work, let alone to create my own personal work. I don't often have time to explore new mediums or play around with new concepts because I am so busy trying to finish my client work and pay the bills! It's so important to set aside time to make personal work, I tend to get really burned out otherwise and then I can't create at all.  It's an on going issue for me in my scheduling, trying to make the time to do new passion projects. 

As a student I get given briefs and in some cases I find I have a lack of interest and I don’t find these briefs exciting, they feel like a chore I don’t want to do. How would you get around this issue and make the brief more interesting and exciting for yourself. From my experience it drains your creativity when you're not enjoying the work and have to force it out. 

C- As a professional artist and illustrator this is still a problem I have, many of the projects I am hired to do I am simply not that interested in or inspired by, but I find that if I do enough research into the subject matter I can usually find some element of it that interests me, be it in the history of the story I'm illustrating, or playing around with the color palette, or simply studying books of symbolism from art history to find interesting tidbits from historical allegory or mythology to create a deeper story from the imagery I'm being hired to paint. It's not easy, and it can burn you out, but it is a central part of being a full time Artist. It's relevant to your last questions as well, I think the most important thing you can do to counteract the creative burn out of working on a project that does not interest you is to balance out your time to make work just for yourself.

I always struggle with composition and colour palettes, if this ever happens to you, how do you approach this issue? Any advice/tips? Do you have a working method that helps with this issue?

C- I do alot of initial sketches to help with composition, playing around with the large forms and shapes on scraps of paper first always helps me. They tend to be really quick, rough graphite sketches, just using the essential shapes of the objects destined for the final painting, but it's very useful. I like to make at least 2-5 of these quick layout sketches first, before laying anything down on the actual piece, so that I can get idea of my options. The color palette is one of my favorite things to do, I love playing with colors, and switching between warm and cool palettes for different pieces. I often lay down a base tone on my page before I even start sketching, a blue or a green, a warm grey or burnt umber, depending on the mood I want the piece to have in the end. I find starting with an initial tone is very helpful to determine the direction you want the palette to go.

A big thanks to Caitlin for taking the time to respond. Go check out her work! https://caitlinhackett.carbonmade.com 

[archaeoventure-blog]

Chris and Shona Scatchard from Caithness have spent the last few years experimenting with building roundhouses inspired by Iron Age examples, using the materials available locally. Chris has kindly put together this inspiring piece about his experiences!  

Chris’s first roundhouse aka ‘Buffy’s Bothy’ (c) Chris Scatchard

  There have been many attempts to reconstruct Iron age roundhouses by archaeology groups and other enthusiasts, but because so little of the original structures remain (usually just post holes, fire pit and rain gully), the reconstructions are based on best guess and expert speculation. I do however, believe that we can be sure of one thing, the roundhouses of the period would have been built out of the most abundant, workable local resources, be it stone, trees, reeds, turf, wattle and daub etc., and therefore subtly different from area to area across the country.

A few years ago, on the cusp of my retirement I purchased a rundown Croft in Caithness. Facing out over the Moray Firth and North Sea, just a few hundred meters back from a 65-meter cliff, it is exposed to say the least! But, with a miniscule budget, a desire to be environmentally friendly and to do it all by hand, I turned to a book by Tony Wrench “Building A Low Impact Roundhouse”, in which he built a sustainable off-grid roundhouse in Wales in 1997.

  It must be said, the book is not a blueprint for roundhouse design, rather a story of experiences, ideas, pitfalls and successes on his journey which, if you have an interest, should inspire and set your creative juices flowing!

Local materials for me to build with are STONE, Caithness provided many cities of the world with flagstone in the 18th century, in fact, many of the older farms in the area still have flagstone fences and rooves, and for every spade full of soil you dig here you’ll have moved 3 of stone! LOGS, from Dunnet Forestry Trust just 15 miles away, all windblown plantation pines (Sitka, Lodgepole and Corsican Pine), cut by volunteers. FIELD RUSHES, hand cut and baled from our own fields. TURF, again from our own fields.

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I decided to build one henge of logs (most reconstructions have two based on a double ring of post holes in many excavations) and erect atop it a reciprocal framed log roof structure, this was so I didn’t require a centre pole allowing maximum span within, and for a turf roof the pitch is lower benefiting growth of the grass. I also decided to build a full ring of dry stone wall between and around the henge for strength.

Having cleared an area of ground and marked it out with an internal area of 3.5-meters, I proceeded to de-bark the 2 meter henge uprights (all about the thickness of a large thigh) and bitumen paint the lower quarter which would come in to contact with the soil. Of course, in excavations from the iron age there is evidence to show that they quite often burn the surface of wood to charcoal because it not only resists rotting but is also waterproof, but for me, building alone, modern techniques saved time! And in time, I will know which method worked better.

The 9 henge uprights were set about a foot in to the ground and supported with large foundation stones for the dry-stone wall. If one builds on the surface, temporary braces are required to keep the structure stable until the henge tops go on. The uprights were about a meter apart (slightly more for the doorway), but I found it very difficult to be more precise due to the uneven thicknesses of the logs, but this, as I have come to appreciate, is part of the beauty of working with natural timber in the round, each log has its own story in its rings and shape, each feels and acts differently when worked with saw, chisel or drill.

Next I cut logs of slightly smaller thickness for henge tops, jointed to overlap atop each upright and then secured in place, together and in to the upright by drilling a hole right through and inserting a 6-inch nail. It is most likely that iron age builders would have used thinner timbers of more flexible tree types (probably deciduous) and tied, secured them with hide, willow wands or woven vegetation like stinging nettle rope. For me, again it was about what I know based on my experiences, and the resources available. I didn’t want 2 tons of logs and turf coming down on me whilst building (or after for that matter) this somewhat experimental structure.

I had put aside a few interestingly curved timbers, one of which I used over the doorway, the jointing was challenging and enjoyable, so much so I went on to build an elaborate porch!

A word about reciprocal framed roof structures – An internet search will tell you that “the reciprocal frame has been used since the 12th century in Chinese and Japanese architecture”, however, Tony Wrench explains that, an architectural firm called “Out of Nowhere” made them popular in this country in the 1980’s.

For me, an explanation of how the reciprocal frame works is impossible, so again I rely on the internet. “A reciprocal roof is assembled by first installing a temporary support (commonly known as a Charlie Stick) that holds the first rafter at the correct height. The first rafter is fitted between the wall and the temporary off centre support, and then further rafters are added, each resting on the previous rafter and the wall. The final rafter fits on top of the previous rafter and under the very first rafter. The rafters are then tied with rope or wire, and the Carlie Stick removed, allowing the whole structure to find its level and settle”.

I used the longest logs I could transport, 4-meters, which were sized, de-barked and groove cut so that they would safely “slot on” across the preceding log. Because I desired a large roof overhang on the roundhouse, I could use the henge as a fulcrum and manoeuvre the roof logs by myself and tie them in place with bale twine (well, what else would a crofter use?). The wall end of the roof logs was placed directly over the uprights allowing for the full weight of the roof to project down in to the ground. Removal of the Charlie Stick was a scary moment, with lots of weird noises and creaking as the structure settled on the henge. At the wall end, I again drilled right through the roof log, through the henge top and in to the upright, then hammered home a 12-inch piece of rebar. At the upper end where the roof logs cross I wrapped strip metal banding and nailed it in place, ensuring no movement whatsoever.

At this stage one is left with a beautiful ¾ meter circle in the centre of the roof made by the crossing of the roof logs. Note, the larger the hole in the middle the lower the pitch of the roof.

Next came the intermediate roof logs, placed 1/3rd of the way down the main roof logs and across the wall in the centre of a gap, secured in a similar way. After this was the outer ring. A ring of logs cut and jointed like the henge tops but going around the outside ends of the main roof logs. This becomes a retaining log to stop insulation and turf from sliding off the roof. Using every scrap of old fencing wood I could find, I cut purlins and nailed them like a ladder all the way to the top of the roof. I cut the excess tops of roof logs off and planked the hole at the top. Tony Wrench made a skylight out of an old coach windscreen for his roundhouse! Remember, self-building with natural materials allows for imagination and innovation.

The field rushes which grow abundantly on our waterlogged fields were cut and baled by hand (1ft x 1ft x 2ft bales) and covered the roof as insulation. More overkill! I have found that a thin layer of rushes is enough to protect the waterproof membrane and the turf is a great insulator on its own, however, we’re I to build an off-grid home for myself I would add full bales and more! This was followed by the said waterproof membrane and the turf cut from our fields.

Whilst all this roof building was going on, I was also collecting stone and building up the walls, but time was passing from Autumn to Winter and I quickly noticed that the dry-stone walls we’re in no way weatherproof! The wind blew like a gale through them and wind-blown rain penetrated very quickly. With most dry-stone structures like Brochs, Atlantic Wheelhouses and Blackhouses, the walls are several meters thick and stones angled downwards towards the exterior block the ingress of water. I therefore decided to finish the wall as is then fill with cement mortar, not the most environmental way but given the cold and wet of winter I didn’t think lime mortar would be viable.

After I had finished, some 8 months after starting! My Pygmy goats entered their new home called “Buffy’s Bothy”.

In hindsight: A fantastic experience but I’d recommend a group of 4 or more people build together, the risk of serious injury building with heavy logs and stone is not to be ignored! The mature grass on the roof proved to be a weed problem (Dock seeds blowing in the wind!) so a ramp to the roof allows the goats to pop up on pleasant days and keep it trimmed, much to the amusement of passing motorists and holidaymakers!

The goat’s keep the weeds down on top of the roundhouse, much to the amusement of passing motorists (c) Chris Scatchard

A form of shelter or lean-to had to be added to stop the vicious Easterly winds we get blowing directly in to the roundhouse, but all in all I am happy with the results.

I have gone on to build a further 3 roundhouses, each one different but all using the same reciprocal roof design, and more simplified joints. The largest 5.5 and 6 meters across are lambing sheds come hay stores and are built across field fences so with 2 gates they can be used from either field. I have clad these roundhouses with waney edged boards to speed up the building process.

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In the future, I’d like to pick the brains of a thatcher and try to roof a roundhouse with the field rushes. In this case I would want a greater pitch and would be able to try a double henge where the centre roof supporting pole is cut off after the roof is finished. But for now, as a new crofter, there is much else to do!

Thanks to Chris and Shona Scatchard for this fascinating feature about Chris’ experiences constructing Iron Age roundhouses in modern day Caithness.

The Caithness Roundhouses of This Age Chris and Shona Scatchard from Caithness have spent the last few years experimenting with building roundhouses inspired by Iron Age examples, using the materials available locally.