Much of the art and architecture of ancient cultures was funerary. The Egyptian pyramids and the Taj Mahal, for example, are tombs. Artistic creations such as The Terracotta Army of the Qin Emperor and large pieces of pottery that marked Early Greek burials were artistic creations separate from the venerated human remains. Works I’ve done recently fall into both categories.
Read MoreOver time, I’ve expanded the walling work that’s been the backbone on my career to include dry stone sculpture and environmental art. The designs typically take dry stone techniques and traditions into new territory. A concept will be explored through the lens of what’s known to have worked in the past. The core of a design is always some borrowed understanding. It might be my own knowledge gained from a previous project, or, it may be the experience of others made intelligible through observation and study. Design is applied comprehension. The creation of an art piece begins with fabrication and ends with installation.
Read MoreWorking with “free stone” offers freedom from and freedom to. The basic rules of dry stone walling, as outlined by the DSWA, are simple and effective. When they’re applied, at home, for a client, in a workshop or during certification testing, no second-guessing is required. The path forward is clear if not always straight. To a large degree, the rules create freedom from uncertainty.
Read MoreWho pays good money to do hard labor on their weekend off? Are they a bunch of nuts? No, they’re two dozen good eggs who joined in on The Stone Trust’s dry stone walling workshop. Lead by DSWA instructors Andrew Pighills, Brian Post and me, they studiously applied the rules they learned for wall building and restored a long stretch of fence (originally constructed one hundred years ago by ten Italian masons) to its former glory. Thanks to all for a great weekend of walling.
Read MoreReflecting on the recently completed 2-day workshop at English Harbour Art Centre, I begin to see that perhaps the most useful function I perform as a walling instructor is offering permission to those in attendance to try something new. For a participant, the workshop setting is a green light at an intersection that otherwise would be blinking red. Because the building site has been prepared with footings dug, guidelines strung and stones laid out on the ground, around, the usual impediments to getting started building a wall have been removed. A participant feels free to act and is encouraged to begin.
Read MoreWhile the Northeast of the USA was sweltering, the weather in the Jotunheimen mountains of Norway was bracing. Cold winds and cloudy skies for the Turtagtrø dry stone walling workshop had me and the participants glad for some vigorous physical activity to stay warm. Of course, for the Norwegians it qualified as mild weather. As Morten gleefully pointed out, “If it’s not snowing, it must be summer!”
Read MoreDue to a number of structural problems, an eight-year-old, dry stone retaining wall in Hanover, New Hampshire was dangerously close to collapsing. I was asked by the property owner to remedy the situation. The rebuilding of a 6’x30’ section of retaining wall is often a straightforward business. But because this wall was in a well established, backyard garden with poor access and little room to store materials at the site, the build was a logistical puzzle. Concern was added to those challenges when, as work commenced, a municipal sewer line was discovered to be located scarily close to the back of the wall.
Read MoreHere’s a little secret about building a dry stone wall on a busy construction site: work on the holiday. I spent the Memorial Day weekend constructing a seating wall for the Hall Art Foundation in Reading, Vermont. While packs of touring motorcyclists occasionally rumbled past on Route 106, bird song was the predominant sound track. No distractions from the other contractors, who are busy there on the weekdays, meant I could concentrate on the task at hand. I built two sections of wall beside one of the galleries at Vermont’s newest art museum.
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 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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