Although there are some quality natural alternatives for finishing walls on the market today it seems that the most natural and longest lasting alternative is clay plaster. American Clay, located in Albuquerque, New Mexico, has developed a beautiful suite of clay finishes and colors that seem to bring out a look, feel and texture that paint could never achieve.
One of the amazing characteristics of clay plaster is the fact that the material is incredibly dense and that it aids in maintaining a higher level of negative ions within a structure. It seems that all things electronic emit positive ions creating a less natural environment. Just the simple addition of a clay wall finish could help to counteract the negative effects of all of the electronic gear we find so essential today.
American clay has a nationwide network of trained applicators. For those of us who want to do it ourselves there are numerous opportunities to learn the basic technique of clay application.
Smear mud all over the walls of your house. Really. It’s an idea whose time has come. Actually it’s an idea that’s been around for eons of time, but has been mostly lost to contemporary American culture. I know that the dry wall guys claim to be using “mud,” but I’m talking about real earth, real mud. I have to say I became a little more eager to entertain this possibility to do some eco-decorating when I started reading articles about how earth plaster can be used in ways that are similar to some of the current wall finishes and treatments; such as Venetian plaster.
“Many colors are possible, mostly in muted hues. Earthen plasters, with their slight–or major if you choose–variations in surface texture, reflectivity, and color bring a sense of life to a room or a whole house. They lend a handmade feel, often in a classic Old World sense. Some finishes look almost like leather or marble, but there is a lot of room for creativity. You can smooth and round corners and transform boring flat sheetrock by adding a bit of sensuous undulation or trowel or hand marks. Most people feel more comfortable in rooms that have some variation in wall surface, shape, texture, and color, perhaps because we humans have been housed for millennia in caves, and houses of wood, stone, mud and thatch–not in flat-planed boxes!”
Sounded pretty good to me; definitely worth some research. All plasters have to have three ingredients: a binder, an aggregate and some fiber. In the case of earthen plaster, clay (good old fashion dirt) is the binder, sand serves as aggregate, and the binder, well…it needs to be from some kind of straw and manure. The odor leaves when the “mud” dries. People experiment with all sorts of additives to make the mud easier to apply and more durable; things like wheat paste, whey and milk products, even cactus juice. Having grown up in Arizona, that last item seems like a stretch.
Now there are companies like American Clay that make a commercial product that is pretty simple to purchase and use. Somehow I feel like using this type of a product is missing the point. Even though this product states that they are an “environmentally friendly alternative to cement, gypsum, acrylic, and lime plasters,” the processing, packaging and marketing renders it not that eco-friendly.
So if I don’t go the prefab route and hire a professional to apply it, just how hard is this? More in my next post.
Although there are some quality natural alternatives for finishing walls on the market today it seems that the most natural and longest lasting alternative is clay plaster. American Clay, located in Albuquerque, New Mexico, has developed a beautiful suite of clay finishes and colors that seem to bring out a look, feel and texture that paint could never achieve.
