Today in fact gave us an interesting experience. We were excavating on the area between the bell display apse and Soleri's house. This is an area built up with dirt to the roof of the Soleri drafting office, which is just between the two structures (roughly). We were to clear out most of the dirt around this apse to waterproof it, as it had never been properly sealed, apparently. So there was more dirt, more digging, and more treecutting. My particular job was to remove old, haphazardly placed insulation on the roof of the drafting office, starting at the edge of Soleri's house and following to the beginning of the apse. It was a very porous kind of psuedo-concrete—I'm not aware what the material actually was. But whatever it was, it was old enough to crumble in my hands.
I also got to climb on top of Soleri's house to remove some wooden supports (also looking to be defunct) which were in the way of our excavation. Thankfully he had left for Arcosanti by then, but it was a strange experience crawl-walking on his roof, underneath low tree branches, with a giant drill and extension cord in my hand.
Now, all of this is only worth really mentioning because Roger had a hidden purpose in making us excavate. Rumor had it that broken or deformed bells were used as void material at Cosanti (void material is filler material for concrete like boulders, and it was a technique Soleri inherited from Frank Lloyd Wright)—particularly at the place we were digging. And, sure enough, about three feet in we hit a stockpile of 40-some year old bells and broken ceramics, all fired in the original (and now defunct) Cosanti kiln. Our mission became modified—not only dig the trench around the apse for waterproofing, but also dig the trench all the way to Soleri's house, where a stockpile of such ceramics would be. Roger has a book in the works with a large publisher, and he plans to take photos of these old bells, mostly because the carvings on them are all done by Soleri himself and are pristine examples of Soleri's artistic style. I mentioned to Roger, of course, that I'm a graphic designer and that he should give me a call if he needs help with the layout or designing of the book.
The three days also included a visit (and dinner) at Taliesin. We got the in-depth tour, and saw a lot of places most other visitors never get to see, including the Wright living quarters, bathrooms, etc. Not to mention dinner. And a number of the student-constructed shelters around the site, which in my opinion were just as interesting as Taliesin itself.
My favorite visit though had to have been the Phoenix Botanical Gardens—but not because I don't get to see enough flora at Arcosanti. That day happened to land on a Chihuly exhibition in the gardens themselves. We arrived just after sunset, so we got to see a spectacular Chihuly showing scattered among desert plants. All of them fit in perfectly—it was striking how similar some of the glass forms could be to things like century plants and Saguaros. I've seen Chihuly before, and though this is not the largest exhibition I've seen, it had to have been the most striking, just due to the way the plants looked in contrast to the forms, and vice versa.
As of writing this, it is dinnertime and I'm back at Arcosanti. I hope to catch up on a lot of entries I've been meaning to write in the next day or two.
Me next to a Chihuly light form, made of warped fluorescent tubes.
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