Articulation's Forest and Sea and the Place Between Artist Reception April 13th, 2019

Cedar Wind Drawing, detail

The Artist Reception for Articulation's 'Forest and Sea and the Place Between' exhibition at Portals Gallery, Duncan is on Saturday 13th from 3 to 5 pm.

Artists Wendy Klotz, Ingrid Lincoln, and Lesley Turner will be in attendance to talk about their work and they look forward to answering questions about the exhibition.

Tree Wind Drawings

My contribution to the exhibition and the Salish Sea biosphere story is a triptych of 3 drawings done be 3 different trees found in the Pacific Northwest coastal maritime forest.

Big-leaf Maple

Douglas-fir and Western Red Cedar

 By getting the trees to draw on a fabric I explored the connection between the air and the earth in the Salish Seas' biosphere.

I blogged about my process to make the first of these works here.

Understanding this place we call home is an ongoing area of interest for me and continues to be an area of focus in my work.

Backyard Project: All in One - Deer Fence/Gate/Wall

Part of the deer fence is made from punched metal.

The punched metal sheet and cedar boards make an 8-foot high wall from the house and across the east side of the propagation room.

A railing has been installed on the wall. It holds a slider...

...to support a sliding gate to fill the gap in the deer fence.

The holes in the metal allow for ventilation of the propagation room. Air flow will inhibit the growth of moulds on the plants sitting on the propagation table.

It also acts as a veil partly obscuring the view of the garden until the gate is opened.

The famous British garden designer, John Brooks, says 'garden entrance gates are the most important elements of a garden.' They need to be simple and they need to make sound use of materials to provide a firm, dry access to the garden. 

The fence and gate needed to be large in size and built of solid materials to balance the massive rock boulders of the raised garden beds seen on the other side of the garden. The rocks were quarried locally and the fence is made from the same sort of trees that grow in the forest. It is important that a sympathetic barrier is built of local materials.

This gate and fence with the studio building together pull the house and backyard into a single unit forming a protected courtyard separated from the forest. 

The Japanese have made an artform of barriers and they consider the two faces of a fence, inward and outward, and the aesthetic quality of each side is determined by needs and desires. Looking from the outside in towards the sunlit garden one has the feeling of being invited inside. While looking from the inside out towards the low light under the forest canopy the metal fence appears dark and the solid barrier is comforting. 

This gate-fence boundary also provides privacy for the guest patio - more on that in a later post.

While it is an 8-foot barrier to keep deer out of the garden, it is unlikely to stop racoons because they will be able to climb up and over it. I don't think it will keep determined cougar or bear out either.

The next problem we are searching for a solution to is a simple but secure catch and handle for the sliding gate that can be easily accessed from both sides. This is proving to be not as easy to solve as it sounds.

Backyard Project: Multi-function Propagation Room East Wall

The east wall of the Propagation Room serves several important functions.

At one end it is attached to the house so that it and the house are part of the deer fence.

It supports a roof that is accessible from inside the house. 

This wall has helped change the structure from a deck that was stuck onto the house, which we removed, to a room where we transition from the inside to the outside.

Josh making sure the wall is straight.

This east wall is also part of the ventilation system for the plants growing in the room. 

Air can easily pass through the punched metal screen wall.

The east wall also provides structural support for the propagation table inside the room.

The wall also provides shelter and privacy to the patio on the other side of it.

It is also the place where the gate slides back out of the way when we want to enter the garden, more on that when the gate is built.

The many functions of this one wall of the propagation room show how well integrated it is into the overall design of this area of our Backyard Project.

Backyard Project: Propagation Room Progress Report

Taylor is brushing coats of sealer on lengths of tongue and groove cedar to be used as soffit on the Propagation Room ceiling. The arbour and pergola are able to conveniently hold the boards apart and off the ground, while they dry.

But at the end of each day, Taylor has to stack the boards away on this temporary shelving he has made under the temporary shelter made using the arbour and tarpaulins. We get regular rains at night and the cedar boards need to be kept dry so they won't warp. In the morning, he takes everything outside again for another coat of sealer, if there is no rain threatening. It reminds me of the days when one hung washing on an outside line while keeping an eye on the weather.

The plumber and his mate arrived and installed pipes from the drain hole in the roof and across to the downspout.

The electrician arrived and installed lighting for the room.

This work will be all covered up by the cedar soffit boards.

So there is good progress on the Propagation Room.

Backyard Project: Pergola and Arbour Take Shape Pulling the Design Together

More cedar posts are popping up each time I look out of my studio window.

It is like a forest is growing. The design plan was a large number of vertical elements would look and feel like a forest echoing the Douglas-fir forest surrounding the Backyard Project site.

The view from my studio porch.

I like the way the studio porch posts are the same size, material and construction method as the pergola and arbour. It serves to connect the spaces.

Josh had a big question for us this morning. 

How high do we want the cross beams on the arbour and the pergola? Jonathan Aitken, the architect, said to make the arbour cross-beams lower than those on the pergola. 

Josh put up a horizontal piece of wood to help us visualise a height. 

I designed the path to be wide enough for the lawn tractor and trailer to travel along and around the corners of the arbour easily. I settled on a width of  7' 5". I also wanted a square shape to each section of the arbour to repeat the square grid and cubes that make up the design module the house is based on. Therefore the finished top height of the pergola is to be 7' 5".

With the big decision made everyone was able to get back to work.

The cross beams look higher now than they will be when all is finished because there are 3" of gravel to go in along the paths.

Josh as an experienced wood craftsman is making sure the intersections and joints are a neat fit. 

This is a very exciting stage for me. I developed the concept design for the Backyard Project then we got Jonathan Aitken to work his architectural science and arts magic on the space and structures.

But I still felt as though I have been holding my breath or crossing my fingers that the reality will match my imaginings. So it is such a thrill to now be able to walk around and through the space and feel good about it. 

I will write a future post explaining the guidance I took from A Pattern Language when I designed this area.

Backyard Project: 1st Post for Arbour and Pergola Raised

6" x 6" cedar posts have been delivered so construction of the pergola and arbour can begin.

First Kyle measures twice...

...then he cuts.

To get your bearings, Taylor is standing in the arbour and the upside down wheelbarrow is in the middle of the pergola.

Taylor evens out the ground...

...and fills in around the footings. 

A metal 'U' shaped anchor brace has been added to every footing.

Kyle and Josh check their installation of the first post.

Yes, they are happy with their work.

The raising and installing of the posts have begun.

Backyard Project: 8 Foot High Deer Fence Essential for Productive Garden

Deer skulls found while walking through the forest.

The unchecked deer population on southern Vancouver Island is exploding. We, humans, have chased away their natural predators.

We live at the foot of Bear Hill but our long-time resident neighbour says she hasn't seen a bear in her yard for 12 years.

The first section of the cedar deer fence is in place.

The Backyard Project is all about outside living amongst different multi-functional garden beds. If we want to harvest food we need to keep the deer away. But the deer population numbers have reached the level where if we want even the plants to survive we need to keep the deer out. There is such a demand for food from the large number of groups tracking across the land that they are often hungry and will eat the whole plant and not just nibble from a number of plants as they used to when their numbers were smaller and there was plenty of food to go around.

As a result, the Backyard Project plan includes the construction of a deer fence. Most of the fence is wire mesh with steel posts but the area which is the entrance to the back yard is a cedar fence.

Josh and Taylor have set up a work bench near where the fence is being constructed.

For the type of deer in this forest the fence needs to be 8 feet high. The deer are small but they can jump high. In the Oak Bay area, the deer are larger and stronger so the fences need to be strong to be effective. However, they don't seem to be able to jump as high because I see a lot of 6 foot high fences in that suburb.

More sections of the deer fence in place with the top beam still to go on.

The deer may be jumpers but they are also small. It is amazing how small a gap they can squeeze through, especially the bambis, hence the ladders lying horizontally against the bottom of the fence to fill the gaps.

The gap between the temporary wire fence and the new cedar fence is filled with a ladder.

We all have to be vigilant about keeping the gate in the temporary fence closed at all times. I have had dreams of a deer getting inside and I spend days trying to shoo it out through one of the 4 gates while more deer stream in through the other open gates. A nightmare!

This gap is for the permanent gate.

The new cedar deer fence connects the house with the studio. I will write a post about how this design fits the Pattern Language, check out wikipedia description. 

The temporary deer fence will remain in place until all of the gaps have been filled and it is completley deer proof. Then the only remaining problem will be human error - failing to close a gate.

Backyard Project: Cedar Deer Fence

There is a temporary, 8-foot high, wire, deer fence between the house and the Green Shed.

I was excited to see Josh and Taylor with their tape measure out over by the temporary deer fence.

Deer Fence Discussion Time

Taylor has dug the post holes. 

Digging anywhere on the construction site is such a hard job because there are so many buried angular rocks left over from blasting the foundations for the house.

It is getting dark not long after the construction crew has finished for the day. There is no daylight time left for me to go out and garden after they have gone. Winter is coming.

Another delivery - materials for the 8-foot high, permanent, cedar, deer fence.

Josh checks off the items: sono tube to support the wet concrete, cement for the footings, cedar planks for the fence.

Taylor mixed the cement then shovelled it into the sono tubes.

Now to wait for the cement to set.

Backyard Project - Propagation Room Walls

The Plan

Jonathan Aitken, Aitken Design, adesign@telus.net, is the architect.

This project fits with his speciality - designing the space between the inside and the outside. During his student days, he focused on researching Asian design, particularly Japanese and Chinese.

Those buried footings now have metal brackets bolted to them.

A delivery - beautiful cedar posts. There will be no need to paint or finish this wood. Once the posts are installed they will age gracefully and last a long time in this seasonal rainforest climate.

The posts are in place.

The size matches the ones used in the house design.

After the construction crew has left for the day I am enjoying walking around the 'room' visualising how it will look, and work.