Tag Archives: commons

Summer Solstice Events: Save June 25th for the GANG

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June 25th, Mark that Date!

We’re going overboard at the GANG garden on June 25th — hosting three events, and all on the Saturday closest to the Summer Solstice. First, two workshops, one all day, the other for two hours in the afternoon.

Earth Building Workshop: 9-5, with architect Scott Routen. We will build an earthen bench and learn techniques of building with earthen materials. Click on this link for the flyer, and further details:

earthworkshop

Children’s Workshop: Inviting the Little People into the Garden: 2-4 p.m., with IU students Stephanie Partridge and Emily Ginzberg. We will introduce the children to fairies and elves, and encourage the fairies to come into the garden by gathering little sticks, stones, and leaves, painting them, and make little altars. Again, click on this link for the flyer, and further details:

Children’s Workshop

Then, in the evening, we will gather folks from the neighborhood and their friends for our second Summer Solstice Celebration. The first one was a few years ago, held at the end of East 7th Street, formerly an empty lot, and now filled with bulldozers for the Bypass. . . This year, we will hold the event in the GANG garden.

Summer Solstice Celebration: Cob Oven Pizza Party — with Music: 6-9 p.m. Neighbor Jelene Campbell and David of the David Gohn Band will play for 45 minutes. We welcome other musicians — and children! Come join your neighbors and friends for a fun time.  Again, click on flyer for details.

Garden Party

Hope to see you in the GANG garden for at least one of these events!

For the workshops: it helps us plan in advance if you pre-register; also, donations for the teachers are appreciated. Bring lunch, if you are participating in the all-day Earthwork workshop.

For the Solstice Celebration and pizza party: bring your lawn chair, one ingredient for the pizza, and your beverage. And a musical instrument, if you wish to play. And children, if you have them! We will supply pizza dough, sauce and cheese. The GANG will supply the wonderful cob oven, thanks to Nathan, Colin, and Melissa’s SPEA class!

Questions, call Ann at 334-1987 or email arkcrone@gmail.com.

See you soon!

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Our First Cob Oven Pizza Party, YES!

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I had no idea how wonderful pizza would taste when coming from our very own SPEA-class built cob oven in the GANG garden! I mean, I don’t even like pizza!

On the one day that it wasn’t raining or threatening to rain, we gathered for our first ever cob pizza party. It was supposed to be a reward for that SPEA class, which, on a drizzly day in November, 2010 had stomped and shaped the oven into being from sand, clay and straw.

But only one student from the class showed up! I guess we were too close to the end of the semester, plus it was Easter Weekend. But there were still about a dozen of us.

However, that one student brought a student friend, and a couple students from across the street and next door showed up, plus the teacher Melissa and her husband and children. And Colin, who built the structure for the oven and finished the oven, and Nathan, who spearheaded the project. Here’s Nathan, taking a good look at what he hath wrought.

We will next fire up the oven on June 25, for our Solstice Party and Celebration after our Children’s Workshop: “Inviting the Little People In.”

Meanwhile, we’re realizing that we’ve just got to make some cob benches down there by that oven. And meanwhile, I’m dreaming of outdoor cob ovens on every block in town in the future. A mighty handy fallback when the electricity shuts off.

When we finished the pizzas,

several of us threw potatoes and and eggplant in the oven. We could have put in some bread to bake, and who knows what else. The oven stays hot for a long, long time.

I now recognize this cob oven as an incredibly powerful magnetic center for the neighborhood commons that we are cultivating via the GANG.

May Melissa and Chris’s beautiful boy Emmett live to grow up into a world transformed into into community by the intention and effort of his parents’ generation.

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