Emerging Objects
(Ronald Rael and Virginia San Fratello)
Mud Frontiers II
Colorado 2019
“(…) Emerging Objects explores these frontiers of technology and material using traditional materials (clay, water, and wheat straw), to push the boundaries of sustainable and ecological construction in a two phase project that explores traditional clay craft at the scale of architecture and pottery. (…) The Earthen architecture and clay pottery traditions of Ancestral Pueblo cultures (700 CE – present) and the Indo-Hispano cultures of northern New Mexico and southern Colorado (1598 – present) define the region of extending tell a story of an evolving and merging set of craft traditions using earthen materials. Here we reference both the puddled mud building traditions found in the pueblos of Northern New Mexico, most notably Taos Pueblo, constructed largely of hand-molded mud to create multi story dwelling, which later utilized the adobe brick, a technology introduced from Spain, as well as the pottery traditions of harvesting wild clay from the Sangre de Cristo and San Juan mountains in the traditions of Taos and Picuris pueblo, using micaceous clay.”
