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z | Without education and with little-to-no social safety net to fall back on, a person will view circumstances of lack in a very different way than one who has educational and marketplace advantages—not to mention the advantage of ethnic privilege, another issue often ignored within the VS movement. This difference in perspective is often seriously misunderstood or glossed over by VSers. In her scholarly exploration of the VS movement, Mary Grigsby put it this way:
This perception of all things being equal and that “starting from zero” is a matter of choice common to everyone, ignores genuine perceptual differences caused by institutional poverty. Although VSers often say that they recognize the difference between voluntary and involuntary simplicity, Grigsby’s interviews of VSers seem to indicate otherwise.
Surviving and coping on the lower levels of Maslow’s Hierarchy creates psychological and sociological impediments to moving up toward the higher levels of self-actualization. Ironically, most VSers have moved far up the hierarchical ladder by the time they choose to begin downsizing.
As stated previously, broad definitions of the simplicity movement lend themselves to broad interpretation of how to pursue its tenets. At the web site quoted above, one may purchase calendars, bumper stickers, flags, note and post cards, posters, tee-shirts, books, CDs, DVDs, and VHS tapes, all billed as “tools for simple living.” The ambiguity of the simplicity rules is paying off for some; simplicity has become big business.
In 2000, a new magazine hit the stands. Each month Real Simple sports a peaceful color scheme—typically a lot of white and pale blue—and features cover shots of items like plain wooden tables or cupboards, simple bowls, perhaps a single flower or piece of fruit. Time, Inc. owns Real Simple, and refers to it as “a leader in the category of women’s lifestyle publications.” It further promises “useful strategies, coupled with a clean, inspiring design. . . .”. The implication here is that the illusion of simplicity is tantamount to actual simplicity. So successful has the magazine become, there is now a television program by the same name, being broadcast on, of all places, public television. At the PBS Real Simple web site in October 2007, the photo is of a gift wrapped in plain white cloth, tied with string, and ornamented with what appears to be a camellia leaf. Under the heading “Episode 26” is a bullet list that includes the title, “Shopping Splurges.” Apparently, the cognoscenti watching PBS (undoubtedly a VS demographic) can buy things in order to keep it simple. Real Simple merchandise, such as organizers and notebooks, are available for purchase at that consumers’ paradise, Target.
Keying in “voluntary simplicity” at Amazon.com provides a book browser with nearly 900 book titles from which to choose. If these books are any indication, it is imperative that one simplify business, housecleaning, and home schooling. Simplicity is framed within the context of Buddhism, Christianity, and Zen. There is Quaker simplicity, Shaker simplicity, and Epicurean simplicity. | 54 | English | female | Master's degree | Writer | Y,Y,Y,Y,Y |
z | The evolution in cob will be toward the pursuit of making cob available to as many people as are interested in and in need of cheap, sustainable, and personally fulfilling housing alternatives. In an era when people are more and more disempowered to act with agency in designing their lives, designing and building with cob may be a way back to something elemental in the human heart.
The concept of simplicity has insinuated itself to the point of ubiquity in 21st century American culture. The Voluntary Simplicity movement is a precursive factor in this phenomenon, particularly as it constructs a standard of behavior by which individuals might ameliorate the overwork, indebtedness, and bourgeois guilt inherent with conspicuous consumption. The precepts of the Voluntary Simplicity (VS) movement tend to be fluid, leaving the definition of simplicity open to broad individual interpretation. I will examine different ways that these wide-ranging definitions leave VS vulnerable to co-opting by popular culture, diluting its message of transcendence over materialism. The rhetoric of VS—and several parallel movements—is one in which temporal decrease is equated with intangible gain. I will explore the pseudo-religious nature of VS that can lead to extremism, just as sometimes happens with other forms of utopian or religious beliefs.
Current western culture, particularly in the United States, is a culture of consumption. As 20th century Americans moved steadily away from an agrarian lifestyle, acquisition of material goods became synonymous with progress and forward momentum. The American ideals of the “self-made man” and “pulling oneself up by one’s own bootstraps” fed the industrial and technological revolutions. The American Dream, in other words, has generally equated more “stuff” with greater happiness and an improved social status.
In the 1980s, Reagan-era economics and attitudes elevated material acquisition to a new level. On the heels of the so-called “decade of greed,” the 1990s heralded the information age, catapulting the nation and the world onto the Information Superhighway. The VS movement, still comparatively small in numbers, found a growth niche, primarily among disenchanted, middle-class baby-boomers, and ideologically displaced environmental and back-to-the-land enthusiasts.
Bob Corbett, a professor of philosophy for 36 years at Webster University, is fairly representative of the VS demographic. Bob and his wife began making conscious lifestyle choices aimed at simplifying family life during the 1960s. In an era when most American families were caught up in the mainstream conventions of the time—namely following the ideals of progress and modernity—the Corbett family chose to forego two American staples: a television set and an automobile. As the parents of seven children, the Corbetts decided that television contributed to a vision of “normal life” that they found skewed, and from which they chose to shield their children.
Typically, the VS movement provides a means of grappling with the frustration of the overwork-overspend cycle. In fact, VSers contend that the trap of spending ever more time working for wages in order to fund consumption, is at the root of many societal ills—environmental chaos, poverty, and spiritual malaise. | 54 | English | female | Master's degree | Writer | Y,Y,Y,Y,Y |
z | One may embrace radical simplicity, extreme simplicity, and fearless simplicity.
One final nod to buying big in order to live small, is the “Tumbleweed Tiny House,” the brainchild of architect and designer Jay Shafer. Each exquisite little dwelling is like a playhouse for grownups; they have eco-groovy names like the “Concord” and the “Sebastarosa,” and can be trailered from place to place. Shafer lives full-time in his own 100-square foot Tumbleweed House. Ranging from 40-100 square feet, these exquisitely designed domiciles are built directly onto a trailer base, so are completely portable. One can either purchase plans for about $1,000, or order the house custom built and shipped. The cost to build your own (not including the cost of plans or labor) is $9,000 to $19,000. Ready-made is significantly more: $22,000 for 40-square feet, to $43,000 for 100-square feet. Although the little homes are hitting it big in the popular marketplace, it will not be those trying to eke their way up from the subsistence level of Maslow’s Hierarchy that will be buying a Tumbleweed House.
Ruth Mullin of the Oregonian said of Tumbleweed Houses: “Exquisite craftsmanship and an ecological imperative to live lightly in less space.” In her review, Mullin made the leap from just-a-really-hip-idea to a concept that is central to VS: “reduction-morality.”
The Voluntary Simplicity movement embraces several specific sub-cultures, complete with unique vocabulary, and rituals of behavior that identify one as an insider. Complex connections exist between groups and between standards of behavior within groups. These intertwined subsets typically incorporate the rhetoric of reduction-morality, that is, living righteously by subtracting some element from everyday life. Subcategories within the reduction-morality lifestyle might be thought of as eco-morality (reducing consumption of non-sustainable goods and services, eschewing consumption of animals and animal byproducts), econo-morality (frugality movements, buying local, support of non-corporate business), and religio-morality (vows of poverty, renunciation of worldly goods).
In an online blog entitled “Small Revolutions: Voluntary Simplicity in Devon,” a young man identified only as Rob attempts to fulfill a number of reduction-morality requirement while he shops. A basic principle of voluntary simplicity requires him to weigh any purchase with deliberation. By VS standards, it is generally better not to spend at all; if Rob makes a purchase, there should be specific and conscious thought behind it. He sees a pig-bristle shave brush. He justifies the expense (more than nine euros) by making the point that a) it will last a lifetime and b) he will be able to give up shaving foam. He makes a connection with econo-morality—he is buying locally. He makes a connection with eco-morality—not using aerosol cans anymore, and foiling advertising and consumerism. And he connects with religio-morality, writing at some length about the importance of rituals (shaving, in this case) and how small daily rituals root us to time and place. | 54 | English | female | Master's degree | Writer | Y,Y,Y,Y,Y |
z | Joe Dominguez and Vicki Robin became VS gurus with their seminal work, Your Money or Your Life. Many VSers refer to this state of being stuck on the consumer hamster wheel as “wage slavery.” This is not just radical rhetoric of East or West Coast liberals.
There is a certain level of discomfort among VSers with this more extreme end of the simplicity continuum. The vast majority of VSers express an interest, not in eliminating work, but being free to choose work that is fulfilling and personally meaningful, whether financially remunerative or voluntary in nature—an idea compatible with the Buddhist ideal of right livelihood.
Simplicity literature frequently lays out specific steps for downsizing, providing a framework for reaching the ultimate VS goals, typified as financial independence, reduced environmental impact, and the perception of spending one’s time and money wisely and conscientiously. On paper it sounds like a noble aspiration. But, as with all human endeavors, VS is fraught with complications and conundrums.
The population of the Voluntary Simplicity movement self-identifies largely as white, highly educated, middle class, and, more often than not, heterosexual. It is the upwardly mobile person for whom the question of downsizing becomes an issue. VSers have, according to their own socio-economic identification, reached a point in life that allows them to be concerned with matters beyond issues of survival and the desire to “better” oneself by acquiring material possessions that one equates with status in the dominant culture.
It is not uncommon that individuals and couples take on the mantle of VS after reaching a place of material security and/or income level that allows them to shift their assets into investments before downsizing, thus allowing them certain freedoms and financial security not available to those whose educational and monetary underpinnings are thin or nonexistent.
In Abraham Maslow’s notion of human psychological development, individuals move through a series of conceptual levels, beginning from the most basic physical needs such as food, sleep, water, oxygen, and so forth. When these basic needs are met, the theory states, the individual is then—and only then—able to move to the next level of development. There is a significant relevance in Maslow’s Hierarchy as it applies to the concepts of Voluntary Simplicity.
When a person is functioning on a hand-to-mouth basis, never having lived above poverty or subsistence level, an entirely different set of motivations surrounds her choices concerning acquisition and consumption. At the first and second levels of the hierarchy, one is striving to meet the most basic hungers of the body, and then gather about oneself a sense of physical safety and security. Acquisitions that represent gross consumption to a VSer—say, a big-screen TV or an expensive designer handbag—could, to a subsistence-oriented person, symbolize the ability to move into the realm of “the haves.” It is easy to extrapolate one’s own sensibilities about consumption onto another, without having tried to survive solely on the lower rungs of Maslow’s Hierarchy. | 54 | English | female | Master's degree | Writer | Y,Y,Y,Y,Y |
z |
Teenagers are dying behind the wheel. Several factors come together to create this deadly vector of statistics for the youngest American drivers. The National Institutes of Health explain that one facet of the problem is that the teen brain is literally not ready for the hazards of driving. Simple inexperience also lies at the heart of the problem. This inexperience not only causes more fatal accidents, but also a higher rate of vehicle rollover, speeding, and driving off the road.
Teens also fare far worse when they travel with their peers—which anyone with an iota of sense knows they do on a regular basis. The Southern California Injury Prevention Research Center conducted a study that showed the following correlation: between the age of the passenger and the number of traffic accidents occurring.
California and other states have attempted to increase the safety of teen drivers by requiring temporary provisional licenses that limit the hours that teens may drive and prohibit other minors as passengers.
But provisional driver’s licenses are, in my opinion, stopgap measures. The real issue is that—as a group—the youngest drivers are, by all statistical markers, simply not able to adequately handle the risks and responsibilities. Psychologist Marvin Zuckerman believes even 18 is too young for a regular driver’s license. USA Today reports that Zuckerman has performed research suggesting a common desire among those under the age of 19-20 to take risks for the sheer thrill of the sensation. It makes sense then, to delay driving at least until the tendency to thrill-seek has begun to level out. If we continue to issue driver’s licenses to young teens, we will not only continue to see deadly accidents happening, but the death toll is likely to reach staggering proportions in the next few years. By 2010, the Baby-Boomer’s babies will be eligible to drive and millions of new teen drivers will ready to hit the road.
Legislation dealing with this issue would be reasonably straightforward. Schools could continue to provide driver’s education classes to begin the learning process for future drivers, but no one under the age of 18 could operate a motor vehicle. A provisional permit could still be issued prior to granting a full driver’s license, and a certain number of practical driver’s training hours would still be required as well. The specific number of hours required could be based on the number of hours already required by the majority of states (in California, for example, that number is currently 6 hours of behind-the-wheel training and 50 hours of practice with an adult.) Because the deadly statistics for teen drivers come from a cross-section of all states, uniform, national legislation on this issue would be a reasonable—and I believe effective—means of protecting teens across the nation.
The legislation I suggest is by no means a novel idea. | 54 | English | female | Master's degree | Writer | Y,Y,Y,Y,Y |
z | Cob, in this case, has nothing to do with the skeleton of an ear of corn. Cob is an old English term for mud buildings constructed without standard structural underpinning (Elizabeth 25). Cob is also the name of the loaves of mud used during construction.
The basic composition of cob is clay, sand, straw, and water. Cobbers typically begin with whatever soil is at hand, and amend the components to obtain the highest quality cob possible. Below is a simple soil test that can be performed at the building site. Referred to as a “shake test,” this is a method for roughly determining how much clay and sand is available in site soil. The shake test is not a foolproof determination, but is useful in garnering site information. Clay and/or sand may be brought in from off-site, but this begins to increase building costs.
Once a site is selected and prepared, the fun begins. New school cob is typically mixed under human power, usually by foot. Called “cob dancing,” the muddy mix is stomped out on a tarp. As the cob is combined, more elements are added—straw, water, etc.—in order to create the desired consistency and balance of elements.
That balance can be determined by making test bricks and allowing them to dry thoroughly. Bricks deficient in sand or long straw will be in danger of cracking or breaking under pressure. The perfect mix is also determined in part by building conditions. For instance, in warm, dry conditions, a wetter cob can be mixed. In cooler, damper weather, a somewhat drier cob will prove easier to work with and will dry faster.
Regular cob is mixed on the tarp and then shaped into loaves, as this illustration from The Hand-Sculpted House demonstrates (Evans 182). These loaves, or cobs, are carried to the building in progress and incorporated.
“Gaab-Cob” is a system named for Cob Cottage Company colleague Dana Gaab. Gaab invented this wetter cob in 1994. It is loaded onto walls in large armfuls or by fork. In the photograph below, Ianto Evans of Cob Cottage Company is working with Gaab Cob.
The cob designer and architect is limited by imagination and little else. Because of this free-flowing process, cob design might almost be thought of as a form of “anti-architecture.” In addition to the unique windows, arches, benches, shelves, and freeform sculpture possible, the house can incorporate recycling efforts in an amazing fashion. Figure 10 below shows how. The various objects that would normally end up in a landfill become an integral—if invisible—part of the finished cob structure! Because cob has such efficient thermal mass, it is ideal for passive solar construction. Heavy cob construction with thick walls can average about 70 degrees without any other source of heat or cooling.
The fine details and specifics of cob building are far beyond the scope of this project, but I hope it is clear from even a brief introduction that cob building offers a level of flexibility in design that supersedes traditional architecture. | 54 | English | female | Master's degree | Writer | Y,Y,Y,Y,Y |
z |
Americans have long been enamored with the image of the simple self-sufficient aesthete, whether it is Thoreau growing beans on the back forty in Concord or Jeremiah Johnson going into the Rocky Mountains to wrestle grizzly bears. In recent years, PBS has created several versions of a reality-style television miniseries, based on the fantasy of “escaping” into the perceived simplicity of the past. Three of these shows, Frontier House, Colonial House, and Texas Ranch House, garnered tens of thousands of applications from would-be participants (www.pbs.org/wnet/frontierhouse). The actual reality was that living in primitive 17th and 19th century conditions was no Thoreauvian tiptoe through the tulips. 21st century participants invariably found the experience grueling, dangerous, and dirty.
There is a common saying in the Voluntary Simplicity movement: How much is enough? People can theoretically follow their reduction-morality to the nth degree, and diminish consumption until they are living in naked in caves, eating roots and berries. Perhaps one should also ask, how far is too far?
In 1996, Jon Krakauer wrote an account of Chris McCandless, a 24-year-old man, who, four years prior, walked into the Alaskan tundra with not much more than the clothes on his back. Wildly devoted to the concepts of self-sufficiency extreme simplicity, McCandless’s particular reduction-morality (heavily influenced by Thoreau, Tolstoy, and Jack London) ended with the tragic consequence that the young man starved to death. Again—and this is a terrible irony considering how he died—Chris McCandless was attempting to reduce his circumstances from a position of relatively comfortable upper-middle-class socio-economic means.
The desire to create meaning in the complex lives we build for ourselves is a uniquely human enterprise, and the concept of simplicity has come into and gone out of favor with Americans time and again over the course of centuries. The Puritans, Shakers, and Amish all set up religious precepts that shunned the complex trappings of secular life in order to embrace spiritual purity. Thomas Jefferson held forth the ideal of the gentleman farmer, an agrarian gentry that would be a perfect American type. The late 19th century brought a flourishing of American utopian experiments in which numbers of people endeavored to live together under a set of simple ideals (Nathaniel Hawthorne, in his The American Notebooks, describes in a particularly winsome fashion, working up the courage to milk a cow. During the 1960s, tens of thousands sought to simply life by getting “back to the land,” following eco-gurus like Scott and Helen Nearing, authors of the wildly popular Living the Good Life.
Humans always appear to throw themselves toward extremes to try and achieve physical and psychic balance. It seems that when we travel too far from the truth of who we are—animals that have developed the capacity for abstract thought—we find it necessary to reduce our circumstances and slide back down Maslow’s ladder, just far enough so that it feels like we are once more in familiar territory. | 54 | English | female | Master's degree | Writer | Y,Y,Y,Y,Y |
z | All materials are completely non-toxic, sound for the environment, and harmless to cob builders and cob dwellers.
The first permanent human settlements were constructed of unbaked earth, some 10,000 years ago. Earth construction is ubiquitous around the globe. At some point during the Middle Ages, the first cob houses began to be built in Britain. In the county of Devon, many hundreds of cob houses, are still standing and inhabited.
When Ianto Evans and Linda Smiley began researching the possibility of building with earth in the mid-1980s, they made a trip to Ianto’s native Wales. Although they had been thoroughly discouraged from trying to build with earth in the damp and rainy climate of the Pacific Northwest, Ianto and Linda saw ample evidence that cob houses, properly constructed, could weather the wet climate beautifully. They decided to go home to Oregon and try using cob for themselves. One problem they had, however, was the fact that English cob had literally become a dead art. No new cob construction had taken place in England after World War I, and cob crafters with firsthand experience had not passed that knowledge on before they died.
Undaunted, Ianto and Linda pressed on with their vision. Over the latter part of the twentieth century, cob building took on a whole new life, drawing many hundreds of people. Cob building has seen a resurgence around the world. In this way, cob building has not so much evolved as it has revived. The evolution of cob has happened almost entirely during the past 20 years.
With concerns about climate change and the stresses put on natural resources due to overpopulation and misuse, cob’s most significant evolution is that it joins a growing number of progressive alternative housing design concepts that champion sustainability and eschew over-consumption.
People are drawn to design with cob for a variety of reasons, but a few of those reasons seem predominant:
It can be done relatively cheaply (Ianto and Linda built Heart House for $500 in materials.)
It is a non-toxic construction method.
People who are typically excluded from the realm of home construction (i.e., women, children, the elderly, the disabled).
Cob design and building fits well the desire to downscale, simplify, and find sustainable ways of living on the planet.
Cob building is by no means the only way to go for sustainability or downsizing, but it may be the most practical way for the greatest number of people of varying construction abilities and economic means. Next, we briefly explore two other alternative housing design options.
Especially designed for simplicity and downsized consumption is the “Tumbleweed Tiny House.” The brainchild of architect and designer Jay Shafer, each exquisite little dwelling is like a playhouse for grownups. They have eco-groovy names like the “Concord” and the “Sebastarosa,” and can be trailered from place to place. Shafer lives full-time in his own 100-square foot Tumbleweed House.
| 54 | English | female | Master's degree | Writer | Y,Y,Y,Y,Y |
z | In spite of all the reduction-morality justifications this young man finds for making his purchase, he also mentions that the shaving brush “looks retro.” Simplicity aesthetics has its own appeal; it looks simple, and the buyer is able to flesh out the virtues of his choice accordingly. By making this purchase, Rob acquires not just a nine-euro shaving brush, but also a sense of integrity from having made a moral decision. There are of course, even simpler alternatives than the shave brush, though Rob does not explore these in the context of his shopping trip. What about just lathering on the soap with bare hands? Or, simpler still, why not forego shaving altogether? When my grandfather was in his eighties, he sat down and calculated how much time he spent each day parting his hair. He then calculated the amount of time that hair-parting was cutting into his life. Apparantly, this was a significant enough time expenditure that, from that day until he died several years later, he combed his hair straight back from his face—no part. There is always another backward step one can take in reduction-morality.
The web of underlying credos spliced into the tapestry of the VS movement is extensive. Because a major tenet of VS is the desire to reduce personal impact on the environment, there is a solid connection with other reduction-morality movements. Natural food movements employ reduction-morality by stepping backward from the perceived evils of the typical American diet—fast food, GMO, pesticide-laden, animal-cruelty-endorsing omnivory—to organic, locally-raised, cruelty-free vegetarianism. Another step backward, and one will embrace veganism, followed in turn by a raw foods diet. Pursued to the extreme, natural food reduction-morality comes to the Jains, a religious sect that is not simply vegetarian, but only eats plant products—whether fruits, vegetables, or grains—that have ripened to the point of falling off the plant, in order to maintain the sanctity of the life of the plant (Jainism Simplified). On an interesting side parallel, those practicing the precepts of Jainism usually come from upper-caste Indian families, which affords individuals the ability to pursue a set of beliefs that are on the higher, or transcendent, levels of Maslow’s Hierarchy—similar to the hierarchical status of the average VSer.
American Puritanism was a response to perceived religious excess; VS is a response to perceived material excess. As with any movement that perceives itself as holding the answers to life’s most pressing questions, VS sometimes has a decidedly fundamentalist bent.
The call to cut back on material entanglements is common to a myriad of spiritual practices and utopian communities: the Amish, the Quakers, and the Shakers all embrace simplicity as a central tenet of their belief structures. Not surprisingly, when one is in a position to qualify the fine points of faith, one is on the upper levels of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. | 54 | English | female | Master's degree | Writer | Y,Y,Y,Y,Y |
z |
Ranging from 40-100 square feet, these exquisitely designed domiciles are built directly onto a trailer base, so are completely portable. One can either purchase plans for about $1,000, or order the house custom built and shipped. The cost to build your own (not including the cost of plans or labor) is $9,000 to $19,000. Ready-made is significantly more: $22,000 for 40-square feet, to $43,000 for 100-square feet (Shafer). Although the little homes are hitting it big in the popular marketplace, they are priced out of range for many people who would like to downsize, simplify, or just create a small place of their own.
For full-blown self-sustaining design, consider the Earthship. Designed by architect Michael Reynolds of Taos, New Mexico. Earthships are similar to cob houses, in that they are earth-based construction, in this case, rammed-earth. Thermal density is obtained in an Earthship by pounding soil into old tires. The tires are stacked and usually covered with adobe or cob. Like modern cob houses, Earthships often incorporate bottles and aluminum cans for decorative and structural purposes. Figure 13 below shows the ends of cans showing through the cob and plaster walls. The understructure of rammed-earth tires shows through near the front entrance. This Earthship, like many, is built up against a natural hill for increased thermal mass.
Earthships, ideally, are completely self-sustaining, using passive solar energy, water catchment, gray-water reclamation, indoor food production, and black water composting. There is an element of the experimental to an Earthship, which seems to be the intention of creator Michael Reynolds.
Cob building combines the best of many elements of the Earthship and the Tiny Tumbleweed House. Like the Tumbleweed, building can be done on a scale that utilizes space efficiently with the intention of reducing one’s impact on the environment. However, a cob house can be built for a fraction of the cost of a Tiny Tumbleweed House. A cob house can employ the same sustainable, environmentally friendly design ideas as Earthships. But unlike the Earthship, cob buildings have a long history of effectively sheltering human beings with a relatively simple investment of time and money. Perhaps most importantly, the pace and nature of cob building allows for an interaction with the earth and with other people that is, according to those who do it, unparalleled by other forms of housing or construction.
When people design and build their home with their own hands, something special happens. I believe cob design will continue to evolve, but on a different scale than is pursued in the Raymond Loewy world of “never leave well enough alone.” The changes will not be in the realm of bigger, better, faster. Cob design is personal, and therefore cannot be fully outsourced or usurped by contractors or other “professionals.” It is done almost exclusively by hand, and therefore will never be mass produced. | 54 | English | female | Master's degree | Writer | Y,Y,Y,Y,Y |
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After attending a cob-building workshop in Oregon, Dana Jenks came home to Sacramento with a vision for building something of her own. She was going through a particularly stressful time in her personal life, and she found that the solitary, hands-on nature of cob building to be healing. One aspect of cob design that many find appealing is flexible creativity on the fly. Dana incorporated design elements as she went along, working a little at a time over the course of a year.
Although Dana had some help from family and neighbors, she did most of the building by herself. She and her neighbors had taken down fences for repair, and this allowed for unexpected interaction during the careful process of building and design.
Linda Smiley and Ianto Evans are two of the most well known names in the burgeoning world of modern cob design, both in North America and elsewhere. In many ways, they are pioneers for modern cob, as there was virtually no one building with cob at the end of the twentieth century. Their company, Cob Cottage, grew from their own experiences building with cob in the Pacific Northwest, in the early 1990s. Because they could find no one with direct cob-building experience, their experiments in cob design began with observation of old cob buildings in Great Britain, then evolved as they designed their first cob home, a hybrid cob/wood cabin structure (Elizabeth 122). Some years later, they designed and built an all-cob house, 120 sq. ft. With its curved living spaces, the cottage took on a modified heart shape—thus the name. Ianto explains: “Although our house became heart-shaped, the floorplan was not based on the concept of ‘heart’….The design grew, like lilies on a pond, in response to the activities we needed to have enclosed” (Evans 87).
Most of the windows are built on the south side of the Heart House to promote passive solar heating. Ianto and Linda kept their cottage to 120 sq. ft. in order to fall outside their county’s building permit requirement. Heart House has plenty of amenities, however.
Heart House is a great example of the versatility of cob as a design medium. Note the way the shelf above the alcove is an extension of the curved wall. Plaster made with lime is painted over the cob surface, creating a durable finish with a soft effect in the room. The heart shaped window is another design element especially suited to cob.
Dana Jenks’s cob gazebo and the Heart House of Ianto Evans and Linda Smiley are design projects on a humble, human scale. The human body and the needs of the particular bodies that will inhabit the structures are the primary standards for these designs. Just how one goes about making a home from such humble stuff as clay, sand, water and straw is the next part of our adventure into cob design.
What’s in a name? | 54 | English | female | Master's degree | Writer | Y,Y,Y,Y,Y |
z | Perhaps this will always be the simple certainty of our lives on earth.
It is deeply ingrained in audiences of comedy, up to and including the present day, to watch for a satisfying moment of ‘happily ever after’ in literature, theater, film, and fairy tales. Thus, one classic and expected element of a Shakespearean comedy is a marriage in the final act. A Midsummer Night’s Dream justly meets this expectation by serving up—near, though not at the final act—multiple marriages. On the way to their connubial terminus, however, the females of A Midsummer Night’s Dream are coerced and manipulated with threats of personal violence. This paper investigates Shakespeare’s use of male-on-female violence in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. I will examine the ways violence against women is employed as a source of humor and a means of jovially bending women to the will of men, thereby bringing them—willingly or unwillingly—toward a supposed better end. Shakespeare sets up this underpinning of gender violence in his opening scene.
The first act begins with Theseus remarking on his upcoming wedding. He is filled with happy anticipation as would be expected of any willing bridegroom, and he bemoans the slow drag of time prior to the wedding. It is clear that Theseus is prepared for a celebration. One assumes that the wedding of such a nobleman would necessarily be cause for celebration, for “pomp.” It seems incongruous that Theseus should mention funerals in the same breath as his marriage. Why does he need to make such a pointed distinction between rousing “merriments” and the need to “turn melancholy forth”? If we back up and consider Hippolyta’s response to Theseus’s ardent opening salvo, we have an indication.
Hippolyta expresses none of Theseus’s sense of revelry about the impending marriage. She does not in these lines indicate any feeling of joyous anticipation, referring to the wedding ceremony only as “our solemnities.” Whereas Theseus is anxious about how slowly time will drag until they wed, Hippolyta foresees the time flying by, to arrive too soon, one might suppose. She likens the moon—often a symbol of the female life force and power because of its connection to the menses—to a drawn bow, the weapon of choice associated with the legendary Amazon warriors. Hippolyta, the Amazon queen, remains, it appears, in a state of resistance to Theseus’s domination; her only weapon against him now, however, is symbolic, an unreachable “silver bow.” She certainly has good reason to resist him. After dismissing Philostrate, Theseus is blunt.
The double-entendre in sword is clear in this passage, and Theseus seems to believe that he has created a mated passion in Hippolyta through rape. His certainty that the wedding will be a “triumph” indicates that he is wholly confident that overpowering Hippolyta is tantamount to taming her. Her compliance, while not strictly necessary to Theseus’s celebration, is fully expected by him.
| 54 | English | female | Master's degree | Writer | Y,Y,Y,Y,Y |
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