It is hard to believe I have been here for two weeks, and that my stay is half over.
This is another lifestyle dump... the studio work posts will come later, I think.
I'm eating breakfast as I write this: a meal made almost entirely of things I did not buy (+some olive oil, which I did buy): potatoes from the garden, an egg from the chickens, and melon from a man who drove through the farm the other day and gave everyone he encountered a melon.
That never happens in New York.
Our New House: The Barn
Phoebe and I moved to make way for new quarantiners. The Barn (or Barns depending on who you ask) is definitely the most unique building I have ever stayed in.
I love Ed's description from the website:
"Central to Art Farm is a 12,000 square foot barn complex: A project, stretching over seven years of moving five barns and joining them into one unit. More than just buildings moved—with each barn came a story: one farmer might recall how once during the 1930’s locusts devoured nearly everything—including all the paint on one barn; a second farmer might point to the areas on another barn he repaired after damage from lightning strikes. The barns are from 60 to 130 years old and within their structures, they tell a visual story of an owner’s attempts to adapt with changing times. These structures follow the tradition of vernacular architecture based on pragmatic observation and function. Barn builders adapted a plan and a shape from a general concept and then individually modified it to serve their needs. In that practice, the work at Art Farm of restoring, repairing, and converting barns for living and studio space continues. Because of its size and ever changing shape, the barn complex is now known as, "The Mutant Little House on the Prairie”. "
Historic photos from the Art Farm website
It's difficult to capture the experience of being inside of this building in photographs. My second floor bedroom has several big, beautiful windows to the outside, and one to what is now an interior storage nook connecting to the common area, another bedroom, some shops, and stairs to the penthouse where Phoebe is now staying. Past the stairs is another maybe-shop, currently storing an assortment of sculptures, two old sewing machines, and an oscilloscope. That room leads to a two story complex that will be (and maybe was?) a functioning wood shop with new in-progress studios and printmaking area. The upper level may one day connect to another third floor tower. The downstairs level connects back into the current shops, which will eventually take you back to the stairs leading to our apartment. It is a jumble of unexpected program which comes together to form a really beautiful and interesting space, especially once you can see the vision for the shops emerging from the piles of lumber, PVC fittings, and miscellaneous boxes (labels include "answering machine" and "BEE BOX").
We also traded our roof deck for a new one: although our sunset view is slightly obstructed now, we can walk right onto the Barn's deck from the penthouse, and it is ideal for stargazing.
Work
In addition to some ongoing garden maintenance, I had three jobs this week. The first was pulling up the bricks defining a garden bed and hauling them to the other side of the property, where they will be used for a building. There isn't much more to say about that, except that it came on a day when mindless physical labor was exactly what I needed.
The second was watering all of the baby trees scattered around the property. It has been an unusually dry summer, and they are in need of some extra attention.
I love this job. For one thing, it is a lot easier than hauling bricks (although I do still haul buckets of water). It also means I get to wander around what is essentially a rural sculpture park for an entire morning. This will be a recurring task, but the first round required a lot of exploration - some of the saplings are marked with flags, but others are not.
This took me to parts of the property that I didn't know existed, whole structures and distinct sections which had been subsumed by weeds. Sadly I did not find many saplings in those sections.
This property is already very distinctive compared to the large agricultural fields around it, and I love thinking about the additional character these new trees will bring: another shady driveway, a natural pavilion for an installation in the field...
I made this map for myself and future sapling waterers, based on Phoebe's sketches from our first round. This actually really helped me feel a little more grounded here, like one restless evening three years ago when I walked the full 2 hours home from work helped to ground me in Brooklyn. I like knowing where I am.
The last job was removing tree stumps so that several areas off of the driveway could be mowed. I'm not exactly sure what the vision for the area is - perhaps to continue the sapling-lined clearing along the driveway entrance, which I had hauled water to the day before.
It is a bit of a funny sequence, though: slow, attentive care for the new on Wednesday, and ripping the old out by the roots on Thursday.
What I'm Reading and Listening To (Week 2)
Books
The Waste Makers by Vance Packard
Podcasts
A lot of the same ones from last week +
Mothers of Invention
TIL Climate
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