Using locally sourced and some imported resources, participants at an earthen bench building workshop worked together to create three benches during the 2025 Silver City CLAY Festival.
“Benches or pizza ovens are such a great way to get your hands dirty, to learn more easily, because it doesn’t take a lot of material, unlike building a house,” said Athena Steen, one of the workshop leaders.
Run by Canelo Project founder Steen and member Danielle Felgenhauer, the three-day workshop taught participants about the use of clay, sand, straw and stone to make functional structures.
Felgenhauer said that workshops like these can help people realize they can use natural material techniques for other projects besides building full houses.
“Benches are accessible — it’s like a gateway drug for people,” she said. “The idea of building an earthen home is romanticized, and it is a lot of work, and benches are a really good way to be able to introduce people to many techniques and get a feel for it.” The benches will stay at Whiskey Creek Zócalo, the event’s location and host. Whiskey Creek Zócalo co-owner Melanie Zipin said that the Zócalo hosted a workshop by the Canelo Project last year as well, which produced a mural at the space. “They’re some of the best natural builders I think on the planet — they’re amazing, and so the opportunity to get Athena here was just something I’ve been working on for a long time,” Zipin said.
Kathleen Koopman participated in the mural project last year and returned for another workshop this year. “It was just magical, and I wanted to do it again, do something else,” Koopman said.
The bench-building used different techniques, including stone foundations, local clay mixtures, adobe-straw blocks and cob, which is a mixture of sand, straw and clay. “New Mexico and Colorado have very silty clays, so it’s not very strong clay, but I’d rather use that than buy something that’s perfect,” Steen said. The third bench will be made using earth bags, which are soil-filled bags tamped down into the shape of a bench.
Steen said she grew up working with adobe and other natural materials in New Mexico, going on to found the Canelo Project with her husband, Bill Steen, in Canelo, Ariz. She said that the goal of the Canelo Project is to educate about natural building materials.
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