Stone Clouds Materialized

The shape of a project is pointy at opposite ends and lumpy in the middle. The spark that starts things off may be as quick and simple as seeing a cornstalk-stubbled field sprinkled with the till of a bygone glacier, and thinking, “What would it take to put those stones back up into the sky from whence they fell?” In between that thought and standing under Stone Clouds at Shelburne Museum yesterday was a year-long ride’s worth of lumps and bumps. The unknown is an uneven landscape. Highs are best employed to gain speed for the roll up out of the lows ahead. Uncertainty provides its own propulsion.

Rock Springs

Like other environmental art works I’ve done, Rock Springs is in, of and for its home place. The 32’x44’x5’ sculpture invites exploration. The interwoven coils of dry stone walls rise and fall underfoot as they’re traversed. Broad top stones elevate viewers above deep fissures separating the walls. Hand trimmed and set sandstone blocks comprise the double-faced walls, with architectural remnants repurposed for top stones.

Amphitheater Studies

Amphitheaters have been an interest of mine since the early 1980’s when I applied for and received a National Endowment for the Arts grant to study them. Soon after, I was commissioned to build amphitheater-like seating behind the home plate backstop of our local softball field. The granite terraces have become a well used addition to the summer scene in Brattleboro, Vermont. Since then, I’ve been able to design and build lots of stone seating arrangements but nothing quite like a classic, half-shell amphitheater of old, until now.

Stone Clouds

“Permanent” is one adjective I associate with my dry stone constructions. When I was asked to make a temporary installation on the grounds of the Shelburne Museum for the upcoming “Eyes on the Land” exhibition, some very different affiliations sprang to mind. And so, as I became acquainted with the Vermont Land Trust properties in the Mettawee Valley that I was partnered with for the show, I sought out examples of land formation and land use that might be described as “short term”.

Lilyfield 2

The Pictish symbol for time depicts intertwined spirals, spooling outward in every direction from a centerpoint. They saw their movement through time as a dance with the past, in the present, with a nod to the future. For them, where each step is experienced looks and feels different from every other, but all are part of the same expanding destiny.

Lilyfield

The whorling pattern of convoluted forms in the signet carved on the Cadboll Stone has a deep history. Before the pattern became emblematic of Picts culture, the earlier Celts employed a similar iconography in what is understood to be their graphic representation of time. If I think of the signet in terms of time, I see that for the Picts time was not linear. Time pulsed in a rhythm. Time unfolded and turned back on itself. The Cadboll signet lays out all of time’s manifestations in one picture. The concealed is present with the revealed.

Art, Stone, TravelDan SnowMay 10, 2015cadboll stone, celts, featured, pictish stone carving, picts, stone carving

Pumpkin Seed Winter Garden (what I did on my winter vacation)

There’s a certain satisfaction in doing something yourself that can’t be achieved in any other way. It’s not that other satisfactions have less strength or value, they’re just different. Each and every stone laid in the creation of the Pumpkin Seed garden enclosure passed through my hands. I say that with pride but also in the full knowledge that a team of wallers under my direction and following my design could have built the structure to a high standard without my lifting a finger. So, for me, it’s not the final result that distinguishes the piece, it’s the process I went through in the past few months to get it there. The daily figuring-out of what needs to happen next and how to get it done under the prevailing field conditions is what the Seed is made of in my mind’s eye.

Stone Clouds Forming

Every year, the plow turns up more stones in Ken Leach’s cornfield. It appears they’ve floated up through the rich Mettawee Valley soil from below the surface when in fact they’ve floated down upon the face of the earth from far above. There were once great clouds of ice between earth and sky. Ken’s stones were tucked into mile-high blankets of frozen water vapor. They’d been plucked from the even taller mountains that used to reign here, and carried in alluvial fans out across glaciers that were thousands of years in the making and thousands of years in the melting. When the land that is now a Vermont Land Trust protected property said goodbye to its last glacier, twelve thousand years ago, all the sediment and rock that was riding its coattails settled to the ground, creating the dark soil that farmers like for growing corn, plus, an unwelcome bounty of stones.

Diamond Mines

My land art piece, Diamond Mines, is now in a happy marriage with Glenmorangie distillery. The Diamond Mines from 2011, with photo by Peter Mauss/ESTO, has been licensed for a Glenmorangie Signet print advertising campaign. See below for the TICKON Sculpture Park Catalog text.

Art, Environmental Art, SculptureDan SnowJanuary 12, 2015dan snow, diamond mines, esto, featured, peter mauss, tickon sculpture park

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

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.

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.

Koli Environmental Art Workshop

The second time I was invited to teach in Finland, the environmental art class was part of a seminar in Koli National Park. The theme for the Sixth International Conference on Environmental Aesthetics was “Stone.” Presentations were made by a Swiss geologist, a Japanese dry-garden builder and a modern dance troupe that performed at a soapstone quarry. Besides presenting a slide talk at the conference I had a group of university students for the week to make environmental art in the Finnish countryside. My description (below) of one of their projects will be included in Site or Place.

On Environmental Art Making

Doing good to the environment is not humankind’s long suit. There are precious few ways for us to interact with our natural surroundings that have a positive impact. That’s why it’s important to approach the making of art out-of-doors, sideways. It should not be difficult for nature to deflect or absorb the making of art in its realm.

Art, NatureDan SnowNovember 27, 2013art, environmental art, featured, nature, stone and art in nature

From Newgrange to Morrisville: Laying Loved Ones to Rest

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.

Art, Dry Stone Walling, SculptureDan SnowOctober 19, 2013burial, cemetery, dry stone constructions, featured, funerary, memorial, sculpture

The Sheep Shed

Over 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.