Hello EcoDancer peeps,

Since I last posted, a lot has been accomplished. We built aluminum frames for the dwelling room and dance room windows.

WINDOWS:

We installed container door locks on the hinged walls.
 HINGED WALL DOOR LOCKS

I installed a door from the parts RV.

RV DOOR INSTALL

Lastly, we riveted aluminum to the SIP seams, the roof and the roof/wall corners. This part was a wonderful goopy mess, thanks to 7 sausages of Sikoflex, an industrial waterproofing glue. WATERPROOFING THE EXTERIOR

Our final step last week was to move out. Our time is up at the Open Space's warehouse. So we packed up the tools, the remaining SIP panels (that are the unattached stage corners), and exited through the only ground level garage door. This was a 6 hour process because we had to see-saw Foxy out of the warehouse in order to turn her to face the truck. See-sawing was done in parts by hand, fork lift, and truck. But, phew! We made it out. Thank you Open Space! We are safely relocated to our third build location, yet another backyard. 

Now I am on to finishing the back end. This part is tricky because it is where stage legs, door locks, waterproofing materials and holding devices for the extra stage panels converge. I'll spare you the details until I have images to illustrate all this nonsense clearly. Over and out for now.  -Hallie

Progress in Seattle

 Hello EcoDance followers,
Are you still out there!? I am! I've been in my new building location since January.  After bleaching and protecting badly mildewed ply panels, we finally bolted the walls to the end of the trailer with piano hinges and layed out the removable extra panels to make a 12 foot by 24 foot stage.  Voila!

 Then we took to removing panel sections to install wrap-around windows in the dwelling room.  It looks so different and inviting to stand inside the front room.... the next step is to intall an aluminum frame. Progress!

We are baaaack.

If you look back in March, you'll see my last post.  Randy Kirk, volunteer welder, had ordered and cut metal tubing which I mounted on top of Foxy's side walls in preparation for the next step: welding the rooftop centerboard and cross members to the walls.  I don't weld, nor do I own the tools. Luckily,  Randy had pledged his assistance and promised to call when his workload subsided.

While Randy worked on fabricating projects and metal art over the Spring and Summer, I had my own distractions... 

I NEEDED A JOB.

... When I moved back to Seattle after ten years away, I had a plan: to offer Trager bodywork sessions for a living while I finished the dwelling and applied for dance professor jobs.  When I got here last summer (September 2011), I found out that Washington state requires healthcare licensing before I could offer hands-on or manual therapy to paying clients. To get a license I had to pass the state board massage test.  To be eligible to take the test, I had to be recommended by a massage school. So, it was back to ten more months of full time school for me... studying massage at night --Swedish, myofascial, MET, lymphatic faciliation, etc. and my favorite, anatomy & kinesiology (really!)....

... and by day, building a space to make an income: turning the old Burton Back Bay Inn dining room into a Pilates and massage studio. Yup, mostly a solitary job for me.

Dining Room, BEFORE CONSTRUCTION

DURING CONSTRUCTION

Movement Intelligence Studio, AFTER

  Then the stress got to me. I lost twenty pounds, went through mood swings and inconsolable feelings of hopelessness.  My heart pounded all day, including at 3 o'clock in the morning. A doctor visit revealed that, no, it wasn't my thyroid.  It was adrenal exhaustion.  The bad news is I overloaded myself with stress, which kicked my sympathetic nervous system into full time alert, spiking my adrenal levels and plummeting them just as quickly. And wow, a glass of wine on an empty stomach sent me through an emotional tremor or two.  I've always considered myself ...um... 'emotionally available', but never inconsolable and scared.  Go figure, I also lost my bf in the midst of this.  So, a lady cannot do everything.  She MUST learn to manage projects appropriately (and drink less coffee).  The good news: this happened to me during my thesis performance in grad school the year before, so now I have an explanation for the identical behaviors.  It is good to know that freaking out has it's biological explanations!  Even good stress can be too much.

 

 Enter Randy, six months later.  So, metal kept him busy all summer, and in September, when indian summer was in full swing, we spent a couple weekends ten feet in the air (okay, Randy was up in the rafters, while I held the water hose). Above is a picture of Randy welding the center 2x3" pipe to the end of the roof, of his. 

Above, his last weld (today anyway).

 Above, you can see the trailer's wall/roof corner is.... drum roll please.... columnless!

Then, tawdawww, Randy demonstrates the easy-to-place column installation, for the transition from open stage to folded-up-trailer, when Foxy needs to have structual integrity for the bumpy road. Why is a columness stage necessary for dance? Answer: So my dancers and I don't bump our bodies on columns. You'd be surprised how annoying columns can be when you are concentrating on the dance. If Im going to spend all this time, money, and energy on a (albeit MINI) dance space, my priority was a space with no columns in my way.

OMG, Foxy (short for Foxglove), the mobile performance dwelling with a roof! Well, 3/4 of a roof.  We still need to finish the exterior waterproofing. Nevertheless, she has most of a roof, and far more structural integrity than a typical travel trailer. Randy, above, testing Foxy's strength. I think her first showcase of choreography might be a zip line from her deck and into the Central Cascades' Scottish Lakes .... any volunteers??

 I HAVE A JOB.

I am one month away from another graduation ceremony.  I passed my state board exam.  Soon the LMP license certificate will be in the mail! My Pilates studio is up and running, and I visit the city one day a week to spread my dance movement teachings to guess whooooo.... dancers!

Soon, the eco-mobile will warm up the front burner again. She is rather grimy and wet under her tarp tent.  I am finding her a roomier cover/garage so that we can work on the roof for a few more weekends before she is ready to weather the great outdoors.  I have leads on private and public spaces, with no final decisions yet.  I am hopeful she'll be on the road (for the first time) to relocate indoors in a week or so.

Meanwhile I am submitting EcoDance for a Seattle sustainable business start-up program, a ten week program for Sarah and I to flesh out the possibilities with investors.  Application deadline, December 15.  Ay yi yi, tranquil, mija, es un dia a dia.

EcoDance/Raw Art Tour at Artprize

September 19 - October 7, EcoDance/Raw Art Tour will be at Artprize in Grand Rapids, Michigan. This is the first time that I will include the structure I built through EcoDance as an art component of my work. EcoDance is about building the structures, but at Artprize the Mobile Performance Dwelling will be viewed as an installation piece. This event is free and open to the public. For more information and a schedule of events, please visit: http://rawarttour.blogspot.com.

Here is a video link for EcoDance/Raw Art Tour at Artprize:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=od7UoFy1Q0A

For the curious who do not have the best internet capability, I have included a lengthy bit about the work below. Thanks for reading and hope to see some of you there:)


Best, Sarah:)


Title of work:
EcoDance/Raw Art Tour

Artist Statement:
EcoDance/Raw Art Tour is a mostly reclaimed installation piece with performance components. The mobile stage, which transforms from an insular, compact design to an open, public venue, opens at designated times to offer the following: performances, discussions, rehearsals, installations, and workshops. The artist who built this structure engages with her own art/work and also invites people to use the space as a platform. Creations can take the form of movement studies, sculptures, paintings, photographs, installations, etc.

History:
EcoDance/Raw Art Tour is a two-fold project. Co-founded January 2011 by Sarah Haas and Hallie Aldrich, EcoDance encompasses the building process and design of the mobile installation piece. Inspired by the tiny house movement and motivated to create low-cost artist live/work spaces, the two joined forces to research, design, and build artist-specific, eco-friendly mobile performance dwellings (Eco-Mobiles). Addressing practical issues in performance, architecture, and ecology, each artist builds her own structure with the help of volunteers. Haas’s structure was built with approximately 10% volunteer labor and 90% owner energy, and 75% reclaimed materials.

Raw Art Tour is the traveling collaborative project that Haas is currently engaged in with her Eco-Mobile. Haas travels from town to town, creates work and performs, while providing a platform for people of diverse skills, passions, and interests. Her art and work events bring folks of all kinds together to share experiences, dreams, and stories. Within her process is a desire to merge work and play, to navigate and record the body as a cultural landscape, and to become a self-sustained, eco-conscious, yet collaborative entity, while garnering a sense of freedom within a rapidly corporatized world. Utilizing her space as a gathering site for lectures, workshops, brainstorming sessions, rehearsals, and performances, she continues to build upon and investigate the multifarious possibilities inherent in an ever-expanding mobile lifestyle.

EcoDance/Raw Art Tour is being hosted by the City of Grand Rapids through ADORATION.

Clarification

It seems there is some confusion about EcoDance, Raw Art Tour, and Incite Company, so I am going to clarify as best I can:

EcoDance is about researching, designing, and building Mobile Performance Dwellings, or Eco-Mobiles as we like to call them. Hallie and I build together when we are able, and apart when necessary. When we come together to perform on the structures (which will hopefully happen early 2013!) we are performing as EcoDance because we are the co-founders of EcoDance using our structures in partnership.

The performative nature of the stages we are building allows us to carry out our own individual artistic endeavors, under separate names. This is something we agreed on when we first began imagining this project. We realized that we had very different goals for the structures, traveling desires, and artistic inclinations.

Raw Art Tour and Incite Company have nothing to do with EcoDance except that we use the structures we are building to carry out our artistic endeavors. For example, if I bought my structure from a company that made Mobile Performance Dwellings, I wouldn't need to include the name of that company when I wanted to market my artistic work. And, when we build an Eco-Mobile for someone else, we do not expect them to disclaim on any of their artwork that they are affiliated with EcoDance.

I hope this helps:)

S

Paper Mache

After ruining the beautiful birchwood floor of my Eco-Mobile from consistently building and living inside the structure, I figured out how to beautify it again. Tearing out the floor and starting from scratch was not an option, but I remembered a co-worker from Texas mentioning the use of paper mache on wood and concrete floors. I did a bit of research, gathered a few things, and began. Below are some photos of the process. All in all, a very inexpensive and physically easy process.

 
I took out the loose boards from inside and brought them to my work site. All the paper was old packing paper from Japan. It had been saved by a friend and now there was a use for it!

  before and after photos

 Before and after photos inside the structure

 

I love that I can still get into the storage spaces with ease.

What's next for my design? 

*Outfitting the bottom of the floor boards with hinge, leg systems so that they easily transform into tables and desks. 

*adding a pulley system for the stage platforms

*adding solar panels

*adding a rainwater catchment and filtration system

Thanks for reading:)
Best,
S

Hallie's small steps

Hello,
Im a poor blogger so far, but Im going to be better!  Most of my progress has been documented on our website, but I thought that I'll post the smaller progress stories here, and some pics of the lifestyle I've been leading in the process.

Last August I drove across the country with my truck, trailer, and materials.  In September, Dave (my sweetie) and I built a tarp tent, and parked the trailer in it.  We unloaded the materials, and by my birthday on January 6th, I put up all the walls.  In January, it was clear that in order to build the stage walls and to stabilize the structure's sheer strength, I would need some steel reinforcement.  Since then, a local steel artist and fabricator, Randy Kirk, came on board.

 

This is Randy in his studio, cutting the steel for me. Randy procured the steel and is sharing his expertise and skills by advising me and helping with the next steps. He is an accomplished fabricator, and is helping with the ideology, "the poor help the poor!" 

This is a 18'1" steel tube sitting on top of the SIP walls of the trailer. I have two tubes on top of the walls (one on each side), and the next step is to weld these tubes to vertical supports, to attach removable steel supports on the end of the trailer, and then .... drum roll, please....  add the hinged walls.  Of those four steps, only one is complete.  Patience is my best friend, as has been true for this entire project! Tomorrow I will secure the steel in relation to Foxy's trailer frame (vertically), and screw the steel into the outside walls. After this I will use clamps and straps to square the walls, and then Randy, Dave and I will be ready for the next step: welding the vertical and horizontal steel crossmembers to the steel wall supports.

Meanwhile, I bought a parts RV from a local RV sales lot (in February).  When Sarah and I visited an RV store in Illinois last July, the salesman said that new RVs are partially traded for parts RVs all the time. I found out that the same is true here in the Seattle area. This is a pic of me and the trailer waiting for the ferry back to Vashon.  I won't mention how much it cost for the RV to ride the ferry.  Although leaking badly in several places, the RV has everything I need....  gas range/stove, gas/AC frigde, water tank, battery charger, sink, ventilation fans, shower, outdoor shower/water hookup, doors, piano hinges, DC lights and other incidentals like water and gas and electric supplies!  We tested all these elements, and all but the charger are in working order.  (Perhaps this trailer base will become the next, the third EcoDance trailer...!)  Because I have time on my hands while waiting for the structural elements, I decided to design my kitchen in a step by step process.  So, I started transferring each appliance one at a time.








This is the range/stove. It needs to move from the RV to "Foxy", my mobile performance dwelling (Foxy is short for Foxglove, my favorite native flower that grows here in the PNW). So, I started with...

... this reclaimed mobile home stud wall (thanks to Jill Johnson) and transformed it into...

 

...this stove holder.  It (and the stove) will eventually be placed in...

 

...Foxy's kitchen/bath area.

That is my EcoDance update, as of today, Friday, March 16th.