Hasta la Vista

down to earth

A New Mexico transplant slows down and digs in to the meditative process of constructing a graceful backyard adobe kiva.

By Amy Gardner Photography by Jack Parsons

This article first appeared in Winter 2010 Su Casa

The handmade earthen structure I built near my home grew out of an impulse to heal the landscape. Formerly the Corrales village dump, the land surrounding the house my partner and I bought in 1991 was cleared by developers about 20 years ago to make room for new houses. Along with scraping away most of the trashy layer of broken bottles, carpet scraps, and car parts, the bulldozers compacted the earth and removed what little topsoil and organics had accumulated over time. Little but goathead and tumbleweed would grow on this unirrigated wasteland. For 10 years I scattered grass seeds that never took root.

I began to realize that, like those seeds and the stick-frame house plopped upon the site, I too felt unrooted here. Before coming to New Mexico, corporate relocations gave me the opportunity to experience eight different Midwestern cities, but I could not call any place “home.” Every few years I would move to a new address. I intuitively sensed that to become at one with this land, I had to physically enter the earth to emerge out of it. I had to connect to this place with mind, body, and soul.

In 2005, at age 44, I cut back on my work hours and began to attend to the land. To aerate the soil, I took a shovel and started to layer organics and silt in berms around the fence line. Digging beneath the top 12 inches of stickers and silt, I hit a hard 18-inch-thick layer of clay. Rather than dig down further, I moved outward. After days of mindless digging, I noticed that I’d dug an almost perfect circle. This circular space immediately captured my imagination. I envisioned a natural potlike building made with the deep clay from the land. Imagining a round vessel, I drew a circle with a string and defined the shape with a pick and shovel.

My thoughts shifted from contouring the surrounding ground to building a figure or focal point with adobe. As I surveyed the emerging shape, I recalled the kivas at places like Chaco Canyon and Mesa Verde national parks. While I do not claim to speak for those whose traditions are rooted in kiva ceremonies, the idea of being grounded in the earth enticed this unrooted transplant. Visualizing a semisubterranean earthen chamber filled me with new energy. I imagined that I would encounter something mysterious. By creating a timeless place, I hoped to come to know myself differently and realize forgotten aspects of my nature.

I decided to let the space emerge naturally, working with the assumption that the environment, local resources, and history of this place would guide the building process. Although I had drawn buildings, taken art classes, and built landscape structures before, I did not want to work with blueprints and tape measures. I wanted to use creative methods that came from this place and out of hands-on interaction with the land.

For example, I could sense that the doorway needed to face east to allow the early morning light of the new day to enter. With the building oriented this way, I could see the Sandia Mountains and feel their influence. Placing the thick wall of the chimney to the west would buffer the brutal afternoon sun. I knew that just as the west consumes the sun, the fireplace would consume woody plants made possible by the sun. I imagined watching the moon, the sun, and the rain through the skylight. I saw myself sitting on top of the building celebrating the sunset. These images seemed to want to move directly from my imagination to the building without mediating measurements. Intuition led me into this project.

As the hole grew in size, so did my awareness that I needed guidance in traditional building methods. Master adobe artisan and friend Rick Catanach agreed to come look at the project. Over the years, Rick quietly revealed how he learned the art of handmade building. Working alongside his father in the 1960s, Rick deconstructed old adobe homes to make way for St. Francis Drive in Santa Fe. He straightened nails, rescued adobe bricks, dismantled pine floors, reclaimed aged beams, and salvaged handmade windows. After taking the homes apart, Rick put them back together elsewhere.

When Rick saw the round trench, he suggested that I mix the cut-dirt, weeds, and trash the bulldozers failed to pick up with water to make adobes. He explained that adobe mixtures can vary in the amounts of sand, clay, fiber, and stones, and the blocks will function just fine so long as the maker thoroughly integrates all the ingredients. Then, Rick gave me the meditative practice that altered my life: “Cuando descances, haces adobes.” (When you rest, make adobes.)

In the process of slowly making 1,200 adobes with resources on the property, the site came alive. To amass the organic matter that would hold the bricks together, I trimmed all the existing deadwood off the plants in the yard. I shredded paper, plucked weeds, and repurposed old rope and rags. I picked up buckets of ceramic, metal, and glass shards uncovered by the wind and added them to the mixture. As the adobe piles grew, the surrounding plantlife reemerged stronger than ever. Everything from ashes to weeds had its place.

In the meantime, I was exhausted and questioning my sanity. Then a dump truck arrived with several tons of stone, and I had no choice but to continue. For the five feet below grade level and six inches above, Rick and I built a circular wall and fireplace by fitting stones together like a puzzle. If the stone did not fit, we returned it to its space on the perimeter of the circle. In time, I could remember each stone and its particular angles and bulges.

Once the foundation was in place, we began to build the adobe walls. We set the first couple of pallets in a few hours, and the building rose a couple of feet above ground level. Rick told me to call when I finished making 600 more adobes. I thought he was joking. He wasn’t. I worked a few hours a day over the next couple of months and was ready to make the call when, to my horror, the monsoons arrived and destroyed about half of the formerly sun-dried bricks. The rains continued for four months, the ground littered with ever-smaller mud blobs. Then winter came.

For six months I could not build. The monsoon season felt like an initiatory trial. If I could muster the patience and will to rebuild what melted away in the water, the gods would know I was serious. Rick understood that houses and their builders must bow to nature. When the rock foundation held water like some ancient cistern without collapsing, Rick was pleased with the accomplishment while I moped over my loss. Repeating weeks of labor the following spring seemed like the way to get beyond my hubris.

Spring came, and so did wildflowers, grasses, and renewed hope. Thanks to drier weather, we finished the adobe walls at a height of six feet. Inside, the space from floor to ceiling was 10 feet. To this vertical distance we added an eight-inch-tall, rebar-lined concrete bond beam that serves as a compression ring to evenly distribute the weight of the vigas, latillas, and mud roof. We essentially completed the covered structure in 2007.

In 2008, the finishing work began. After plastering the interior walls with a thick pudding of mud, coarse sand, and chopped straw, I painted them with a thin drizzle of local clay, fine white sand, boiled flour paste, and mica. To the outside walls I added a quantity of horse manure to the mud mixture then troweled it on the walls. To finish the floor I covered the ground with two inches of red clay mixed with local sandy soil and horse manure. I left an opening in the middle of the floor to serve as a reminder of our mysterious connection to the past.

Because the building is never truly complete, the word finishing is somewhat misleading. It is as though this earthen structure requires human interaction and regular preening or it falls apart. Buildings, like people, cannot exist in isolation.

Attending to each creative element teaches me to take my time, or perhaps more accurately, to get in sync with time. To build this structure, I had to merge my vision with the seasonal rhythms. When people ask, “How long did this take to build?” I tell them three years, and they gasp. What they do not realize is that this kiva is more than the building they see in front of them; it is an ecosystem that changes along with the seasons.

For example, when the monsoons arrive in July and August, building focuses on water harvesting. Naturally, the ponding areas became ideal places to plant trees for food or shade. In late August building involves collecting topsoil under the rejuvenated yard plants for the winter garden. In late fall and winter, building is about clearing the garden, enjoying fireside gatherings with friends, and plastering interior walls. In spring, building includes making adobes using weeds from the garden to both strengthen the bricks and ensure a strong harvest in summer and fall. Building and nurturing the land merge into one undifferentiated experience.

As this kiva emerged, so did the quantity and diversity of life that surrounds it. Although many buildings disrupt the land and destroy habitat, clearly this adobe structure helps draw and support life. The shadows and water runoff create microclimates where plants flourish. Chamisa, saltbush, winterfat, and other native plants appear in the shaded berms and moist swales. Cactus transplants thrive, and bees hum in a rainbow of spring flowers. Blue grama and rice grasses replace the tumbleweed and goatheads that now hold the building together. As the plantings grow and seed heads bob in the wind, quail, doves, and rabbits return to feed. In spring, they build nests and nurture their young. Coyote, gopher snakes, and roadrunners keep the herbivores in check. Crows keep lookout atop the structure and clean up any remains. Happily, the only beings that have taken up residence inside the building are a few welcome spiders.

Along with these wild creatures, I have come to know my domestic neighbors better, as well. Like the furry and scaly beings, friends stop by to observe, lend a hand, check progress, and offer advice. The project has helped us get to know one another. Lately I’ve observed the entire neighborhood demonstrating more creativity and eagerness to share their gardens, gazebos, and sculptures. It is astonishing to discover firsthand the seamless connection among building, environment, and community.

Emerging out of the land, built with preindustrial methods, the work looks timeless and feels appropriate in the renewed landscape. Yet for this kivalike building to remain vital, it continues to require time and hands-on dedication. The work has its rewards. Sweeping, dusting, and replastering have made me more relaxed, patient, attentive, and grateful to the world around me, no matter the weather.

Often people look at the place in amazement. Immediately questions fly out of their mouths: “What’s it for?” “Why did you do this?” “What do you do in there?” To these questions, I just smile and shrug. Who knows. Then I invite the visitor to stay inside awhile. The loss of visual stimulation has an effect. Step outside later, and notice how the world vibrates with color and life. Some cannot stay inside more than a few minutes. Others stay for days.

This kiva is a mystery. Each time someone enters, a new experience is born. Throughout the seasons, people drum, cry, sing, tell stories, sit, cook, and sleep in this space. Sometimes the curtains are drawn and the skylight is covered. Sometimes they’re not. Occasionally, people leave things like candles, shells, wooden figures, flowers, and sage. Some who scan the mountain from atop the building say they gain a new perspective. Maybe life shifts somewhat. Every story is different.

In the end, my story is not about how I built a kiva. It is about how this kiva built me. As this earthen vessel grew out of the land, so did I. By creating in harmony with this place, I, too, found balance.

So to those who feel lost in their own version of a contemporary wasteland, I offer the ancient wisdom handed down to Rick Catanach by his forebears and kindly shared with me. “Cuando descances, haces adobes.”

A 17-year resident of Corrales, New Mexico, Amy Gardner enjoys coaxing forms from the land, including buildings, sculptures, and gardens. Her favorite materials are rustic and include earth, wood, stone, and straw. When her hands are clean, she writes about collaborating with the land from a mythological perspective.