"We were all villagers once," Frances says, glowing with enthusiasm. She is a core member of City Repair, a group of volunteers who build social spaces in Portland. "At last year's Village Building Convergence people treated each other differently than I had ever encountered in my life. We all acted like villagers towards each other."
Frances turns her laptop to show me the City Repair web site and when she taps the keys, there's garden dirt under her nails. She is working to connect people who want to work with their hands on natural building, community gardening and public art. The Village Building Convergence happens from May 28th to June 6th.
During the day, people have the opportunity to attend free workshops and meet the neighbors. "You can't build a cob building without getting to know people, because you have your shoes off and you're stomping mud and playing with each other." Frances assures me, "It's kind of inevitable that you'll start talking and getting to know one another."
The workshops happen throughout Portland at any of 31 place-making projects: Village Building Convergence Sites.
A street painting project in St. Johns, VBC 2009.
Daily Workshops: Let's Explore the Neighborhood
Here's a quick tour of opportunities to get involved.
Essential Elements Apothocary
Learn how to build raised garden beds and spiral gardens.
Planet Repair Institute
8516 SE 8th Avenue
- Learn to retrofit an exterior wall with straw-clay insulation finished with sculptural earthen plasters.
- Learn how to build a cob chicken-coop.
- Learn to retrofit an existing cob fireplace into an oven.
St. David of Wales Episcopal Church
Help create a mosaic tile mural and community bulletin board.
South Tabor Commons
SE 61st Avenue and Clinton Street
- Learn to do cob and plaster repairs on bench and oven and sealing them with linseed oil.
- Learn to top a shed with a living roof.
Evening Events: Food and Presentations
Evening events begin around six with dinner followed by a presentation and musical performance. Admission costs $15 or $20 depending on the night (Monday is by donation) and helps fund the Village Building Convergence. You can check the schedule online for more information and view photos from last year. Contact the worktrade coordinator to inquire about volunteering in exchange for venue tickets. Work a four-hour shift to help prepare dinner and you receive a voucher to attend an evening event.
St. David of Wales Episcopal Church provides the space for this year's central venue. Stepping inside the building is something of a time warp. Established in 1952, the church contains the spirit of its era. When Rev. Sara Fischer assumed responsibility for St. David's, she asked members of the community what they wanted and people responded by saying they wanted more of a community center with different educational opportunities. The Village Building Convergence is in good company at St. David's; the church provides space for The Zen Community of Oregon, Music Studio on Harrison Hill and the SE Portland Tool Library.
A street painting project in Sellwood-Moreland, VBC 2009.
Public Art: Street Painting and Permeable Pavers
Street painting is a unique feature of Portland's neighborhood intersections, thanks to City Repair. People who want to participate can help paint intersection-designs during the Village Building Convergence. Maybe you've walked, biked, or driven over a street painting? We've all seen how painted lines fade with the careering of traffic. After years of wear-and-tear, neighbors reconvene to apply a new coat of paint. This periodic upkeep is one feature of intersection art that brings neighbors together.
Intersection art reminds drivers that neighborhood streets are people places. When a commuter tracking the grey asphalt, arrives upon the color and design of intersection art, they see the imprint of people. On a walk through a small coastal town in Oregon, I saw a driveway with paving stone rather than a slab of concrete. The green growing earth appears in a grid of stone pavers to absorb rainwater. Permeable pavers could be used to create intersection art that would be permanent, absorb rainwater and slow traffic.
Pre-cut stone placed at the crossroads can help make neighborhood streets people-places. A construction project that requires stopping traffic for many days would take judicious planning, a source of funding and city approval, but that is not impossible given the ingenuity of the folks working with City Repair. Permeable pavers at neighborhood intersections could slow traffic for safety and allow the earth to filter rainwater before reaching streams and rivers.
The Environmental Protection Agency installed a permeable parking lot which provides both a test case and a practical example for Portland neighborhoods.
Volunteers built an outdoor classroom at Madison High in Roseway during VBC 2009.
Can We Create a Compelling and Promising View of the Future?
"There was a way we knew how to relate to each other that we have forgotten because it's not how our culture is structured," Frances Michaelson reminds me. "That's why we paint murals and that's why we make cob benches and that's why we have a Village Building Convergence... Because we understand that it's severely lacking in our culture to make social space and this is our attempt to provide it in as many attractive and delicious ways as possible."
Our story of sustainability so far is largely one of engineering and economics. Science and technology won't solve all our problems. It requires a transformation of the way we relate to one another. We were all villagers once... The story of all of us is yet to be written.
