My Story
From Urgent Beginnings to Master Builder
In early 2001, our family of 5, including 3 young children, found ourselves living in a tent on raw land we'd purchaced with a small inheritance . The summer heat was unbearable and the wind storms destroyed our tents. The first winter came hard and it was cold. With no previous building skills or enough money to purchase as much as a trailer, I borrowed money for a 6-day workshop with Ianto Evans of Cob Cottage Company, the pioneer who brought cob building to North America. I arrived three days early, took notes until sunset, and learned one transformative truth: anyone can do this.
The day I returned from that workshop, my family and I began building. The first tiny 10×12 cottage became welcome shelter as we built homes for all the members of my family - including my Mom. In less than 5 years, our little family village was thriving, and my journey of transformation from survival to accomplished builder was in motion. Those children are now adults, living in those cob homes. All three are accomplished builders, capable of constructing home anywhere.
Building Community, Not Just Structures:
I trained in Aikido for many years and learned to work with energy, not against it—a principle that has shaped everything about how I build and teach. What began as desperate necessity became my life's work: empowering hundreds of students to build their own dreams with their own hands, focusing on affordable, non toxic homes that are not extractive to the environment. Along with many other natural building teachers and builders, the movement to construct sustainable earthen homes has created a world wide web of community waiting for you also to tap into.
Entering My Mentor Era...
After decades of home building, apprenticeships and workshops, I'm gently reinventing my involvement in the natural building movement. Transitioning from trowel and shovel to mentorship, I find great pleasure in community outreach, speaking and consulting. I am excited to share the use of materials that are from the earth and inspire others to realize their building dreams. you may be thinking about new construction or considering retrofitting existing structures to make them more fire-resilient, less toxic and highly efficient. Perhaps you want to get school kids in the mud and watch them develop the confidence that comes from knowing they have agency to make choices about their environment. Would you like to learn more about off-grid living and composting toilets? We have been thriving since early 2001 and have a great deal to share.
My Philosophy: “We can need and want less. Everything we need is here." My work has never been exclusively about building techniques —it's about transformation, beauty and empowerment. It's about moving from consumption to creation and from isolation to community. We discover agency and independence when we are building with integrity. We find joy in the simplest, most profound act of shaping earth into home.
