In early autumn, an elliptical James Turrell Skyspace in Cornwall’s subtropical Tremenheere Sculpture Gardens became the gallery for a series of 12 artworks by Adam Weismann titled ‘Claymoon’. Entirely handmade, the sage-green works of dense clay in their elegant walnut amd brass frames were created with the same rammed-earth building techniques used by civilisations across the world for millennia. In the pure white setting of one of Turrell’s installations, illuminated by a circle of blue sky, the raw texture of the material becomes more than subject matter, prompting a meditation on earth, deep time and human endeavour. In similar vein, Moon House, a Japanese-inspired tea house in Weismann’s wild Cornish back garden – which currently houses part of the series – speaks to and meditates on its surroundings, unifying them with the materials it contains.
Weismann is, first and foremost, a builder and manufacturer of clay. It was only later, after a lifetime already working with the material, that he decided it was time formalise his reflections on it into an artwork: the rhythm of process, the pressure, the patterns, the colours that shift from vivid to muted, its effect on space and wellbeing. To celebrate the results – ‘Claymoon’ – he welcomed a group of friends, collaborators and fellow artists to a magical, twilight viewing at the Skyspace, overlooking the sea and St Michael’s Mount. After a seasonal and locally sourced dinner of oysters grilled in chilli butter, seabass sashimi and figs baked in fig leaves – rustled up by his neighbours Tim and Louise Rødkjær Spedding of Flora café – guests ascended in darkness through the gardens for a contemplative candlelit viewing of the works.
Weismann’s journey with clay first began in 2001 at a three-month natural building apprenticeship at the Cob Cottage Company in Oregon, led by Ianto Evans and Linda Smiley. It was here, too, that he met his future wife and business partner, Katy Bryce. Weismann had been using tools to make things since childhood, crafting skateboarding ramps out of timber as a boy growing up in Iowa City. Bryce, who grew up in Surrey, describes a similar story of natural magnetism, remembering gardening and building forts from a young age. After the apprenticeship, the pair embarked on a global adventure, learning about ancient traditional vernacular clay-building methods and documenting ‘earth architecture’, resulting in two co-authored books on the subject: Building with Cob and Using Natural Finishes: Lime and Clay Based Plasters, Renders and Paints, both now published by Bloomsbury.
On a placement in 2001–2002 spent restoring the Old Vicarage in the village of Manaccan in Cornwall, the couple discovered an idyllic cluster of old clay buildings and barns with thatched roofs dating back to the 1750s. They decided to make it their base. A pale-pink house with expressive thatch, which they insulated with sheep’s wool, plastered with clay and have slowly extended over the years, became their home and office for their first restoration and building business, which would ultimately take them – and an eight-person team – all over the UK.
‘We were kind of zealots about clay,’ reflects Weismann on their first business venture. ‘We were digging it up from sites, making plaster right there on site and then plastering the walls ourselves – it was incredible and we loved it, but we had to charge a lot because it took so much time.’ Ten years later, the couple decided to shift gears: ‘Instead of it being associated exclusively with traditional buildings, we really wanted to get clay into modern buildings.’
Weismann and Bryce founded Clayworks in 2009, a natural-plaster manufacturing company that combines their knowledge with an accessible, modern product that is sustainable (low-carbon, compostable, non-toxic, zero-waste) and healthy (breathable, capable of absorbing toxins and humidity). They experimented with ‘thousands of recipes’ before coming up with the ideal mix in 2010. Today, they have a wide portfolio of clients, from Aesop and Jolene bakery to Alexander McQueen and the Connaught, plus progressive British architectural houses such as Peter Salter’s Walmer Yard, Simon Astridge’s Clay House and Alex Michaelis’s Leaf House.
But it was in the couple’s own kitchen that they tested the very first successful Clayworks recipe: a smooth, velvety topcoat blend of clay, minerals and pigments in a yellow umber colour inspired by sunlight. The conservatory sports the ‘demi-rustic’ finish in sage green, while the bedroom’s is cast in a colour inspired by the ploughed fields on the horizon that they can see from the window.
The conservatory extension (finished just days before their first son was born on its wooden floor) was designed by Weismann and his friend Stuart Carter, a green-oak timber framer, ‘on the back of a napkin’. The interior is lined with stacked bookcases – ‘we are book nerds,’ says Weissman – including a French copy of Building with Cob. There are plenty of children’s toys and the hanging dioramas that Bryce makes every season; artworks and ceramics and drawings created by friends that hold a ‘deep sense of memory and happiness’; photographs of places, such as New Mexico, that they have visited for both work and pleasure.
‘We’ve spent a lot of time in Taos and Santa Fe learning about the Native American Hopi building techniques,’ says Weismann. ‘The Taos Pueblo, which dates back 1,000 years, is made from clay and is a good example of Native American genius. The enjarradoras – female clay plasterers who beautifully replastered the traditional buildings throughout New Mexico and the South West of the USA – have been a great inspiration to Katy and I.’
The latest addition to the home is the Moon House, a garden tea house designed in collaboration with friends Sasa Works (artist and master craftsman Craig Bamford and artist Isik Sayarer, whom Weismann describes as ‘kindred spirits’). Designed as a poetic space of contemplation, the little house overlooks a timber jetty and swimming pond; stand outside at the right time, and the sun or moon can appear to balance in its cradling spire.
Bamford crafted the house’s frame out of coppiced chestnut poles from Powdermill Woods in Sussex, handsomely brought together using pegged mortise and tenon joints. It has a roof of hand-split English oak shakes, topped with a hand-carved wishbone spire over which a pair of buzzards circled during construction. ‘It felt as if the wings of the structure were in communication with the birds,’ he says.
The fibreboard walls have since been plastered by Weismann using straw and their Cornish clay render. A low window faces the rising sun, the door casements designed to absorb the golden sunset. ‘Working with raw materials such as wood allows for the colours of the seasons to be present in the final building, the different colours of the grain, how it weathers and silvers in the sun,’ says Bamford, whose wider work explores spiritual and healing spaces and objects, and bringing together craftsmanship and sustainability.
To inaugurate the space, Isik led a meditation ceremony and played the bone flute and kalimba before serving tea. ‘When we think about design and architecture we think about making sacred spaces for daily rituals, welcoming that sense of contemplation into everyday life,’ Sayarer explains.
It feels like Weismann has found an enviable harmony between living peacefully in the moment and appreciating the joy of nature, friends and family, all the while continuing to evolve and innovate creatively in a capacity that sources its power from those very things. From his timber-framed office – packed with books, drawings and art – he is planning his next project: a curvilinear and domed house extension with a sunken table and a bubble-shaped nook. It’s a prototype for his next conceptual idea: ‘Claynest’ – ‘a human-scale bird’s nest’, as he imagines it. ‘I’m quite into spaces that hold you,’ he says, although this comfort is balanced with his wider ethos: ‘I guess life is all about not being too stuck; we believe in trying to live lightly.’
To learn more about “Claymoon”, visit clay-moon.com. For more information about Adam Weismann and Katy Bryce’s upcoming projects, visit clay-works.com or email info@clay-works.com. To discover more about Sasa Works, visit www.sasaworks.co.uk
