[GSBN] The saddest news...

Tue Dec 27 01:12:15 UTC 2011

Hi Janet,

Is there an address we can send our condolences to Matts?

Gratefully,

Robert

On Mon, Dec 26, 2011 at 3:54 PM, janet johnston
<janetjohnstn at earthlink.net>wrote:

> ** ** ** ** ** **
>
> Love to you all and especially to Matts. Judy was one of my personal
> role-models. I am forever grateful that I got to spend a little time with
> her.  –Janet ****
>
> ** **
>
> ** **
>
> *Janet Armstrong Johnston, Architect*****
>
> *StrongArm Construction*****
>
> *****PO Box 2141****, Joshua Tree, CA 92252*******
>
> *760-366-4774  **www.strongarmconstruction.com*<http://www.strongarmconstruction.com>
> ****
>
> *janet at strongarmconstruction.com* <janet at strongarmconstruction.com>****
>   ------------------------------
>
> *From:* **GSBN**-bounces at sustainablesources.com [mailto:**GSBN**-
> bounces at sustainablesources.com] *On Behalf Of *John Swearingen
> *Sent:* Monday, December 26, 2011 2:03 PM
> *To:* Global Straw Building Network
> *Cc:* gsbn at sustainablesources.com
> *Subject:* Re: [**GSBN**] The saddest news...****
>
> ** **
>
> Judy found the heart and soul in the straw revival, and, like the greatest
> of souls, connected each person she met to that heart, and rooted us there.
>  She can only be missed in the ordinary sense, because her extraordinary
> vision lives on in so many of us. ****
>
> With gratitude prayers, love, and best wishes to Matts and her family,****
>
> John****
>
> ** **
>
>
> On Dec 26, 2011, at 12:17 PM, strawnet at aol.com wrote:****
>
>  Dear friends and colleagues, I have very sad news to pass on. Our
> inspired and inspiring friend, colleague, leader, mentor and more, Judy
> Knox, lost her battle with cancer early Saturday morning. Here is an
> excerpt from a message from her brother Tim that we received this morning:
> ****
>
>  ****
>
> On Christmas Eve we heard the heartbreaking news that Judy has finally
> lost her battle with cancer.  Matts and Judy**'**s daughter-in-law Donna
> were with her when she died peacefully at 1:45 am on Saturday.  Philip had
> been helping out for several days and he and his children were all in the
> house.  We understand that she had gone downhill very fast in the previous
> two days – she had been having great trouble breathing and she and Matts
> had been considering a hospice, but then things spiraled downwards. ****
>
>  ****
>
> For those of you fortunate enough to have met Judy over the years, or who
> know what an extraordinary human being she was, you will recognize the
> enormity of the loss, and at the same time what unimaginably good fortune
> to have had her in our lives and work for all these years. I first met Judy
> and Matts in 1991 though I had been hearing about them for a couple of
> years prior to that meeting. They changed my life in innumerable ways. ***
> *
>
>  ****
>
> Rather than try to find words to describe her this morning I realized that
> I could share an excerpt of the "Straw Bale DEtour" column I wrote for the
> Women**'**s Issue (#61) of The Last Straw journal - TLS being one of Judy*
> *'**s many contributions to the world – about some of the women who have
> been instrumental in creating and shaping the straw bale revival. This is
> the part related to Judy: ****
>
>  ****
>
> ======****
>
> It is not a DEtour to take the time to honor at least a few of the women
> who have helped lead the modern emergence of straw bale construction. It
> is, however, a very risky thing to do because I know that I leave out some
> who are worthy of mention, people who either never came to my attention or
> have slipped through the ever-more porous sieve of my memory. So apologies
> in advance to those not mentioned here, and please trust that I have real
> gratitude for you and your contributions. I will name a few who I know
> helped open the door for many others who have been drawn into the realm of
> straw bale and natural building. ****
>
>  ****
>
> I can**'**t imagine starting with anyone other than Judy Knox, who I’m
> quite certain is responsible for the humane and generous character of the
> straw bale revival. Judy came to a leadership role in the straw bale
> revival somewhat unwillingly, seeing it as a distraction from what she saw
> as the larger work she had been engaged in – a coherently integrated set of
> activities around the rights and well-being of children, community
> empowerment, education, micro-economics, international relations,
> environmental stewardship and more. When the New York Times put an article
> about straw bale building and Judy and Matts Myhrman (her husband and
> co-conspirator in their little business that emerged from all this, Out On
> Bale) on the front page of a section of the Sunday Times, the world
> (literally) beat a path to their door with a flood of mail arriving daily
> and the phone ringing off the hook for months. As a result of the depth and
> breadth of her experience and her commitment to action in service to larger
> ends, once swept into the strong and rising current of the revival, she
> realized that they would not soon return to their former lives. ****
>
>  ****
>
> In her unique and powerful way, she saw straw bale construction as a
> vehicle to empower people, especially women, to go, as she put it so
> clearly, "from **'**I can**'**t**'** to **'**I can!**'**" And it was her
> attention to the human and personal potential of this movement, that
> shifted the revival to being much more than about a building technique or
> material, or a more environmentally responsible way to build. It was all of
> that, but she also nurtured a foundational aspect of the revival, helping
> people see what they were capable of doing. She has always been on the
> lookout for champions—a champion of champions—seeking to pull people into
> their fullest potential. She certainly had a big influence on me. ****
>
>  ****
>
> The structure of the Out On Bale Workshops, which I was fortunate to be
> invited to attend and eventually to teach, paid as much attention to the
> process, and the possibilities emerging from the workshop participants, as
> to the importance of sharing the most current and best technical
> information available. As a result of Judy**'**s focus on process, those
> workshops became a safe place for everyone to explore possibilities about
> their own capacities and for each participant to share their deepest
> feelings about what was most important to them. This was also about
> building people and community. And thus the straw bale community was seeded
> with a communitarian spirit and a generosity rare in building circles. Judy
> and Matts made it clear that this was a building system that was part of
> the commons.****
>
>  ****
>
> *The Last Straw *grew out of a vision of having a vehicle to expand that
> community and enable those of us in it and coming into it, to take
> responsibility for guiding what we were creating with our ever-growing
> collective knowledge, which occasionally rose to the level of wisdom. While
> Matts was tirelessly, inquisitively, brilliantly, and, thankfully, often
> hilariously exploring and working on the physical and technical and
> historical details, Judy was attending to the health and well-being of the
> movement and all of us who were involved with it. Judy**'**s initial and
> essential framing of the revival in terms of community and personal
> potential carried forward and out as straw bale construction echoed out
> into the rest of the world. I know how deeply her focus on these things
> affected me then and how it resonated in me and became part of who I am and
> how I do what I do in the world, a gift for which I am profoundly grateful.
> ****
>
>  _______________________________________________
> **GSBN** mailing list
> GSBN at sustainablesources.com
> http://sustainablesources.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/GSBN****
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> GSBN mailing list
> GSBN at sustainablesources.com
> http://sustainablesources.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/GSBN
>
>

-- 
Robert Laporte
*"Building the Builder*"
www.econest.com
EcoNest Co.
541-488-9508
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.sustainablesources.com/pipermail/gsbn/attachments/20111226/866629c2/attachment.htm>