There are steps along the way to completing a project that deserve celebration. Yesterday the north wall of the “pumpkin seed” garden fence was topped out at its eight foot height. While clambering around on ladders and icy boulders is exhilarating in its own way, I’m glad to be finished with this stage of the work. Left to do on the fence is the final course of coping stones and filling in the break in the wall line that’s been used for loader access to the garden’s interior.
Read MoreAs a worker in stone I’m sometimes asked to create funerary monuments. Art making in a cemetery is necessarily a delicate operation. I want the monument design and installation to be respectful of its setting, while at the same time, I want to be true to my mission as an artist. A cemetery already has a very strong presence of place. An attempt to make something radically different from what’s come before would be working against the grain of time.
Read MoreTemperatures 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.
Read MoreThe 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.
Read MoreWhile 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.
Read MoreIn 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.
Read MoreThe 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.
Read MoreBetween 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.
Read MoreThe 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.
Read MoreThe 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.
Read MoreThe 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.
Read MoreThe 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.
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.
Read MoreThe mending of old dry stone walls lies at the heart of the walling trade. It’s often where the beginner waller cuts his or her teeth in the craft. An old wall is a lesson book waiting to be opened. It teaches correct methods of construction by example, and offers many cautionary tales with full-color illustrations. Chapter by chapter, the story of a derelict wall section unfolds in reverse as it’s dismantled.
Read MoreAt daybreak on March 7th Mount Monadnock appears on the horizon in bold silhouette. Soon after, the sun’s corona sets the mountain top ablaze. On only two days a year am I able to witness this phenomena from my home. The next time will be in October as the sun inches south along the horizon line past its date with the autumnal equinox. The speed of the sun’s rising and the intensity of it burning is shocking when viewed against Monadnock’s dark outline. I feel like I’m witnessing a cataclysmic event when the fringe of sky above the mountain erupts in a dome of molten yellow light. For an instant, I’m overtaken by the primordial fear that my earth is being consumed by fire. Soon after, the sun’s benevolent form reestablishes itself and takes its familiar place in the morning sky.
Read MoreAt the top of the frame is a pile of stone. Behind it are two hexagonal stone posts, and behind them, street curbing. The details of the posts and curbing suggest that the photo location was an established urban setting. It’s curious that the photographer intentionally placed his subject in front of a pile of stone, and not before the more formal backdrop that was available. The stone pile looks to be recently deposited due to the lack of vegetation that would otherwise be sprouting along its edges. The pile displays two types of clean stone; rubble and dressed blocks. The rubble may be the spoils from the production of the blocks but the casualness in the way the blocks are arranged makes it appear that they were dumped there and not produced at that exact location. To my builder’s eye, the stone pile looks like ready stock for a construction.
Read MoreTwenty years after Van de Water’s death in 1968 I was asked, by the new owners of the property, to build a stone wall there. I gathered and moved enough loose stone from fieldstone dumps on the farmstead to fashion an 80’ length of decorative fence. The innovation I employed for the project was to erect convex batter frames to create wall faces with curved slopes. Twenty-seven years later, visiting the wall for the first time since it was built, I see that it has held up well. My idea to splay out the foundation stones turned out to be a good trick for stabilizing the structure in the long term. Time is the test of dry stone work. Wallers build with the faith that their skill in the craft will see the work through. I’m heartened when I see ancient stoneworks still standing tall and I’m proud of those I’ve built that continue the tradition.
Read MoreThe subject of both talks focused on three questions: What makes sturdy dry stone constructions? Where does stone come from? Where do designs come from? In the second question, I pressed the point of seeking out alternatives to what has become the most common go-to place for stone procurement: The Home and Garden Center. I encouraged audience members to investigate six potential local resources: reclaim and reuse, quarry grout, farm dumps, gravel pits, scarified ground and loose bedrock. I suggested that by hunting for the treasures that may be laying just out of sight on the fringes of mainstream retail commerce they can reduce global environmental impact, construct works that are naturally compatible with their surroundings and keep their dollars circulating in the local economy.
Read More
