I sleep so hard every night, here, that my pillows and blankets look undisturbed when I wake up. A pine branch stretches so close to the screen above my pillow that it touches the screen; this morning I opened my eyes to an obnoxiously loud bird song and startled the little singer inches from my face.

The loons and coyotes both were wailing this morning early, when it was misty and cool. I worked on my sculpture early this morning before it got hot, and got so much cob made and applied that I almost completely covered the armature. Cyntha came to get me because our cooking team was to go shopping, and we went to the Traverse City farmers market; I got fresh blueberries, cherries, peaches, apricots and local honey to make a fruit salad. Jen picked up lots of good veggies for kebabs. We cook tomorrow night, the last team cooking night before the profs take us all to dinner Friday night. Friday is final critique day.

When we got back and scrounged the several days of leftovers for lunch, I sat at the table and Brian (sculpture prof) said, “John and I need to talk to you about your piece.”

“uh-oh”, I said.

It turns out that my sculpture is not on Parsons property, and would have to be moved.

As soon as I finished my lunch, I hiked back to the woods and stood looking at the stupid thing. I pulled all the inclusions out of the base, gathered up the cob (still mercifully wet) and chucked it into the wheelbarrow. I moved it maybe 20 feet to Parsons property and went back for the “trunk”.

I managed to tip it over into my wheelbarrow and teetering-and-tottering, haul it to the new site. It was deformed and the base of the sonotube had begun to collapse withthe dampness, so I re-installed it bottom up and recreated the base.

I worked through the heat, the bugs, the mud. With no clean-up water, and using my feet to mix the cob, I ended up with clay up to the elbows and knees, so every time I swatted a mosquito or pushed my sweaty hair out of my face, I left a streak of mud.

I began to build fluting (roman column style) on the center portion of my pillar by building around a broomstick. I was so tired that my back was screaming “stop now!” but I had to use up the cob I had made, as it would be too dry by tomorrow.

I dragged myself home, pushing my squeaky wheelbarrow, just as dinner was being served, and after supper, took my first shower of the week. This is the first day I haven’t made it to the lake, though some of the crew has gone to swim in the dark.

Tomorrow I have to build an armature for the pillar-top. I really wish I could post pictures here. I’ll go back to these entries when I get home and post the snake, the armature, the sculpture, and the gang. There are 13 people here and everybody seems to “play well together”.

Tomorrow night is the deadline to be done. Everybody is working hard, casting, sewing, dyeing, carving, weaving, pruning… one student is even baking sculptural pieces to hang in a tree.

More tomorrow…