Welcome to our fourth and final 3rd-year blog. The semester, which seemed like it would last forever, now has ended before we could notice. It’s been an incredibly busy few weeks as we made our final push to the end, and we’re excited to present the results!

Studio: A Firm Foundation

After months of planning, deliberation and hard work we finally completed the foundation of Mark’s Home. At the beginning of April, we worked with contractors to lay CMU blocks on top of our poured concrete footings. We then spent multiple weeks filling in and tamping earth inside the foundation and cutting, inserting, and bending rebar. 

The biggest hurdle to get over before pouring the slab was the plumbing and electrical. For these tasks, a few of our fellow students, Erin, Davis, Patrick, and Jesse, worked on site tirelessly to fit, glue, and pressure test the pipes under Mark’s Home. After that, we laid a vapor barrier, some wire mesh, and more rebar. Two other 3rd-years, Marisol and Alyssa, drew, cut, and assembled foam jigs for the 72 anchors that needed to be placed in the slab on the day of the pour. 

The slab on Mark’s Home was poured two days before Pig Roast. After this, we put hay over the muddy soil, got the presentation boards and blown-up perspective drawings ready to present to the public. We even taped down the floor plan of the home onto the slab (thanks Rusty for the idea!) complete with a pallet-wood chair built by Mark.

Another facet of Studio—the empathetic renderings we worked on for the entire second half of the semester—came together in the last days of the academic year. It was amazing to see our work build up so slowly and then come together all at once.

Woodshop: You get a chair, you get a chair, you get a chair…

We’ve officially finished all our chair assignments! In total, we’ve managed to create eight chairs among the four teams, each one carefully assembled and finished in the final weeks of the semester. The chairs themselves are incredibly well made and beautiful, but more importantly we’ve all learned valuable skills both in woodworking and design. 

At Pig Roast, Instructor Steve Long presented our chairs and chair mock-ups, as well as our initial cutting boards. Each team had already long decided who was getting what chair, and the opportunity to bring home a hand-crafted, designer chair is well worth the effort it took to make them. For the students not bringing home a chair, the experience was still worthwhile (and the photos are great for our portfolios).

Steve worked diligently to ensure each and every one of us got comfortable with and efficient in the woodshop. At the beginning, we spent a lot of our time learning through trial-and-error, but over time we gained confidence and ability, and were able to come to Woodshop with a clearly communicated plan and get our work done well. 

History: What the Hale?!

Our final few trips for History class with Instructor Dick Hudgens were probably the best of the bunch. He took us to several impressive estates: one home was perched on a hill with a view into three different counties, and another was an incredible town home in the middle of Tuscaloosa. Easily one of the best highlights of our semester was visiting The Oaks in Greensboro, a large antebellum home owned by an Interior Design faculty member at the University of Alabama, Ian Crawford. His interior decor was impeccably fitting, and he passionately led us through his beautiful paintings, sculptures, and tapestries. 

The final assignment in the class was a 22” x 30” watercolor painting that we worked on for several weeks prior to Pig Roast. Each of us was given a different picture taken around Gaineswood, a historic plantation and museum in Demopolis, and we were tasked with recreating it. We once again used our own pigments derived from local plants, pigments which sat in mason jars littered around the table at Spencer House. Opening the paints was always a gamble, as many of them had sat for long enough that they smelled bad enough to clear out the room. 

Despite the smell, we proceeded. Our work was presented at Pig Roast, including our large paintings and our sketchbooks. Dick was more than impressed with the output this semester and gladly said so. Every year he presents a book award to two students who he feels did exceptionally well in class, one for the best sketchbook and another for the best final painting. Alyssa Luo won the former (sketchbook), and Patrick Fair won the latter (final painting). Despite the scramble toward the end to make all our work presentable, we had a very satisfying end of class.

Pig Roast: Celebrating 31 Years

Rural Studio’s annual end-of-spring tradition, known as Pig Roast, is a time to celebrate the program, the students, the faculty, and the broader community. The event starts late Friday and goes on until Saturday night, the second day beginning with a tour of Rural Studio projects, moving on to class presentations, and ending with faculty speeches, a pre-graduation ceremony for 5th-year students, amazing music performances, food, and fireworks. 

On Friday, everyone gathered at Project Horseshoe Farm, a local nonprofit located in the historical Greensboro hotel, to have dinner and watch presentations by Rural Studio alumni. Graduates from as far back as 2004, living as far away as Oklahoma and Texas, delivered talks about their time in the program and their careers afterward. 

For the 3rd-year students, Saturday morning was an amazing chance to show our parents where we’ve been living and the work we’ve been doing since January. For the entire day, students and families followed the caravan all around Hale County to see various ongoing projects, with each team giving their own presentation and tour. The night ended with much gratitude for all of Rural Studio’s amazing sponsors and a graduation ceremony that recognized the 5th-years who are graduating this year and special acomplishments.

The Beginning of the Beginning of the End

Thank each of you so much for following along with us this semester. It was such an honor to share with you all that we have been up to and to celebrate our fellow students, faculty, and staff throughout this blog. We hope you keep following along in the fall as the next group of students arrive to frame walls and raise the roof!