The Growing Pumpkin Seed

Temperatures in the 20’s F, steady 10 mph winds gusting to 25. Stones fastening themselves to the surface of the ground with frost. Time to close down walling activities for the year, right? Wrong. The wind chill was definitely bracing on the work-site hilltop this week but building went on apace. In fact, some things got easier as a result of the cold. No more wet gloves or bucket loader-eating mud holes. Underfoot turned to hard, no-slip surfaces, bringing welcome stability for plucking and plopping stone.

Dry Stone, Dry Stone Walling, Project, StoneDan SnowNovember 22, 2014dry stone, dry stone walling, featured, pumpkin seed, stone

Pumpkin Seed

The seed shape is fructuous. Its asymmetricality suggests continued growth and development. The entry point of the garden, the pinched end of the seed, expresses the concept of compression used by architect Frank Lloyd Wright in his design of foyers. His idea was to constrain the vestibule area to hasten movement toward the voluminous inner space. Compression springs expansion. The sense of garden bountiful is increased by passing through a narrow portal.

Place or Space

This week celebrates the publication by Aalto University of a ground-breaking Environmental Art book. Edited by my friend and comrade in art, Markku Hakuri, Place or Space (Paikka vai tila) tells the story of places, spaces and situations that the contributing writers encounter when reflecting on the potential of art as a provider of social commentary, and as a shaper or a challenger of the visual appearance of our environment.

Art, Books, Environmental ArtDan SnowNovember 3, 2014art, books, environmental art, featured, finland, markku hakuri, nature, place or space, teaching

Cadboll Stone

While visiting Scotland earlier this month I received a crash course in Pictish stone carving. The Picts lived north of what is now Edinburgh from the 1st to 3rd century AD. Little is known about them other than what can be deciphered from the system of symbols found carved on stones and engraved on metalwork. Nearly 200 stones survive, including the Hilton of Cadboll Stone that now resides in the National Museum of Scotland. After viewing the original Cadboll stone I met sculptor Barry Grove who was commissioned to carve a new stone, sited at the Cadboll Stone’s place of origin outside the royal burgh of Tain, just north of Inverness.

Building the Ruminator

In the beginning the idea was to make it a solitary object out in the field north of the garden. I had visions of a compost carousel with four pie-shaped stalls. Then it was a long barrow-shaped affair with tractor ramps to the top of the bins. I knew little about composting but I was having lots of fun with modeling clay imagining the construction of a dry stone Ruminator. Scale model making is an enjoyable pursuit that helps develop spatial acuity. The process of shaping clay is slow enough for deliberation to take place and fast enough for a form to observably emerge. Results unfold in an organic fashion.

Swept up in Stone

The autumn 2014 issue of Garden Design magazine is a beauty to behold. In its newly re-conceived subscription-only, advertisement-free format, the magazine is like a coffee table book with sumptuous photographs on every page. My thanks go out to the Garden Design staff for including my work alongside that of many talented artisans, to Lindsey for a clear and compelling article, and to Gemma and Andy for the truly splendid photography.

A Week with Eblacker & Stone

Between two wildflower meadows, in a glade of hardwoods, Chuck has designed a personal park for his clients. Crescent shaped seating walls will cascade toward a circular folly. The turret-like construction will have a doorway and windows framed in recycled architectural stone. The bulk of the building will be realized in reused, sandstone wall stone and granite boulders found on site.

Woodland Farms Garden Conservancy Open Days

The prospect was uninviting. Could I build a stone disguise for an electrical transformer? The call came at a busy time late in the last century. I advised the caller to check back again in a year. One year later, to the day, I received a second call from Rick and Susan Richter. The request for a short wall around the transformer was still on the table but they had a few other items they were interested in having me build for them on their Springfield, Vermont property. A dry stone fence around the fruit and vegetable garden was now at the top of their to-do list. Thus began my ten year working relationship, and continuing friendship, with Susan and Rick.

Vermont Arts Council Award

Fifty years ago I won a blue ribbon in the Brattleboro Sidewalk Art Show. Thirty years ago I won a National Endowment for the Arts award for designing a local amphitheatre. This week I received a Creation Grant from the Vermont Arts Council. Some might say, the awards in my artistic career have been few and far between. I believe their rarity makes them all the more precious. Being recognized by my beloved green mountain state is especially dear.

English Harbour Arts Centre Stone Art Workshop

The English Harbour fog machine has been churning out invisibility for a solid 24 hours. Before I arrived here a week ago the southwest wind that funnels moisture off Trinity Bay into the land bowl above the harbor had kept the village cloaked in a cotton wool shroud for fourteen days. Fortunately, the recently concluded environmental art workshop maintained blue skies above for each and every one of its five days. There were long-distance views in every direction from the headlands where the six participants worked on their dry stone installation.

Woody Point Workshop

Last evening the atmosphere softened to dusty rose across the far horizon. An osprey wheeled its way around the shoreline heading across Green Bay toward an incandescent object rising from the shimmering surface of the sea. Two hours earlier, I was at Ken Tuach’s stone yard wrapping up a day of DSWA examination. E and I then made a mad dash from western Newfoundland to the Baie Verte Peninsula just in time to glimpse the majestic iceberg across the water before the darkness descended.

Columbarium Completed

Two month ago I laid the first stone for the new Columbarium at Center Cemetery in Norfolk, Connecticut. Since then I’ve been working long hours, four or five days a week shifting, lifting and setting 100 tons of stone.

Materials used in the construction were sourced from five locations. Besides 1 ½” crushed stone for the base, I used tailings from a Vermont slate quarry for shim stock, 3”-5” local riprap for hearting, split-face stone from Quimby Mountain Quarry, field stone from on-site, and stone gathered from a natural rock slide in Vermont for wall face and top stones. To keep the work flowing smoothly it helped to have a full complement of shapes and sizes at every phase of the construction.

Ground Swell 12 Unrealized

A few months back, I prepared a submission for a national call to artists. I responded to the City of Palo Alto’s Request For Qualifications (RFQ) and was chosen as a finalist for creating an artwork at the city’s newly reconfigured public golf course. Two other artists and I were commissioned to create proposals. My plan was to build an environmental art piece titled, “Ground Swell 12”.

Woody Point Dry Stone Walling Workshop

The creation of a low, curving wall that leads the way up a hill to the newly restored St. Patrick’s church will be the goal of a dry stone walling workshop, July 19-20, in Woody Point, Newfoundland. Ken Tuach, a Level 3 DSWA craftsman, has asked me to join him in presenting the workshop to area stone enthusiasts. This two-day workshop will offer a challenge to beginners and improvers, alike. Workshop participants will be building a short retaining wall on a gentle slope. With a low student-teacher ratio, participants will learn the best practices and techniques for dry stone walling.

Columbarium Wall: Half-Topped

While my work days have been spent in solitary seclusion, my evenings have been quite sociable. The town of Norfolk hosts Yale University’s special summer art program, located on the Stoeckel estate. Selected colleges from across the country and the world are invited to nominate candidates, enrolled as juniors, for fellowships in the six-week program. Sam Messer, the program director, visited the worksite and invited me to join the group for meals, lectures and figure drawing. It’s been over forty years since I held a charcoal stick in Audrey Flack’s drawing class at Pratt Institute. It was great fun to try my hand at it, again.

Environmental Art & Dry Stone Walling Workshop Newfoundland Summer 2014

The purpose of the workshop is to discover terrestrial habitats, artifacts, microcosms and vistas that excite curiosity and wonder about a place, identify existing order and disorder for the purpose of exploring ways art can be an evolutionary partner with the environment, and to seek out conditions conducive to the development of creative interrelationships with the natural world. The workshop will take a hands-on approach to making art that springs from, and is absorbed by, its surroundings.
DATE: Sunday July 27 - Thursday July 31, 2014. Participants interested in a 2-day workshop, are welcome to join in on the Wednesday/Thursday of the 5-day workshop.
LOCATION: English Harbour Arts Centre, Trinity Bay, Newfoundland, Canada.

Long Train to Columbarium

The Connecticut columbarium wall work is out of the ground and on its way up. Since the last post, I’ve laid the foundation stones and brought the two ends to finished height. The list of ingredients grows as I discover additional stone sources. Starting with ledge scree I collected in Vermont, I’ve added fieldstone from dump piles near the cemetery, modified rip-rap from a local quarry and slate tailings from a Vermont gravel pit. Having a full complement of stone shapes and sizes keeps progress flowing smoothly.

Center Cemetery Columbarium Wall: Crushed Stone Foundation

Between workshop instructing, DSWA examining and rainy days I’ve managed to get the crushed stone foundation in for the Center Cemetery columbarium wall. Stone piles have been dismantled at the town garage stockyard site and stone reloaded on a one-ton truck for transport into the cemetery. Next week will see guide frames set and the building begun on the 165’ long wall.