“The Earth is what we all have in common”
Wendell Berry
Welcome!
This site features the creative work of Carla Moss… that’s me!
For the last 25 years my main occupation has been art inspired by our relationship with the environment with a particular interest in the ecological challenges that we face. This isn’t that easy and often comes with complex emotions and feelings of helplessness (know what I mean?). It has motivated me, though, into trying to live lighter on the planet.
The task is enormous so any small contribution I make is not even scratching the surface. But I think when there are a lot of us doing it perhaps we can start to shift things.
Making low carbon art
Code 5 Art Residency,
Because of that I’ve created this site to share some of the things I’ve been doing, things that are far from perfect and always improvable. But we can only start from where we are. And regarding ’emotions’ (as I mentioned before) I also work hard at not getting discouraged, just doing what I can, and trying not to judge myself that it’s not good enough. The best is when I can treat it as fun and laugh about it. Humour is an amazing antidote and lifts the spirits in challenging circumstances.
Humour sometimes features in my creativity, often via the absurd (and I don’t often share that bit, but perhaps I should?!).
Others have said my art is deep and thought provoking, restful and reflective. They like the colours and the textures. The books often mystify through how they are made (which probably won’t convey through photographs). Whatever your response I hope it you connect with the creativity and that you can draw inspiration from what I share to create a lighter lifestyle for yourself.
Please contact me and tell me what you think. And if you’d like to receive my love letter pop your name in the box below.
Here’s to a happy, hopeful, peaceful and healthy life for all of us.
Trying to live lighter on the planet
I am keen to lower my carbon footprint where possible and this not only impacts the creative work I make but also how we live.
One of the areas we have focused on is around waste.
Some ideas are good ones, others not so good. These paper stones were created by tearing and soaking old bank statements (and other sensitive paperwork) in a bucket. It took them ages to break down and they stank to high heaven! These ‘stones’ are part of the result. (More about them in this blog.)
Other better ideas include:
- Compost… We love compost! There are 2 of us (adults) in our household. We compost our neighbours grass cuttings as well as our own. Get horse muck from a local horse owner that also gets composted. And our kitchen waste and weeds go on there too. Plus some shreddings and straw.
(p.s. the sticks poking out of the top create a space for more air in the centre of the heap – and they look quite interesting too.) - On the compost we sometimes pour our pee bucket. Yes, we pee in a bucket! I did a rough calculation on the water that we had saved over the year if we had flushed the toilet each time we’d had a pee and found that it was 27375 litres (27m3). This even had a financial benefit and would have been £83.49! We also dilute it for fertiliser and put it on the garden (the onions and fruit trees love it) and onto the charcoal to create biochar.
- Which brings us onto biochar which we make from the charcoal produced in our wood burning stove. I’m going to write a blog post about it…
As I said earlier, I try not to focus on what we don’t manage to do and where we fail (which is a long list), instead, when I have energy to try and change something I’ll focus on that one thing and work out a new system that will enable us to make changes and then we work on doing that. And it seems to work.
My training has been in Permaculture, Forest Garden Design and Life Coaching. And more! I’m a tutor for the Diploma in Applied Permaculture Design. Go to the Green page if you want to see more how I can help you and to the blog page.