Wendy's story
return to
menu page
I was one of the fortunate fifteen women at Becky Bee’s cob building workshop at the Old Schoolhouse in South Australia for a week in March.
I
have built before—tin sheds, a timber extension and a rammed earth
studio—but cobbing is quite unlike anything I’ve experienced, perhaps not
since childhood and making mud pies.
Using
few tools and only natural materials—earth, water, straw—you dance rather
than labour, sculpt rather than construct. The potters in the group took to it
readily, more so than those of us who already had some building experience.
Cobbing
is surprisingly sensual. Body parts figure often: bare calves and feet to blend
the clay and water and to mix it with the sand and straw, multiple toes and
soles to tread the cob layers onto the wall, fingers and palms and forearms to
shape the edges and surfaces, bums and elbows to mould the bench seat just so -an
exact fit for the owner-builder’s comfort.
With
cob, most design elements are curvilinear. This makes for greater strength and,
for me, deeper satisfaction. It is said that, given the chance, women will build
in curves, a form more frequently found in nature than angles and straight
lines. Think of animal habitats—shells, termite mounds, burrows, and of course
nests. In fact, so tenaciously does the hand lean into a curve, that when it was
necessary to preserve right angles and plumb lines, as at the top surface of the
growing wall, we needed constant reminding to stop rounding the edges. The wall
itself meandered in and out of plumb, despite the ever present spirit level.
Another
difference you soon notice is the quiet at this busy building site—no cement
mixer, no power tools, no hammering
(except when the timber frames were being made for the woodbox and door).
Instead you hear human noises, talk and laughter and singing: one woman had
perfect recall of all the words of old musicals, and another played her guitar.
One
thing that surprised us all was what can be built with cob. In patient hands,
its strength and plasticity allow the fashioning of quite subtle and complex
shapes. Besides the bench seat with its slender lip and sinuous serpent emerging
from under it, we made a fireplace surround and chimney, a candle niche with bas
relief symbols, and various glass and bottle inserts into the wall.
Provided
the foundations are good and a roof keeps off the rain, these hand-made earth
forms will endure. And anyway, if they don’t, its just a matter of dust to
dust—good recycling practice.
© Earthwise Women and the author (reproduced here with consent)