Pinnacle Stone
The aggregate stone a waller collects in their storage lot falls into two categories, piles of also-ran leftovers from previous projects and those specialty pieces that are “too good to use”. Both types can languish for years, passed over for inclusion in current work due to inadequateness or extraordinariness. Being polar opposites on the wallstone-variety spectrum, they lie outside the range of materials commonly sought for practical constructions.
There comes a time, though, when housecleaning is no longer avoidable. The lot is jammed up to the point of inoperability. Something has to go. Misshapen remains are reclassified as heavy drainage material and made useful as fill. Specialty stones are the last to leave. They’ve waited patiently, lichen slowly overtaking every surface, until their destiny finally arrives. When all have moved on, taking an exalted place in some piece of outdoor art, the lot can be replenished, or simply go back to nature.
As a young waller I packed my stoneyard with zeal. Shipments rolled in, got sorted and moved out. Every walling season was a fresh inventory adventure. I prospected clutches of loose ledge stone deep in the woods, made arrangements with landowners to extract truckloads of virgin wallstone, brought it directly to work sites or supercharged my storage yard. Those were heady days when the supplies were mountainous and my energies inexhaustible.
These days the thrill comes from finding homes for orphan stones. Unlike the “remainder sale” that cleared out the left-overs, I still intend to install the valuable unicorns in exalted positions. For all they’ve gone through geologically, anomalies deserve to be stand outs.
This notion is nothing new. Humans have been elevating unique stones to high positions for thousands of years. Examples include standing-stone circles in Europe, scholar stone statuary in Asia and cyclopean walls in South America. In my own time I've brought a measure of dignity to a few special specimens, myself. There’s been one particular block occupying the stoneyard, and my thoughts, for decades. I’ve known all along how it would someday be generally positioned in space. It wasn’t until this spring that I knew the particulars of its installment.
Clients who have my work on three sides of their abode asked for one more piece. The mica schist block was measured and a pattern of its underside was made. A series of steel rods were affixed to the nine inside and outside corners of the elevated pattern and draped to the ground, forming a guide framework. Within the steel outlines wallstone was worked up. When the walling reached the top, the guides were removed and the pinnacle stone placed.
Wallcraft in artmaking is a matter of limit-reaching. The builder strives to rub shoulders with limits without overstepping their authority. Doing the most while appearing to do the least imbues a piece with wonder, making it seem both solid and intangible. The goal of the waller/artist is to satisfy physical reality while leaving a question in the viewer’s mind of its supremacy over the chimerical. Modern living can always use a dose of the fantastical from time to time and that’s what the artist is here to offer.
My surety of this project’s success was amplified by partnering with Jared Flynn. His hands-on made the walling a breeze. We were welcomed to their Newfane, Vermont property by Thom Dalin and Gregg VanIderstine.