Trying To Put It All Back Together Again
We broke some walls open, once cracked they began to crumble - we tore 2 tons of plaster from the building that is our home.
Ive read that construction accounts for half of all non - renewable resources. I saw incredible amounts of construction debris pass through recology in the 4 months I was there.
I spent part of my time at the Growlery trying to put back together pieces of plaster that had been mixed together in 1904 to make a wall that we ripped apart. The hog hair and the Douglass fir...
Mostly the plaster just crumbles. The century old hog hair still holds a grip though, a century isn’t a long time. How our hair out lives us... Thinking about how we build walls in the first place.
Thinking about the sand in the plaster. Bits of hog or horse hair. remnants of animals past - so quickly rendered useless. The ghost like impression of the wood grain grown, stripped into lath and Impressed in plaster full of sand and mica from the sea- from rocks worn down by wind and blown; some from russia, africa maybe. Here on a beach in california a hundred years ago mixed with plaster to make a wall. Lead paint, oil and acrylic, millenium pink. Now undone. landfill, or an artwork. Soon one day mined from new lands or reclaimed by forces unseen...