Driving on the left side of the road, rubber sink-stoppers on a chain, grilled tomatoes for breakfast; these are some of the things to get used to, quickly, when on a six-day visit to the UK. I was there to take part in the DSWA Standardization and Assessment weekend for craftsman scheme examiners. Along the way, E. and I took in two of the three legs of the “Yorkshire Sculpture Triangle.”
Read MoreWhile the Standardization can be a bit stressful and nerve wracking at times, I look forward to reuniting with a great group of professional wallers.
Read MoreCollecting sap from buckets hung on the maple trees in our sugarbush begins the process of turning clear liquid into amber syrup. Boiling down the sap is done in a set of stainless steel pans on an “arch” in the sugar house. The firebox, stoked with limb wood and lumber mill scraps, provides the heat.
Read MoreTwo days worth of indoor stone slinging last week completed the central stone feature at the Vermont Flower Show. Jared, T.J., Jamie, Brian and I finished up “Craggy Mountain” just as the trees, mulch and flowers closed in around us. On Friday I offered my slide-talk, “Working Stone,” to a standing-room-only crowd. The following words were part of the presentation’s introduction.
Read MoreThe past two days have been a swirl of activity as months of planning finally came together, including the 25-ton dry stone installation created by Jared Flynn, Jamie Masefield, T.J. Mora, Brian Post and me. Behind the scenes, Charley McMartin coordinated the collection and delivery of the stone and will take care of the break-down Sunday night.
Read MoreThe age-old skill of constructing in dry stone is still alive today and being practiced by a growing number of professional wallers. Two weeks from now, a team of DSWA certified craftsmen from around the region will meet at the Champlain Valley Fairgrounds in Essex Junction, to create a unique feature (scale model in photo) for the upcoming Vermont Flower Show.
Read MoreA distant foghorn, waves lapping against the harbor shore and the “blow” from a humpback whale surfacing in the bay; these are the sounds that often greet visitors coming to English Harbour, Newfoundland. This summer’s workshop goal will be to create a companion piece to the “Mock Maze” that was built in 2012. Participants will collaborate on creating a design, and then construct it on the grounds of the art center.
Read MoreRecently, I was a guest reader during a lecture by Gordon Hayward about his most recent book, Gardening on Granite, at the New Canaan Nature Center. The book was commissioned and privately published by our friend and client, Teddy Berg. Between its 160 pages of photographs and prose is a beautifully documented story of building and planting a mountaintop garden in Walpole, New Hampshire. I worked intermittently, over an 18-year period, creating walls, features and follies on Teddy and Peter Berg’s property to create the framework for Gordon’s garden designs and installations.
Read MoreEvery baker knows it takes good ingredients to make a tasty pie. Now that plans for the dry stone workshop at Turtagrø, Norway have come together, I can see that our week in July is going to be a fantastic time. We have a beautiful setting, excellent accommodations and an abundance of building stone. All that’s missing are a few more enthusiastic folks to sign up and meet us at Tutagrø. I hope you will be the one who completes the pie!
Read MoreModeling clay is one of my favorite sketch materials. It reveals more about the true reality of an idea than a drawing does. Manipulating materials on a small scale runs up against some of the same issues that will be present when constructing a full scale rendition in stone.
Read MoreGetting to work with skilled professionals under the direction of an artist who takes great joy in the making of things is pure delight for me. This week I was again on Hogpen Hill with Edward Tufte creating monumental lithic assemblages. From time to time, over the past year, I’ve gone to western Connecticut to collaborate with my stone-loving colleague. With each session, we’ve explored new ways to combine large stones with the landscape. The stones are dug up from just under the surface of the ground near the assembly points. Each “foundling” is a gift of unique shape and texture bringing with it another possibility for construction.
Read MoreThe best two days in the life of a dry stone project are the first and the last. The first day is full of anticipation about how the great unknown will reveal itself. The course of the work has been formulated in the mind, but the process that will lead to an end only begins when an actual stone is laid. That initial stone sets in motion a chain-reaction of events, a series of choices that ultimately determine the character of the finished work.
Read MorePaul Bowen brought his Marlboro College sculpture class students to my work site today for a flash course in dry stone walling, and an outdoor "gallery" tour of nearby installations. My normally quiet scene became very lively for an hour as the group practiced building a field-stone retaining wall.
Read MoreMy project this month is the construction of a series of retaining walls for an existing perennial garden. A brook trickles from the bank at the top of the garden and flows through a channel between two of the new walls. The grotto will become an ice cavern in winter months and a cool, shady retreat in the heat of summer.
Read More“Walls of Snowdonia”; it could be the title of a fantasy video game featuring my stoneworks. But, no, Snowdonia is a real place, and although I did make some stone wall repairs in Wales while visiting Philip Clark in the early 1990’s those walls are not included in this folio of beautiful photographs by Peter Ogwen Jones, Walls of Snowdonia. In fact, these beautiful examples of the waller’s craft were constructed more than a century ago. They continue to stand as testaments to the enduring value, practical and aesthetic, of handmade structures in the living landscape.
Read MoreThis is the season of color and light. Sunbeams stream through disrobed forest canopy, illuminating leaf-confettied ground. At this time of year the great outdoors acts like a psychedelic on my mind. Bathed in the kaleidoscope colors of autumn, I believe wishes can come true. Ever since the Dummerston town pound was recreated three years ago by 44, dry stone workshop participants, I’ve been obsessed with the idea of it being used to impound some real, live farm animals.
Read MoreEdward Tufte and the crew at Hogpen Hill Farms stayed busy on the land while I was away in Newfoundland and Oregon. An exciting collection of stones greeted me on arrival this past Monday. Edward’s sketches illustrated the direction he wished to move the work. Frank, Rob, Tom and I got right into it, constructing an 14’ high A-frame shaped piece. By Wednesday we were back on the ridgeline connecting the network of dolmens built earlier in the summer with high cross-members. A three-stone colossus now frames a dramatic view of the extended works.
Read MoreWhen I’ve thought of the people who lived on the land that’s now America, one, two, ten thousand years ago, I’ve imagined that they led a simple, subsistence lifestyle. But after visiting an ancient agate adit in central Oregon I now have to adjust my vision of the past to include a more sophisticated cultural landscape.
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