A Detour and a Highline

Peter Mauss taking a photo of Knut Wold's sculpture along the

Sognefjellveien, Norway

Detour: Architecture and Design Along 18 Nation Tourist Routes in Norway is the title of the exhibition and symposium I attended recently in New York City. My interest came out of a road trip taken back in 2007 where I happened on some of the projects featured in the exhibit. It was a pleasure to make the acquaintance of Knut Wold, artist and coordinator for the National Tourist Route Project. Knut is a sculptor who's studio is a working quarry. All his stone cutting and carving is done outdoors. The soft spoken Norwegian in his sky-blue down parka could never be mistaken for a Manhattanite. Nevertheless, he did a great job leading an interested group of locals on a tour through the exhibit.
Also in attendance was Peter Zumthor, a Swiss architect and winner of the 2009 Pritzker Prize. He later gave the keynote address for the symposium at the Guggenheim Museum. I got to quiz Mr. Zumthor about the unique method he used to represent a bedrock landscape in a scale model he made for one of the Tourist Route Projects. Small chunks of charcoal, just like you'd find in the remnants of a campfire, were pasted on a substructure, to surprisingly good effect.

But, as is often the case, a side track to the symposium visit proved to be of equal interest. And in this case it was, really, a side track that caught my attention. The Highline is an elevated public park on the lower west side of Manhattan. The steel superstructure was built in 1930 to elevate freight train traffic 30' above the city streets. Unused since 1980 the now 20 block long track bed is becoming a beautiful addition to New York's park system. The hardscape design and planting layout is in keeping with the history of the Highline. For twenty years the line was in abandonment. Volunteer plants sprouted. It became a wilderness in the heart of the city. The park gardens are now carefully tended but have keep the natural feel. Many of the original rail tracks have been left in place. Pedestrian paths are built of concrete beams laid lengthwise along the line. Construction continues on the Highline. I was intrigued by a tool being used on the site to move the concrete beams. Those who move heavy materials around on a regular basis might also like to take note of the Sumner Grasshopper. It looks like  device that could be very useful on a stone wall construction site.

Pulling Together

Dry stone workshop instruction has taken me to new places, given me a chance to experiment with a variety of stone types and introduced me to lots of interesting people. Stone is the common denominator for getting us together in a workshop but it becomes less and less the focus of our day as we get to know each other. Personal and professional stories are told. Personalities emerge. Working side by side, trust grows. Friendships are forged. Everyone has something unique to offer to the mix. Participants go away at the end of a weekend, or a week, with mutual appreciation. Workshop walls may not be the highest form of craft but they're special in other ways. Something more has been created than just a dry stone structure.

Thinking back to last August's workshop at the English Harbour Art Centre in Newfoundland one individual comes to mind. Bela Simo was born in Transylvania, Romania and trained as a sculptor under a stone carving parish priest in Austria. He lived for eighteen years in the Canadian Yukon, spending many summers in a canoe exploring the wilderness, alone. He now has his studio in Clarenville, NF. At the end of our workshop Bela suggested that everyone sign their name on a rock in the wall with a marker. He then etched them into the stone surfaces with an electric grinder. The signatures were the perfect finishing touch to our collective enterprise.

A Gardener's Eden and the Barnes and Noble Book Club Blog

Thanks to the Gardener's Eden for the review of Listening to Stone and In the Company of Stone in the Barnes and Noble Book Club blog.
Check out the Gardener's Eden - an online gardening journal overflowing with beautifully written and illustrated insights into the art and joy of daily living.  Created by an artist, friend, garden designer and client - the Gardner's Eden blog inspires with delightful regularity.

Two Memorials

As a commissioned art maker working with existing spaces I rely on partnership with a client to produce a work.  Since most of my projects are in the Northeast USA where snow and hard frost restrict my production to the three frost-free seasons I'm left to my own devices in the winter months.  Last winter I made scale models in clay to develop the final design for a dry stone sculpture realized this past fall in Connecticut.  The winter before was occupied with writing essays for "Listening to Stone."  Early in my career I worked winters building fireplaces, repairing furniture, pruning apple trees and setting out sap lines in a maple sugar bush.

This winter I'm taking some time to visit art museums, memorials and sculpture gardens.  Between Christmas and New Years Day Elin and I traveled to Washington, DC where we viewed the Lincoln and the Vietnam Veterans Memorials at night.  Both were a first visit for me.  The only other time I'd been on the National Mall was in 1970 at a rally to protest the war in Vietnam.  The contrast between the two memorials, each beautiful in their own way, was striking.

The sense of absence was palpable around the Vietnam Veterans Memorial.  It crept out over the darkened lawn surrounding the earth depression defined by the "V" shaped walls of black granite. Lighting along the walkway within the memorial was subdued.  It barely illuminated the thousands of names inscribed on the wall surfaces.

From the columned opening of the nearby Lincoln Memorial came a glow of light reflected from the larger-than-life, white marble, statue of a seated Abraham Lincoln.  This was a memorial occupied to overflowing with the force of a single personality.  Most surprising to me was the finished texture of the sculpture.  Only having seen photos in the past, I assumed  the surfaces to be polished.  The work was left rough, perhaps a rasp file making the final tool marks. A fitting tribute to a man full of grit.

Workshop Winter Finery

Two examples of 2009 Dummerston workshop walls in their winter finery.

Reflections 2009

Perhaps winter is a time of reflection because the ground is covered in reflective white. The earth and its stone is under a thick blanket of snow these days. The land is saying, "Let me rest." While I can't help think some about what's coming up in the months ahead, at this time of the year I do try to give pause, slow the rush of days, and take a look back.

A year ago I was on the book circuit with newly published "Listening to Stone." Many of the stops included my giving a slide presentation in front of a group. In Montpelier it was a plant club, in Rockingham a library group, a Traditional Building conference in Boston and a gang of professional wallers and dykers in England. By fall I'd sat down to chat with stone enthusiasts in bookstores, on a radio show, at a high school and at a county fair.

In between public speaking and book signing I squeezed in some walling work, doing retaining and free-standing walls in Marlboro and Dummerston. I turned my hand to carving marble for elements of a dry stone sculpture I installed on the grounds of a home in Connecticut.

There were DSWA craftsman certification tests in England, Canada and Vermont for me to examine, fourteen candidates in all. Instructing walling workshops occupied many weekends. Leading student groups in Newfoundland and Kansas for one and two week dry stone sculpture workshops gave me a chance to explore new ground, both figuratively and physically.

For me, the thing that stands out most about 2009 is that it was the first in my thirty-four year walling career that I didn't have a single "alone" job. In the past four years I've gone from working almost exclusively on my own to being one of a party of workers. I've become a producer/director. I guess you could say I'm following in the footsteps of my film-maker daughter, Angela. I couldn't ask for a
better role model.

A thousand thanks to all those who joined me in 2009, and allowed me to join them, in making hard labor light work.