While wallers in east-central USA have had the excellent Dry Stone Conservancy as a beacon for the craft for many years, stone workers in the northeast have had to go it on their own. Until now. After only one year in existence, The Stone Trust has become an important regional resource for all things dry stone.
Read MoreOn site in Morrisville, I outlined the piece with sticks and ribbon to get a sense of its presence on the land, began excavation and finished the foundation work. The stonework will rest on a 3’ deep base of crushed stone. When completed, the sculpture will enclose two burial plots. The addition of a sand-filled,wood coffer will allow the second grave to be easily hand-dug at a future date.
Read MoreToday I’m transferring information from 60 pages of data onto a master plan for the stone-eye construction. Corner points in a grid of 6” squares are given numerical values that correspond to their position on the surface of the sculpture. The 32’ diameter sculpture will require more than 3,000 points-in-space to guide the construction.
Read MoreEvery new idea leads to an adventure. In the past when I’ve wanted to record and transfer “points-in-space” from a clay model to a full scale construction I’ve made a grid-style guide frame and physically measured the distance from the frame to the surface of the model. To build the horse eye sculpture I will need thousands of measurements on a 6”x6” grid. My new idea was to find someone who could digitally scan the model for the measurements I would need.
Read MoreMy next project is a piece of figurative sculpture in the landscape. It’s an art piece and a piece of utility. The dry stone construction will enclose a burial site on private property in north-central Vermont. A former horse pasture will be the site of a memorial in the shape of a horse’s eye. In phase 1, the shape will be open to the grave plots. In phase 2, to be completed at an unknown time in the future, the central portion will be covered over with a dry stone mound that will represent the iris of the eye. Completed, the crypt will be sealed by the polished pupil of a heavenward-gazing eye.
Read MoreWilliamsville is a village in the town of Newfane, Vermont, just three miles, as the crow flies, from my home in Dummerston. While we had little, or no, damage in our town from flooding in September, Irene devastated the Williamsville area. The Rock River rose 18’ above its normal level. A 200’ length of 5’ high dry stone retaining wall, built in the 19th century, as part of an extensive water-powered industrial site, was swallowed up in the torrent. When flood waters receded, the wall was no more. Only the largest stones escaped being swept downstream.
Read MoreTrick-or-treaters had the trick played on them this autumn when a pre-Halloween Nor’easter dropped a foot of snow on our area. Witches and goblins don’t usually have to scale snowbanks to ring doorbells. And I don’t expect my stone supplies to disappear under a blanket of white stuff in October. But after a short delay, the project I had scheduled for last week got underway and a 100’ length of “singling” was produced for Cochecho Country Club. This style of dry stone walling is well suited to a materials supply constituted of boulders. The stone was resurrected from the remnants of an old field wall. The wall line was reestablished and a crushed-stone base installed.
Read MoreWhen a favorite customer asked me if I would consider making an animal, any animal, out of dry stone last summer I immediately said, ‘yes’. Then the puzzling began. What animal shape could I fashion that would be recognizable, and also durable, using only dry stone techniques? It was especially important to the customer that children could climb on the completed piece. With a site in their field picked out as the location, I began thinking about possibilities.
Read MoreAll seven candidates passed their respective levels of DSWA testing on Sunday, due in some measure I’m sure, to the practice many took on Friday at The Stone Trust center to prepare themselves for the rigors of taking a timed dry stone walling test. Building to a predetermined standard and having two examiners, Dave Goulder and me, looking on as work progresses aren’t the ingredients of a typical day for a waller. My admiration goes out to Brian, Peter, Curtis, Lew, Dario, Adam and Jamie for their poise under fire. Congratulations to all on work well done.
Read MoreDry stone walling can be defined in its simplest terms as the act of placing one stone on two. But no sooner is that act completed when a much broader world view opens to the stone worker. This understanding was the basis of the one-day workshop held last Saturday in Dummerston, Vermont. Eleven participants from around New England came together to hear talks on forestland and geology, and build dry stone features alongside town hiking trails. Visiting walling instructor and DSWA Mastercraftsman Dave Goulder, from Rosehall, Scotland, joined me in taking the group on an exploration of the local cultural landscape.
Read MoreWhen I built this wall in Jamaica, Vermont, thirty-odd years ago, my concern for its longevity came out of its close proximity to the road. I expected a car might back into it, or the snow plow jostle it. The notion that Ball Mountain Brook might one day destroy it never crossed my mind. But that’s just what happened a month ago when rain from Hurricane Irene turned the mild stream into a raging cataract. Brook waters tore away the bank, sweeping away not only a section of the stone wall but half the house, as well.
Read MoreCongratulations go out to Brian Post on his successful completion of Part A of the DSWA Level 3 certification test. Brian chose the ‘lunky hole’ feature to build alongside the mandatory curved wall section. He built his test pieces at the Stone Trust indoor training and testing facility in Dummerston, Vermont.
Read MoreStone I harvested back in July got a work-out this week in the construction of a small foundation for a neighbor. Even before the new woodshed was completed, its builder was contemplating the addition of a space to store yard carts. Consequently, I was asked to build a dry stone foundation off the south end of the structure. Two wood posts, anchored to the granite sill-stones, will support a beam and rafters attached to the side of the building. The mass of the stone work visually establishes the woodshed in the landscape, and its top surface functions as a rugged floor for the cart shed.
Read More“Diamond Mines” is an abstract, site-specific sculpture built of loose, natural stone. The work is situated on westward-sloping ground in a grove of mature beech trees. Wooded hills rise to the north and south. Park paths wind along the west and north sides of the sculpture. To the west, Tranekær lake and castle can be viewed. ‘Diamond’ is the perimeter, outline shape of the sculpture. The shapes of the nineteen interior facets are also diamond. There are a total of eighty-five obtuse and acute angles in the sculpture. The stones are set on their near-vertical axis in the construction, pointing up and down in the wall faces. In “Diamond Mines” there are diamonds within diamonds within a diamond.
Read MoreThe building of “Diamond Mines” was a delightful experience due to the many wonderful people who helped make it possible. Thanks go to my new Danish friends; Alfio, Lone, Ole, Birthe and Trine. To on-site workers Francesca and Jared goes my grateful appreciation. Always behind the scenes and in the middle of it all was Elin, who supported me in every moment and was my guiding light at every turn.
Read MoreThis song, from Mark Knopfler and Emmylou Harris’s “All the Roadrunning” album, makes a good anthem for those of us who grub our living out of the ground. We stone workers labor to lift something special from the earth. Our efforts are mainly brutish and blunt but we continue day by day in the belief that something beautiful will arise in the end. When it finally does, the light of what we’ve created shines briefly before for us. And then we must turn our backs and leave it all behind.
Read MoreAbout once an hour, or so, someone walks by the site and asks me what I’m doing. Often they wonder if I am repairing something. I’ve been told the piece looks like a temple, fishponds, and human tissue under a microscope. “How long before it’s finished?” and, “What’s it called?” are the common follow-up questions after they hear I’m building a new abstract sculpture for TICKON art-park. I can now say that it will be finished in a few days, and that the piece is called “The Diamond Mines.” It’s been a rare experience for me; spending these past weeks in a grove of stately old beach trees. Plus, daily visits from Elin, and picnics with her Danish family, have quickly turned this project into an all-time personal favorite.
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