Catherine Wanek

Catherine Wanek is the author and photographer of the book The New Straw Bale Home and co-editor/author of The Art of Natural Building. She has also contributed articles and photographs to Su Casa Magazine, Communities and Mother Earth News. A founding member of Builders Without Borders, Catherine has lectured internationally on the subject of straw-bale and natural building.

A former editor and publisher of The Last Straw Journal, Catherine is also a filmmaker. Through her company Black Range Films, she produced the Building With Straw series of videos, A Straw Bale Workshop, A Straw Bale Home Tour, and Straw Bale Code Testing, and Urban Permaculture. Her video, The Straw Bale Solution, screened at the 1999 National Town Meeting for a Sustainable America and was honored with an award at the Earth Vision 1999 Film and Video Festival.

Catherine (and her husband, Pete Fust) are owners of the Black Range Lodge, an historic bed and breakfast inn located in the New Mexico mountains. They are developing the Lodge as a center for ecological building and permaculture; they regularly host conferences and workshops, including the Natural Building Colloquium.

As a member of the Directors Guild of America, Catherine Wanek worked as an Assistant Director on Hollywood feature films and television from 1980-1989. In 1991 she co-produced the independent film Paper Hearts, starring Sally Kirkland, James Brolin, and Kris Kristofferson, which was invited to the 1993 Sundance Film Festival.

In 1992 she began working in video, producing a series of three "Building With Straw" videos on straw-bale construction through her company, Black Range Films. Other videos she has completed include Urban Permaculture (1999), Build It With Rastra (2000), as well as the The Straw Bale Solution (1998), for NetWorks Productions, an educational non-profit corporation. The Straw Bale Solution shows how straw-bale building can provide comfortable, non-toxic and affordable housing, and features hands-on work with low-income families in Mexico.

In 1996 Catherine traveled to Istanbul to present information on straw-bale construction at the NGO Forum concurrent to the United Nations HABITAT II Conference. From 1998 to 2003 she managed and edited The Last Straw Journal, the international journal of straw bale and natural building. In 1999, she helped found Builders Without Borders, a network of ecological builders dedicated to providing design/build education as well as hands-on help, to people and communities desiring to build themselves affordable homes.