Martha Steele

'Windows for an Earthship (I)' is a recycled glass and metalwork sculpture from the 2024 series "One Day I’ll Build an Earthship". A concept born in response to the energy crisis of the 1970s, "Earthships" are passive solar homes built using natural materials and recycled waste. Common building materials include tires, scrap car metal, and glass bottles. They are designed to be self-sustaining – living symbiotically within the surrounding ecosystem. Drawing on this concept, the architectural scale and shelter-like form of the work shapes a haven. Windows for an Earthship (I) embraces rest and wandering thoughts as viewers drift under its vibrant deluge of light. In participating in this solar-charged space, viewers are invited to ponder their relationship to environmental connection, reciprocity, and care. 

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Do you remember how the light fell through your favourite tree when you were 6? 

Remember the smell? 

I fell out of my tree and broke my arm when I was 6; I didn’t blame it, though. I just didn’t know how to hold it back then. 

What do you call the smell of the wind slipping through the leaves in the fall? When it mixes with the chestnut seeds cracking under your boot. 

Oh I love that smell.

Oh! I think it’s called “petrichor” 

Oh no, wait, that’s the smell of rain

Terry said when he was a kid you could smell a storm long before it crashed down. 

Anita said it’s because of something called “olfactory fatigue” from all the pollution. That we can’t smell it anymore, I mean. She heard a program about it on the CBC. 

Is that tree still there? 

It must be, hmm. Say, 30 feet by now? 

I bet I could climb it. I know how now. 

It always knew how to hold me, though, didn’t it.