IN THE COMPANY OF STONE

English Harbour Arts Centre Workshops and Stone Maze

2012-01-22T13:34:00.001-05:00

The dates have been set for the two English Harbour Arts Centre workshops I will be instructing this coming summer. Five-day and two-day long courses, July 29 - August 2 and August 4 -5, will focus on constructing new dry stone walls on the grounds of the art centre. The finished works will represent pieces of a grand puzzle that EHAC hopes to realize in the near future. The dream is to build a dry stone maze on the majestic headlands of Trinity Bay.

Dry Stone Maze Proposal
by Dan Snow and English Harbour Arts Centre
A maze built of dry stone at English Harbour, Newfoundland would be an exciting landscape feature and special attraction to the Trinity Bight area. Exploring the paths and “art courts” of the maze would be an intriguing adventure for visitors of all ages. The stone maze would be offered to the public in the spirit of healthy inquiry and good fun.
The maze, designed by Dave Phillips, would cover 7,300 sq. meters of ground and have 2.5 kilometer of walls and paths. While a number of routes would allow exploration of alternative destinations within the maze, only one route would lead to its center. Along the paths, and at large open areas, art works would be displayed.
The proposed site is approximately 2 kilometers from the bay at English Harbour. From the site, one can view a broad sweep of Trinity Bay, 40 meter-high sheer cliffs, and a natural, sea-arch grotto. Seasonal wildlife in the area includes eagles, otters, moose and whales.
To my knowledge this would be the first, open-to-the-public, dry stone maze ever built. Dry laid stone is a method and material eminently suited to such a project. Newfoundland offers many potential sources for natural and quarried stone, suitable for dry laid construction. The finished construction would blend well with the natural surroundings and stand the test of time.
English Harbour Arts Centre's Stone Maze would be a significant piece of landscape art, attracting a wide range of public interest. Appreciated for its hand-crafted beauty, environmental sensitivity and bewildering playfulness, the stone maze would be both a contemplative and interactive work of art.

Maze illustrations by Todd Lynch.

© All rights reserved Dan Snow In the Company of Stone

Winter Walling in an Art and Nature Park

2012-01-14T11:29:00.000-05:00

An unexpected weather-window opened up this week allowing Chuck, Jared and I to begin work on a new project. A wooded mountaintop plateau in western Connecticut is the site of an art and nature park being created by Edward Tufte. His monumental sculptures already grace the open meadows at the south end of the property. Now, a series of new dry stone walls has begun to appear along the north end of the mountain spine. Edward and I co-direct the design and layout. A team of DSWA certified craftsmen build the walls and feature pieces.

© All rights reserved Dan Snow In the Company of Stone

Authors of Dummerston

2012-01-13T11:35:00.001-05:00

This Sunday, the "Authors of Dummerston” exhibit opens at the Historical Society Schoolhouse. The exhibit will showcase local writers. I am honored to be a part of an exhibit that includes not only Rudyard Kipling but many talented living writers as well. Stop by and check it out if you are anywhere nearby.
Details below and more information here.
"Authors of Dummerston” Exhibit
Opening Reception
Sunday, January 15, 2-4 PM
Dummerston Historical Society Schoolhouse
Dummerston Center, VT

© All rights reserved Dan Snow In the Company of Stone

Stone and Art in Nature

2012-01-10T20:56:00.000-05:00

I will be giving a talk at the ET Modern Gallery in NYC in February.
Here is the announcement. With thanks to Edward Tufte for the invitation to give a talk. Hope to see you there.

ET MODERN GALLERY
547 West 20th Street, (corner of 11th Avenue)
NYC, NY
FEBRUARY 25, 2012
2 pm

STONE AND ART IN NATURE
Vermont stone art builder Dan Snow will give a talk about outdoor art installation, the process of its creation and long-term integration into nature. The presentation includes images of Snow’s and other environmental artists’ work.

Poet Wendell Berry advises those who practice his craft to “make poems that don’t disturb the silence from which they come.” The same suggestion could be made to the builders of environmental art because their work is often performed in places that are already perfectly at peace.
Creators of outdoor art risk disturbing an existing balance when they go to work on the land. Artists in the environment might achieve their finest work by doing nothing more than pointing out the facts of what is already there. But then again, that may be work best left to poets.
Three-dimensional artists engage the physical world spatially, and the spatial world physically. In “Song of Myself”, Walt Whitman expressed a sentiment shared today by environmental art makers; “Earth! you seem to look for something at my hands.” We can’t help getting our hands dirty when our hearts open to a place on earth.

© All rights reserved Dan Snow In the Company of Stone

Twenty-Eleven

2012-01-07T12:27:00.001-05:00

Going back through the year 2011 in my iPhoto files, I was drawn to those depicting family and friends, new and old. Here’s a collection of recollections dear to my heart. From maple sugaring season and projects at home in Vermont and New England, to travels in Finland, Newfoundland, Norway and Denmark, the fun began when we all got together.

© All rights reserved Dan Snow In the Company of Stone

Stone Eye Guiding Grid

2011-12-21T20:59:00.000-05:00

Despite temperatures in the 20’s Fahrenheit and a steady north wind, progress continued this week on the stone eye sculpture. The guide frame and 6” grid are in place, waiting now for a day warm enough to allow bare fingers to function properly for hanging the lines and weights that will establish the ‘points in space’ needed to begin the stone construction.

Thanks to Jamie for traveling from Lincoln, VT to help erect the frame. The area we’re working in is quite remote, evidenced by what we witnessed Monday morning; a coyote following a small herd of whitetail deer across a field, and into the woods, near the building site.

The Stone Trust: Up and Running

2011-12-20T11:28:00.000-05:00

While wallers in east-central USA have had the excellent Dry Stone Conservancy as a beacon for the craft for many years, stone workers in the northeast have had to go it on their own. Until now. After only one year in existence, The Stone Trust has become an important regional resource for all things dry stone.

The Vermont sanctioned, not-for-profit, organization has already established an indoor centre for training and testing. It has hosted an instructor’s course with the result that there are eleven new DSWA (Dry Stone Walling Association of Great Britain) certificated instructors in the US and Canada. This past year, outdoor workshops offered one and two-day courses to a total of 39 participants who rebuilt 60 metres of historic fence. And the test days saw 15 candidates trying for Level 1, 2, and 3 certificates. Workshops in 2011 were instructed by Jared Flynn, Andrew Pighills, Dave Goulder and Dan Snow. Examiners included Michael Weitzner, Dave and Dan.

Along with the activities at the centre, outreach included the creation of web and social media sites, DSWA books and videos being placed in public libraries, and presentations offered to touring groups. The Stone Trust even became a corporate member of the DSWA!

The Stone Trust’s mission is to promote and advance the art and craft of dry stone walling. By all indications it is well on its way to doing just that. As a director on the board of The Stone Trust, I want to welcome all wallers, dykers and dry stone enthusiasts to the centre. Please join us in making The Stone Trust’s second year even more lively than the first.

Stone Eye Sculpture Site Preparations

2011-12-15T12:10:00.000-05:00

In their later years, my parents enjoyed belonging to Vermont’s “251 Club.” Members travel around the state visiting all 251 towns, checking them off a list, just for fun. Maybe someday I’ll join, too, making my personal quest to see all of Vermont in a more organized way. For now, I’m satisfied to explore different townships through my work.

Over the past few days I assembled the materials for a sculpture installation in Morrisville, VT. I checked out marble blocks in Rutland, bought building stone from a quarry in Plainfield and lumber from a mill in North Hyde Park.

On site in Morrisville, I outlined the piece with sticks and ribbon to get a sense of its presence on the land, began excavation and finished the foundation work. The stonework will rest on a 3’ deep base of crushed stone. When completed, the sculpture will enclose two burial plots. The addition of a sand-filled,wood coffer will allow the second grave to be easily hand-dug at a future date.

Thanks to Tim Stone for trucking and to Buckwheat, Tom, Brian and Larry of Green Mountain Landscaping for their fine work preparing the site.

A Stone Eye

2011-12-04T17:11:00.001-05:00

A trip to Plainfield, Vermont in the F450 last week netted a dump load of wall stone from Mitchell’s Quarry. The quarry’s bedrock is a layered mix of quartzite, a granular metamorphic rock, and phyllite, a slaty rock with minute scales of mica.

Yesterday, I built some of the stone into a short wall to test its quality. The hope was that it would be good material to use in the stone-eye sculpture construction because the quarry is located a reasonable distance from the project site, and because the stone is generally planar. Since the construction will be vertically bedded walling, the stone needs to have flat surfaces for maximum contact. I must also be able to trim and shape its edges with a hammer. The test walling proved the stone acceptable in most aspects, but thicker pieces tended to fracture along cleavage planes when I struck an edge with multiple hammer blows.

Today I’m transferring information from 60 pages of data onto a master plan for the stone-eye construction. Corner points in a grid of 6” squares are given numerical values that correspond to their position on the surface of the sculpture. The 32’ diameter sculpture will require more than 3,000 points-in-space to guide the construction.

Points in Space

2011-12-01T21:46:00.001-05:00

Every new idea leads to an adventure. In the past when I’ve wanted to record and transfer “points-in-space” from a clay model to a full scale construction I’ve made a grid-style guide frame and physically measured the distance from the frame to the surface of the model. To build the horse eye sculpture I will need thousands of measurements on a 6”x6” grid. My new idea was to find someone who could digitally scan the model for the measurements I would need.

Jim Greene, and his wife Jane, own JMR Systems in Derry, New Hampshire. I tracked them down through my connections in the model-making world. On Monday I took the clay model to them, and in a just a couple hours Jim was able to scan it using a Konica Minolta Range5 Non-contact Digitizer and give me a list of X,Y and Z coordinates that correspond to points on the surface of the sculpture.

Trying something different in my sculpture-creating process has taken me to a region of New Hampshire I haven’t visited before, introduced me to two very interesting people and given me an insight into a new technology.

Disturbing the Silence

2011-11-27T12:10:00.001-05:00

Poet Wendell Berry advises those who practice his craft to “make poems that don’t disturb the silence from which they come.” The same suggestion could be made for the construction of environmental art. It is often made in locations that are perfectly at peace. Creators of outdoor art risk disturbing an existing balance when they go to work on the land. An artist in the environment might do his, or her, most refined and sensitive work by finding a way to do nothing more than point out the facts of what is already there. But then again, maybe that’s the job best left to poets. Artists working in three dimensions engage the physical world spacially, and the spacial world physically. We can’t help getting our hands dirty when our hearts open to a place on earth.

My next project is a piece of figurative sculpture in the landscape. It’s an art piece and a piece of utility. The dry stone construction will enclose a burial site on private property in north-central Vermont. A former horse pasture will be the site of a memorial in the shape of a horse’s eye. In phase 1, the shape will be open to the grave plots. In phase 2, to be completed at an unknown time in the future, the central portion will be covered over with a dry stone mound that will represent the iris of the eye. Completed, the crypt will be sealed by the polished pupil of a heavenward-gazing eye.

The 1:50 scale model I sketched in clay will soon be 3-D scanned to establish the points in space I will need for transfer to a full-scale, guide frame.

Stone Wall Reconstruction on the Rock River

2011-11-14T11:51:00.001-05:00

Before Irene - photo courtesy of Linda Walker

After Irene - photo courtesy of Linda Walker

Williamsville is a village in the town of Newfane, Vermont, just three miles, as the crow flies, from my home in Dummerston. While we had little, or no, damage in our town from flooding in September, Irene devastated the Williamsville area. The Rock River rose 18’ above its normal level. A 200’ length of 5’ high dry stone retaining wall, built in the 19th century, as part of an extensive water-powered industrial site, was swallowed up in the torrent. When flood waters receded, the wall was no more. Only the largest stones escaped being swept downstream.

Last week Mark B. and I went to work rescuing wall stone from the river’s edge and rebuilt the retaining wall. I chose and chained the pieces. Mark swung them into place with the excavator.

The same principles apply to constructing with large stone as those of a hand built wall. Each stone covers a joint in the course below, each stone is set with its length into the wall, an attempt is always made to match the heights of neighboring stones and top surfaces are made as level as possible. The finished work is rough in appearance but rugged, and hopefully long lasting. A flood as damaging as that of Irene is said to be a 200-year event.

Cochecho Wall in the Snow

2011-11-07T07:52:00.000-05:00

Trick-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.

Even though the sun shone each day, the ground underfoot stayed wet and slippery during the three-day process. The boulders were caked with mud. Sometimes a layer of snow would get packed on their sides as they were rolled along, turning them into giant, chocolate-coconut bonbons.

I might have been depressed by the sight of the finished work, mud-coated as it was, but I knew it would look better with time. The section of wall I completed last April for Cochecho Country Club, in the spring mud season, now looks clean and bright thanks to the through washing it got from summer rains and to the classy job of landscaping by Tony P. and his maintenance team. Thanks also to Matt N. from Maine for joining me in the latest ‘mud follies’ construction.

A Stone Turtle

2011-10-28T10:17:00.000-04:00

When a favorite customer asked me if I would consider making an animal, any animal, out of dry stone last summer I immediately said, ‘yes’. Then the puzzling began. What animal shape could I fashion that would be recognizable, and also durable, using only dry stone techniques? It was especially important to the customer that children could climb on the completed piece. With a site in their field picked out as the location, I began thinking about possibilities.

The more animals I thought about, the further from a design I got. Over the summer and fall while carrying out projects in Newfoundland and Denmark I kept the animal project in the back of my mind. I finally gave up trying to come up with an animal design and suggested a completely different idea to my customers. Would they consider a petrified tree stump as a feature in their field. They very graciously said ‘ok, maybe that would be fine’. But while making the clay model, and full-scale mock up, of the tree stump I was freed from the animal idea and, of course, a turtle popped into my head.

When I brought up the subject of turtles, my customers were delighted and told me a story about the snapping turtle that lived in their pond. They had, on occasion, watched its annual trek up into the field to lay its eggs. So, a big stone turtle at the top of the field that looked as though it was heading for water turned out to be the perfect answer to the question I’d asked myself months before.

Choosing six curved slabs from my stockpiles in the stone yard I temporarily arranged them on a mound of sand to get the proper measurements to begin the belly of the sculpture. Five boulders selected from my woods would become the legs, tail and head.

There’s a significant amount of luck that goes into being able to create a successful one-of-a-kind dry stone landscape feature. There’s also a requirement in the belief that things will come together when the time is right if one is patient and remains open and receptive to all that the world has to offer.

DSWA Test Day at the Stone Trust

2011-10-27T11:48:00.000-04:00

All seven candidates passed their respective levels of DSWA testing on Sunday, due in some measure I’m sure, to the practice many took on Friday at The Stone Trust center to prepare themselves for the rigors of taking a timed dry stone walling test. Building to a predetermined standard and having two examiners, Dave Goulder and me, looking on as work progresses aren’t the ingredients of a typical day for a waller. My admiration goes out to Brian, Peter, Curtis, Lew, Dario, Adam and Jamie for their poise under fire. Congratulations to all on work well done.

A Day of Walling in the Woods

2011-10-24T23:27:00.000-04:00

Dry 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.

Miles of old stone walls criss-cross the woodlands. Their physical conditions vary from, as pristine as the day they were built 150 years ago, to, thoroughly decayed. We admired the ingenuity and fortitude of those who built the walls we hiked past, and spent a few hours repairing gaps and adding features in the style and spirit of those who came before us. Four new gate ends were constructed where the trail intersected an old wall line. Where the trail crossed a small stream, an abutment and single-slab bridge was built.

Thanks go out to Lynn Levine and Roger Haydock for their thought provoking talks, and to the great bunch (all guys, this workshop) who contributed to making the Dummerston hiking trails even more special. And to The Stone Trust for seeing to all the details that made our day a delight.

Force of Nature

2011-09-28T22:31:00.000-04:00

When 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.

I give presentations about my work, and historic dry stone walls, to groups from time to time. A question often asked by the audience is, “How long will a stone wall last?” My answer usually begins with, “It depends...” and goes on to catalogue factors that could influence a wall’s longevity. I guess I’ll have to put ‘hurricane destruction’ on top of the list from now on.

DSWA Testing at the Stone Trust

2011-09-25T07:00:00.000-04:00

Congratulations 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. On October 22nd Brian, will take the Part B, timed test. He will be joined by six other candidates taking their Level 1, or 2, tests at the Stone Trust center. The DSWA certification program offers a series of internationally recognized qualifications in dry stone walling.

A Dry Stone Foundation

2011-09-23T22:37:00.000-04:00

Stone 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.

TICKON Diamond Mines Land Art

2011-09-18T10:41:00.001-04:00

Text for the TICKON Catalog.

DIAMOND MINES

2011 TICKON LAND ART

“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.

Mines are holes excavated to seek riches within the earth. Their value is in what they yield; that which is removed. After the extraction of diamonds, empty mines take on symbolic worth. They represent the excitement of exploration and the promise of new possibilities.

The form of “Diamond Mines” suggests a resemblance to something that’s been unearthed, an archaeological dig, perhaps. It is, in fact, the remaining physical evidence of past industry. Every facet of the work done to create “Diamond Mines” is visible in the completed piece. Each stone was picked and placed with creative intention. The whole of the work is a collection of choices that define a structure.

TICKON Diamond Mines

2011-09-17T18:03:00.000-04:00

The final days in Denmark were filled with activity for me and E. The daytime hours were spent touring Langeland with friends Peter and Phyllis visiting from Vermont. In the evenings we were feted by our Danish families and by our TICKON hosts. Back in Vermont, the sun sets earlier and rises later. My internal clock is slowly resetting itself.

The 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.

TICKON Diamond Mines in the News

2011-09-10T05:56:00.000-04:00

Earlier this week, the local newspaper stopped by the TICKON site for an interview. Hopefully the article will be available online within a few days. For now - a couple of photos.

TICKON Sculpture Installation Completed

2011-09-08T08:26:00.000-04:00

I Dug Up a Diamond

‘I dug up a diamond rare and fine, I dug up a diamond in a deep dark mine. If only I could cling to my beautiful find, I dug up a diamond in a deep dark mine.
My gem is special beyond all worth, strong as any metal, or stone in the earth, sharp as any razor, or blade you can buy, bright as any laser, or any star in the sky.
Maybe once in a lifetime you hold one in your hand, once in a lifetime in this land where the journey ends in a worthless place, time and again in a mining game.
Yea, I dug up a diamond rare and fine, I dug up a diamond in a deep dark mine. Down in the darkness, in the dirt and the grime, I dug up a diamond in a deep dark mine.’

This 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.

Soon I’ll be returning home to Vermont, but not before doing some sightseeing. The Danish landscape of low, rolling hills is intensely cultivated, allowing wide vistas dotted with ancient thatched cottages.

TICKON - Working at the Diamond Mines

2011-09-05T05:46:00.001-04:00

About 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.

TICKON - Diamond Mines Discovered in Tranekær Castle Park

2011-09-01T06:42:00.000-04:00

If you are anywhere nearby...please join us!

DIAMOND MINES DISCOVERED IN TRANEKÆR CASTLE PARK
Stone Art Building in Nature: Creating a Connection with the Spirit of Place

A talk and slide show
Tuesday 13 September 2011
7 pm
Sukkerfabrikken, Slottsgade 76, Tranekær, Langeland
Free admission
Coffee and cake
Welcome!
Introduction by Ole Johnsen
For more information, please contact:
Ole Johnsen
+45 50 91 02 03
olej56@gmail.com
Alfio Bonanno
+45 22 13 32 93
mail@alfiobonanno.dk

DIAMOND MINES DISCOVERED IN CASTLE PARK
Stone Art Building in Nature: Creating a Connection with the Spirit of Place

Art builders channel the power of nature and transform it through action into art.
Works of art are born out of an intimate relationship with the landscape and a knowledge and understanding of the materials at hand.

Working hands inform thought and awaken understanding of the art builder's place in the natural world. Undulant lines and patterned spaces are the result of many choices made by the art builder who recognizes, and utilizes, the unique character of stone.

The presentation will examine the many uses of stone in art; how stone can support a design, or simply be the art itself. It will also explore the "give and take" experience of working in nature, and the connection to spirit expressed through stone.

The art builder's perspective is the perfect loci for seeking inward and reaching outward for ordering the experience of time and space, and observing higher orders.

Markku Hakuri and Friends at Kerava - Goodye to the Hole In The Universe (Reikä Avaruudessa)

2011-08-29T09:24:00.000-04:00

Sculptor Markku “The General” Hakuri marshaled a merry band of art lovers in the destruction of the pieces he exhibited in the Kerava Art Museum this summer. The closing ceremony of the show included a parade of dismantled sculpture parts and their burning in a bonfire. After the fire died down we proceeded to tumble my sculpture “Wishing Wells”. From its conception, my piece was destined to be removed at the end of the show, so, we had a fun time pulling out stones and watching the well walls cascade to the ground. Most delightful was the musical sound made by the downpour of cobbles.

Finland - Mushroom Hunting and the End of the Reikä Avaruudessa Exhibit

2011-08-29T08:22:00.003-04:00

This weekend I hopped over to Helsinki, Finland from Denmark to join in the closing celebration of Kerava Art Museum’s summer exhibition. Back in May I made two pieces for the show. The works of all the artists come down today, and because some of them, like mine, are meant to be destroyed at the end of the exhibit we will have a ceremonial bonfire outside the museum. In the meantime, I’ve enjoyed a day spent in the woods hunting mushrooms. Kaani and Markku took me to a forest where we had good luck gathering. Back at their house we cleaned our catch of black hornpipes for drying, and cooked up a pan of chanterelles for omelets.

TICKON Installation Past the Halfway Mark

2011-08-28T07:54:00.003-04:00

The TICKON installation is past the halfway mark thanks to the help of Alfio Bonnano and Ole Johnsen who have coordinated all the logistics of tools and materials, plus, made us feel at home away from home. On site, Francesca and Jared have put in long hours raising the walls of the piece that will soon be the newest addition to the art park. Elin has been busy orchestrating the myriad details of working and living away from Vermont, and documenting the process and progress of the installation.

Sadly for all of us, Jared has now returned to Vermont after his two week work-cation in Denmark. We will miss him but are grateful he left us with the bulk of the work behind us. This coming week Francesca and I will knit more stones into the web of walls at TICKON.

TICKON - Sourcing Tools, Stone and Equipment in Langeland

2011-08-21T14:51:00.000-04:00

It took me a few days to ‘get’ TICKON’s method of operation but I can now appreciate it for its full value. The art park owns no tools or equipment. Everything needed to produce a new installation is gathered piecemeal from community members in the surrounding villages. So, for the first few days of my project I rode around the countryside with Ole each morning popping in on local folk to have a chat. We explained what the project was, and what we were looking for. Eventually the tools and materials came together. In the process, more and more people became involved in the project. They have helped to create a new art work at TICKON. “Mange tak” to all those who have made me feel welcome in the Kommune of Langeland.

TICKON - Fieldstone and Hearting

2011-08-18T11:54:00.000-04:00

The field-stone for my installation at TICKON (Tranekær International Centre for Art and Nature) comes with some of the “field” it was gathered from; mud. My first objective has been to dig out the stone. While the supply was drying out I began setting up batter frames. Each board describes an inside corner of the construction. Because the wall intersections are many different obtuse and acute angles, each board is set to correspond to the intersection angle and to the wall batter. The wall batter is 2.5” in every 12” of vertical height. Work on the piece begins at the center and moves out toward the perimeter as progress is made over the next few weeks.

Hearting materials had to be sourced from a different location. Smaller stone was found at a potato farm that cleans its fields more finely than those of the wheat farms. We hand loaded a small trailer, drove it to the site, and off-loaded using Jared’s special “boot heel” technique.

Dry Stone Cairns in Norway

2011-08-17T09:57:00.000-04:00

The previous post elicited a question from a reader about the dry stone cairn in the top photo. It’s a trail marker, one of hundreds found alongside the old routes in Norway for crossing the high country from one valley community to another. They are spaced approximately 50 meters apart to help guide those traveling in fog, snow or low light conditions. The pine poles atop them may be all that’s visible in a sea of winter white.

TICKON Art Park

2011-08-15T10:31:00.002-04:00

From the glacier fed streams of Norway’s Jotunheimen mountains, I’ve traveled this past week to the low, wetlands of Denmark. In fact, I’m living in a 300 year-old house alongside a castle moat. This is the artist’s residence for TICKON, the environmental art park I’ll be working in for the next month. Yesterday 20 tons of stone was gathered from field piles and delivered by the tractor-wagon load to the site of my construction. Today the outline of the work will be established and guide frames erected.

Lillehammer Art Museum Sculptured Garden

2011-08-07T16:22:00.000-04:00

Continuing on the subject of sculpture gardens, here’s a nice example I saw yesterday outside the Art Museum in Lillehammer, Norway. Created in 1992 by Bard Breivik, the ‘sculptured garden’ is a cascade of stone and water. It begins serenely on flat ground at the height of the space. There, a screen of vertical granite slabs encloses a dry courtyard, a green lawn is bisected by a flagstone path, and the water course begins by spilling from a granite monolith into a long, stone trough. The water descends in multiple streams through a series of channels to a reflecting pool at the bottom of a steep rockery. Breivik’s sculptured garden is a good example of art that interprets nature without imitating it.

Dedication of the BMAC Sculpture Garden

2011-08-05T01:27:00.002-04:00

This Saturday will mark the dedication of Brattleboro Museum and Art Center’s new Sculpture Garden. Since I’m in Scandinavia and unable to attend, I’ve written a few words to be read at the ceremony. My thanks to museum board chairman, Bruce Berg, for reading. All best wishes on the day to those attending.

Dedication of the BMAC Sculpture Garden, August 6, 2011
Maybe because, topographically speaking, this area is Brattleboro’s lowest point, it’s where, for me, many memories have settled over the years. Within ear-shot of here, on Arch Street, Linotype machines once clattered away in the press room of the Daily Reformer. That’s where my father swept floors after school during the Great Depression. And it’s where I went after school in the mid 60’s to fill my canvas newspaper sack with fifty copies of the latest edition before heading out on my delivery route.

Within sight of here, my dad walked across the bridge to Island Park, where on weekends he watched baseball games from the covered grandstands. I spent a few Saturday mornings as a kid hanging a pole over the rail of the bridge trying to catch carp. One of my friends, fishing by himself, hooked one so big he couldn’t pull it up to the rail and had to yell for help. An adult on Main Street heard his cries and came to the rescue. The two of them were able to haul the huge bottom-feeder up onto the bridge deck. My schoolmate tied the fish behind his bicycle and dragged it around town, showing it off. Of course, it had no value for eating. No fish in the Connecticut River or Whetstone Brook was safe to eat. In those days, it wasn’t only memories that settled in this part of town. All of the town’s sewer pipes emptied into the water under the bridge. On a hot, summer day, when the wind was from the northeast, rail customers were happy to be waiting inside the station for their train.

By the early seventies the train station had fallen into disuse. My father was president of the chamber of commerce at the time, and then, as now, Brattleboro was trying to attract and keep businesses. There was a plan afoot to turn the old station into a museum, a plan that would hopefully help to spruce up this end of town. He took me into the closed-up station and showed me around. It was dark and gloomy. The roof must have been leaking for a while because I remember the floor being littered with soggy detritus. It was a musty, uninviting space. I thought to myself, there’s no way this could ever be anything nice.

My teenage pessimism about the possibility of Union Station becoming a museum was soon proven to be unfounded. The Brattleboro Museum and Art Center is now one of our town’s shining lights. And with the dedication of the BMAC Sculpture Garden we’ve taken another step toward making this area attractive and pleasing to all the senses. I hope the stone seats and perches I’ve created here will be enjoyed by everyone, but especially by children, because I believe they deserve to have fun, safe, spaces for their downtown adventures.

During my working life I’ve shifted freely, back and forth, from artist to dry stone waller. Whatever the final outcome of any work, it’s been the making that I’ve liked the best. With ‘Rock Rest’, I enjoyed the creative process so much that I built the piece twice; once in my Dummerston stone yard and once here beside the museum. The stone was initially collected from a steep slope on a wooded property in Townshend. It lay there for twelve thousand years after being plucked from the ledges by the last ice age. In ‘Rock Rest’ I’ve attempted to simulate the natural process that turns bedrock into loose stone. I’ve always been fascinated by the way stones separate from one another but lock more tightly together as they slide apart.

My thanks go out to the museum board of directors, staff, garden designer and installation volunteers for welcoming my work into this wonderful space. And thanks to all of you for your kind attention, here today.

Sculpture Along the Canal in Uddevalla, Sweden

2011-08-04T02:47:00.001-04:00

While driving through Sweden on the way to Norway I saw this pair of stone sculptures along-side the canal in Uddevalla. The chair, and “room”, are assembled from carved and broken slabs that are bolted together by threaded rods. I think the combination of natural forms and carved, polished surfaces on the same stone is very effective. Artist unknown.

The Fourth Corner is Finished, English Harbour Arts Centre Dry Stone Workshop

2011-07-31T04:14:00.001-04:00

The fourth corner is finished, bringing the 2011 English Harbour Arts Centre dry stone workshop to an end. The footprint of the final construction is ‘L’ shaped, fittingly following the pattern of singularly unique shapes created in the previous works: hexagonal, square and circular. With the stone corners in place, the “riddle” fence workshop will soon be replacing the board fence around the Arts Centre.

My thanks go out to all those who made the stone workshops a success. Community members collected stone by the snowmobile trailer load, or by filling up the back of their Subaru. Members of the Centre’s board of directors promoted the workshop, participated in it and brought baked goods and coffee to fuel progress. For those who dug sod, barrowed stone, nailed together guide frames and crafted the works I’m forever grateful for your toil and alacrity.

It’s sad to think that I won’t be scanning the harbor waters for whale activity after today. Hopefully, I’ll be returning to Newfoundland in 2012. It will be nice, though, to be home again in Vermont, even if it’s only for a few days before heading out again. Next stop: Denmark.

The Dry Stone Workshops at English Harbour Newfoundland

2011-07-28T10:58:00.000-04:00

The dry stone workshops at English Harbour have been treated to buffeting winds, lightning storms, muffling fog and dazzling sunshine over these past two weeks. Participants have gone from working in tee shirts to suiting up in insulated rain-gear. Whatever the weather conditions of the day (or hour) it’s been exhilarating working on the Newfoundland coast. The wide vistas of boreal forestland and ever-changing seascape have made a dramatic backdrop to our dry stone activities.

This week’s group began by examining the previously completed pillars and lanterns and sketching ideas for the third installation. By assessing the building site and stone supply they were able to find areas where their abstract ideas intersected with the reality of ‘field conditions.’ A consensus was reached on a design that featured a ledge/ramp that spiraled twice around a cone shaped structure. Next was to design the temporary framework that would guide the stonework as it progressed upward. By the end of the third day they were only a handful of stones away from topping out the piece.

The Magic of Whales at Night - English Harbour, Newfoundland

2011-07-27T12:42:00.000-04:00

Last night the sky over the harbor was totally star-twinkled. From the bay, which was uncharacteristically placid, came the "whooshing" sound of whales' breaths. The huge animals rhythmically rose to the water's surface in the darkness, exhaling plumes of sea mist. They were invisible to the eye but must have been very close to shore. The 'squeaks' and 'squawks' of their aquatic songs reverberated around the bay. The sonic echoes were hauntingly beautiful but their meaning lost on my land-locked ears.

A Stone Lantern - English Harbour Dry Stone Workshop

2011-07-22T11:53:00.001-04:00

While other parts of Canada are experiencing record high temperatures, here on the east coast of Newfoundland we go about in wool sweaters and windbreakers. Lightning storms have made quick visits overhead in the nighttime. Strong winds blow intermittently through the day. But always, in the past week, there has been fog. Time stands still when the quality of light remains the same from dawn to dusk. It’s the color of pewter tinged with green from the landscape of meadow grass and spruce forest. And always the mournful moan of the foghorn in the background calling out from the coastal headlands; a sound I don’t so much hear, as feel in my body like the rise and fall of a breath. The second, stone lantern has been completed by workshop participants. When completed, the art centre will be ringed by a ‘riddle’ fence made of woven alder saplings. The solar lanterns, on dry stone plinths, will anchor the four corners of the fence line.

Dry Stone Walling Workshop English Harbour Newfoundland

2011-07-20T11:08:00.001-04:00

Since my arrival in English Harbour under clear blue skies three days ago, the fog has crept in and kept our dry stone walling workshop blanketed in degrees of gray. However, the enthusiasm of all six participants has been nothing less than rainbow bright. They started out on Monday brainstorming their way to a design and plan of attack to begin building the first of four corner features for a new fence around the arts centre. On Tuesday they completed a six-sided base for a stone lantern and a short length of retaining wall.

Today we’ll keep a watch out for whales. Maybe the three humpbacks that were feeding on capelin in the harbor on Monday will be back.

Summer Shower

2011-07-16T17:45:00.002-04:00

The hot workdays of the past week were relieved by a very special on-site amenity. An outdoor shower surround that I built last year was recently outfitted with hot and cold running water. After wrestling large slabs into a set of front steps for my customer I was able to strip down and rinse off before heading home at the end of the day.

Having the fresh supply of stone at my disposal, from last week’s harvesting, has been like getting a blood transfusion for the imagination. I can design with select pieces in mind. I knew when I saw the 6’x7’ slab in the jumble of stone that came off the hillside in Townshend that it was destined for this project in Dummerston.

Abundant Stone Harvest

2011-07-12T13:11:00.000-04:00

Last week’s stone gathering was harsh work in a tranquil setting. The side-hill that I harvest loose stone from is a mile into the woods up a steep trail. Until the Clark’s and I invaded the scene with loading and transport equipment it was peaceful wilderness. A working landscape, by definition, must tolerate periodic disruptions. The stone I collect from the property will keep me supplied in dry stone construction materials for two years, building things like the barbecue table I made for my friends Peter and Phyllis. Saturday evening’s cookout at their place was as delicious as the sky was dramatic.

A Wall Rebuilt

2011-07-04T08:40:00.001-04:00

Often the fatigue that sets into a stone wall over time is caused by natural conditions. This weekend I noticed a piece of wall in Eastern Massachusetts that had been disrupted by the growth of a beech tree. The decorative border wall in the yard of an old farm house was completely subsumed by the ancient monarch. The age of the tree, well over 100 years, suggested that the wall is of an even greater age. To each side of the tree the wall has stood the test of time, remaining in good condition. The tree can be forgiven for displacing the stones, it has the right of long residence.

The failure of a garden retaining wall I helped Chuck Eblacker rebuild in Rochester, New York last week had no such excuse. It was caused by the builders of the wall less than six years ago. The unnecessary addition of a plastic drain line and the use of gravel within the wall created the conditions that ruined it. The gravel and stones slumped and slid off the piping. There was barely 8” of stone along the face of the wall in front of the drain line; not enough mass to hold back the weight of material behind.

We stripped out everything and made a new, larger footing using the gravel that had been sandwiched into the original construction. The stones were reused and mixed in with ten tons of additional wall stone.

Ill-conceived and insubstantial stone work is a stain on the reputation of the craft. Its only value is comparative. Only a dry stone wall built with high standards will stand strong and last long.

Sky Watch

2011-06-28T08:45:00.003-04:00

Thanks to Sunny Wieler from Ireland for the mention of Sky Watch on his recent stargazing in the garden article - and for telling me about these beautifully hand crafted garden telescopes - also from Vermont.

Thinking in Clay

2011-06-22T21:30:00.001-04:00

The road to a project’s completion is often a long and winding one. That’s why it’s worth taking time along the way to enjoy the view. The installation I’ll be doing at TICKON in Denmark later this summer began last year with an invitation from the art park to submit a proposal. Over the months, conversations and emails have taken the proposal through a series of development where I now feel that all the parts are in place to begin the work.

The piece will be situated in a grove of towering beech trees. The stone will be collected from farm field cast-off piles. The final design has moved from an initial concept that combined a cylindrical form made of stone with a spiral shape made of timbers, to a low parallelogram enclosure containing a web of pentagonal and triangular hollows.

Making a 3-D sketch in clay allows me to engage in a building process as I design. It informs the design in a different way than a 2-D drawing would. I find I need the physical activity of making shapes and forming spaces to fully develop and understand a design. The small-scale building process helps me see how the full-scale piece can be realized.

This August I travel to Langeland to begin work on the newest addition to TICKON’s environmental art park. In the meantime, I’ll be helping Chuck Eblacker on a project in Rochester, New York, building a front stoop on a log cabin in Dummerston, Vermont and teaching two weeks of stone workshops in Newfoundland, Canada. Summer is here. It’s the busy season for working on the land.

Neo Ancient Dolmen

2011-06-18T08:22:00.002-04:00

Dolmen in Dummerston

Dolmen in Denmark

5,000 years ago, in the land that is now Denmark, the dead were entombed in boulder chambers. Dolmens, as they are known to archaeologists, were once covered with earth mounds. Exposed by erosion and excavation, many are now visible on the landscape. I’m intrigued by these constructions. A three-boulder base supports a one-boulder roof. The simplest of forms proves to be the strongest and most durable. Dolmens, like the ones at Lindeskov, were reused over many centuries.

Yesterday I constructed a non-commissioned, neo-ancient dolmen in the stone yard - pictured above. It’s made from boulders gathered from the property. The base stones are seated in gravel, 12” below grade. The top stone weighs one ton.

Vermont Public Radio Interview

2011-06-18T06:47:00.002-04:00

Earlier this week I was interviewed on Vermont Public Radio as part of a series on Vermont artists. Here is a link to a podcast of the interview. And here is the link to the interview in the VPR archives. Scroll down for a photo gallery of my work.

A Single Stone

2011-06-17T07:13:00.001-04:00

Sometimes a single stone is just too big to lift with available equipment. A simple solution is to turn it into two. A rotary hammer armed with a masonry bit will drill six, ⅝” holes in less than ten minutes. Wedge and shim sets are tapped into the holes until a seam opens and the stone pops apart.

2011-06-16T10:15:00.000-04:00

My interview on Vermont Public Radio is airing at noon today - most likely after the segment on under-age drinking parties.

Jane Lindholm visited me at work in Dummerston last week for a feature on this month's installment in Vermont Edition's "Visiting Artists" series. Click on VPR's Vermont Edition for more info.

Wiggle Wall

2011-06-15T09:19:00.000-04:00

This week I put in a couple days on a “subscription” wall. Every year the customer asks me to add another six yards to its length. They budget a set amount per year for stone work and I schedule it as I wish. This is the third year for this 2’x2’ construction. It follows the circuitous lawn edge at the brink of an embankment. The top line of the wall follows the undulant topography of the lawn. The longer it grows the wigglier it gets.

The Stone Trust Open House

2011-06-09T11:17:00.001-04:00

The Stone Trust wraps up its spring season of dry stone walling activities with an open house this Sunday from 1-4 at Scott Farm. It’s been a productive first year for the organization, with a successful slate of volunteer days, workshops, DSWA tests, pre-test trainings and a two-day Instructor’s course. Anyone and everyone with an interest in preserving and advancing the art and craft of dry stone walling is invited to attend. There will be lemonade, cookies and casual conversation. Please stop by the 1862 barn to say hi, meet members of the board of directors and see what a first-class, four-season, training and testing centre looks like.

Workshop: Art and the Working Landscape: Shaping our Environment Today

2011-06-07T15:30:00.000-04:00

Cultivated land is a handmade environment. In centuries past, the face of Newfoundland was shaped by domestic agricultural activity. While many of the stone walls built during those times have lost their stature as fences, their presence remains a defining characteristic of the land. The close attention that farmers paid to their surroundings is comparable to the awareness artists bring to their work. Dry stone construction is a logical medium of expression for an artist working in the landscape.

I will be returning to English Harbour for two different five-day workshops in July. Participants will learn and practice time-honored dry stone walling skills in a stunningly beautiful setting. Instruction will be offered on the history, design, tools and techniques of dry stone construction. Each workshop will include sketching on site, making and setting up wall profile guides, sorting stone according to best practices, preparing foundations, covering joints and laying stones into the wall. In the practice of dry stone walling, comprehension is gained through repetition. Coherence of place is recognizable in the repetition of elements, textures and colors present in the environment. Investigations of local cultural patterns on the land, wildlife habitats and environmental cycles invite deeper study into their order and pattern. Workshop participants will be encouraged to translate their perceptions into artistic expressions crafted in stone. One day of both workshops will be dedicated to environmental art making.

Two 5-day workshops, weeks of July 18 and 25th, 2011.

Please contact the English Harbour Arts Centre, Newfoundland, Canada for details and to register.

In addition, I will conduct a Level 1 DSWA Certification Scheme Test on Sunday July 24, 8 am - 4 pm if there is interest. Please contact the DSWA for information.

Please note! Applications for examination (“Overseas” Test Application) together with the appropriate Registration Fee of 25 British Pounds must be lodged directly with DSWA(GB) headquarters no later than 6 weeks prior to the test date.

Dry Stone Walling Workshop Scheduled for October 22, 2011

2011-06-05T09:31:00.000-04:00

The one and only Dave Goulder, master craftsman and folk musician

Wanted to alert you all to an upcoming outdoor one-day workshop in Dummerston, Vermont. Details below. Please contact The STONE Trust for information and to register.

Saturday, October 22, 2011 (One-day Workshop)
October 22, 2011
9 am-3:30 pm
Instructors: Dave Goulder and Dan Snow
Location: Dummerston Hiking Trail, Dummerston Center
Workshop scope: Learn basic dry stone walling skills under the direction of two DSWA Mastercraftsmen. Dave Goulder, from Scotland, and Dummerston resident Dan Snow. They will instruct this one day workshop in the rebuilding of an old stone fence. Building a gate-end and set of steps will also be included.
Note: For this workshop, enrollment is limited to ten participants. First come, first served.
Cost: $150
To register: contact Zon Eastes, 802.380.9550, zoneastes@thestonetrust.org

The Kerava Art Museum - Reikaa Avaruudessa

2011-05-30T07:35:00.001-04:00

The trees in the parks of Helsinki were beginning to show signs of awakening from their winter sleep when I arrived here early May. Today, my last day in Finland on this trip, they are flush with lush green leaves. I leave behind good friends, old and new. It’s been an exciting few weeks of city life. The Kerava Art Museum exhibition is now open to the public until August 28 when the artist’s pieces will be dismantled and moved, or recycled.

I’m pleased with the way my two works came out. ‘L.E.M.’ is the small stone and steel construction displayed inside the museum in partnership with Tristan Hamel’s silk-paper globe. Outside, ‘Wishing Wells’ invites museum-goers and passer-by’s to walk through and around its canyons and cavities.

Hole in the Universe

2011-05-29T02:09:00.000-04:00

Below is the gist of my presentation for the artist’s seminar that preceded the opening of the show at Kerava Art Museum yesterday.

The title and theme for this exhibition is ‘Hole in the Universe’. I don’t know how it sounds in Finnish but the word ‘hole’, in English, can be heard as ‘whole’; with a ‘w’. So the title, when spoken, can be interpreted in two ways. Both are interesting concepts to ponder, and respond to by making art. A hole can be a void, a container or a passage way. To become whole in the universe, complete in mind, body and soul, is perhaps the ultimate artists’ quest.

The question posed to us by Markku Hakuri for this seminar is “Why am I an artist?” For me the answer is easy and simple so I’ll respond at the end of my talk. Also, my answer will require some background information, a few billion years worth, in fact. But before getting to that I have a question of my own which I’d like your help in trying to answer. “When and how am I an artist?” I would very much like to have a list of thoughts, words and deeds that when practiced define being an artist. I think it would be a very useful list for artists to refer to, especially when non-artists ask us what we do. Artists create art, that’s obvious, but what about when we’re not actually “in action”, are we still being artists? Is it a 24/7 occupation or are we allowed time off for good behavior. If it is a calling rather than a job, then it begins to sound like an issue of faith; being an artist. It defines our life, and not just our work.

Other fields of interest and devotion have clear statements of purpose. When my stone mason friend, Sonam Lama, was a boy in Tibet he was sent to the monastery to become a monk. When I asked him about being Buddhist he explained that he was not Buddhist, that he ‘tries’ to be Buddhist. To BE Buddhist one would be like Buddha, or in his words, “lighted”. As a follower of Buddha, he tries to practice the 108 things that when done in concert create the conditions for enlightenment. Maybe we need a list of thoughts and actions for our artist’s creed. 108 would be a bit much, maybe just a handful will do. The type of words I’m thinking of should be, as Walt Whitman instructed himself in making final revisions to his poem, Leaves of Grass, “perfectly clear with positive purpose”.

(At this point in the talk the audience joined the discussion and offered four words for the list: curiosity, courage, happiness and freedom.)

One way to look at the question, ‘Why am I an artist’ is to reduce it to its essence; ‘Why am I?’. I have my suspicions about that and, not surprisingly, they involve rocks.

After reading Robert Hazen’s study, "Mineral Evolution," published in the American Mineralogist, the science writer Robert Krulwich summed up the deep and tightly twined connection between rocks and life. In his NPR article Krulwich explains that if we go back 13 billion years, we find that the universe began with a burst of energy, then a cooling, then gravity took over and we got stars. Eventually those stars began to die by blowing up in a blaze of intense heat. And with that the universe got its first 12 or so minerals including carbon and nitrogen; all coming from the dust of dead stars.

Then gravity pulled the dust together, forming asteroids. Those asteroids collided, baby planets formed, became bigger planets, then planets with plate tectonics pulled rocks on the surface down under, melting them, compressing them. By 10 billion years after creation the number of minerals had grown to about 1,500, including topaz, feldspar and iron.

Once our atmosphere had enough oxygen to create rust, it combined with organic chemicals and made creatures with shells and bones. Those creatures died and became rocks. Coral reefs are an example of underwater structures made from calcium carbonate secreted by tiny marine animals. Reefs break down into sediment and decompose to carbon dioxide which gives rise to volcanoes. Volcanic ash spewed on the earth’s surface makes fertile ground for plants to grow.

The food we eat gives us the minerals we need to live. So we need minerals, and minerals need us. The presence of life on Earth nearly tripled the rock population. The more life there is, the more rocks there are. There are now over 4,000 different minerals.

My take-away from Robert Krulwich’s article is that “I am” because rocks invented me, and all other living things, in order to multiply. I’m just future compost for a system of mineral propagation created by rocks billions of years ago. This viewpoint certainly elevates rocks to a new high in the order of things. Or, I can look at “Why I am” from a different angle, one that offers some hope for an existence on earth that is whole in mind, body and spirit. Walt Whitman saw it this way in his poem “Song of Myself”-

“...And there is no object so soft but it makes a hub for the wheeled universe,
And any man or woman shall stand cool and supercilious before a million universes.”

Which brings me to the question of “Why am I an artist?”. I’ll let Walt Whitman answer for me here, as well. He describes best the way I feel about making art in the environment.

“Earth! you seem to look for something at my hands.”

What's Love Got To Do With It?

2011-05-22T13:42:00.000-04:00

I recently received a request for an interview from garden writer Hazel Sillver for an upcoming feature on stone walls and stone art for the September issue of Homes&Gardens (UK) magazine. Thought I'd share her questions and my responses.

Q: Why do you work with dry stone? What do you love about it?
A: As Tina Turner sings, “What’s love got to do with it?” I wouldn’t put stone in the category of things I love. It’s a practical medium for working in the outdoors. In the circles I travel, stone is plentiful and relatively inexpensive as a building material. It stores well; no need to protect it from the elements. Dry stone is a basic construction method. One material combined with one skill set and a few hand tools is all that’s needed to begin a project. For all it’s simplicity the possibilities for dry stone are endless.

Q: Aesthetically, what effect do dry stone structures have on a garden?
A: If the colors and patterns of the plantings are the picture, then stone structures are the picture frame. They can be minimal or gilded, dominating or retiring. Dry stone features are more or less visible depending on the season but they remain a steady presence at all times of the year in the garden.

Q: How could a dry stone wall be made more ornamental and/or more contemporary?
A: The techniques used to set stones in relation to one another can be varied. The sizes and shapes of the stones in any supply are often the final determining factor in the design of a dry stone structure. The supply limits the possibilities, focusing the process of design on what is doable. Limits actually increase the potential for a successful outcome. By first assessing the qualities of the available stone, a more ornamental or contemporary design might be considered and pursued.

Q: Other than traditional walling and small sculptures, how can dry stone be used to create interesting structures / landmarks in the garden?
A: Dry stone can be set in a more horizontal aspect to create a relief or mosaic. A dry stream is an example of a relief. A labyrinth is an example of a mosaic. It can be fashioned into furniture, such as tables and benches.

Q: Which is your favorite type of stone and why?
A: Every type of stone offers possibilities to create. The key is to recognize the assets and liabilities of each. By working around their weaknesses and taking advantage of their finer qualities every stone type can be appreciated and used to best effect.

Art Making: Process Practice Patience

2011-05-18T04:06:00.000-04:00

As the opening of the exhibition, “Hole in the Universe”, on May 27th will show, there are many ways to interpret the term “Environmental Art”. Artists from six countries are now busy preparing their works inside Kerava Art Museum. I’m outside on the grounds of the museum putting together my piece. I take environmental art as literally being in, of, and for the environment. The environment being mainly, but not exclusively, our natural surroundings.

Nature has its rules and I respect them in my art making but I’m also obliged to take risks and test limits as an artist. Therefore I’m always taking clues from my immediate surroundings. I try to embrace and engage them in the moment. To make art is to work in a fluid state of existence, even when the materials are stone.

I think of art making in terms of the “3 P’s”; process, practice and patience. The process includes people, places, things and ideas. Developing an understanding of all of the possibility and potential, and constantly updating it, is process. Practice is the repetition of skills that illustrate the underlying principles and philosophy of the work of art. Patience is what keeps the practice and process going when things don’t go as planned. Limits are discovered when surpassed. Risks invite failures. Art making without surprises is only self-imposed drudgery.

Last Monday morning, after a week of working on the Kerava piece, a large section of the highest cone collapsed all around me. It burst open in a slow motion cascade, spilling onto the lawn. More than a day’s effort melted before my eyes. The fear I had that I was building beyond the limits of the material; materialized. The good thing was that I now knew the structural limitations of my stockpile of small smooth stones. The disappointment in losing a portion of the work was soon replaced with a new energy toward the piece. The piece itself had begun to be a player in the process.

Kerava Art Museum Opening Invitation

2011-05-16T00:49:00.001-04:00

You are cordially invited!

Exhibition Opening Friday 27 May 2011

5 - 7 PM

Info from the Kerava Art Museum website:

HOLE IN THE UNIVERSE
May 27 - August 28, 2011
The exhibition, brought to being by sculptor and professor of Environmental Art Markku Hakuri, focuses on the human and the surrounding universe poetically through surprising spatial experiences. On this trip Hakuri has invited his colleagues, renowned environmental artists Juliane Stiegele from Germany, Daniel Snow from the United States and Michal Cimala from the Czech Republic. A Hole in the Universe is born when the world is nudged off its usual orbit and when it is time to see and understand differently.
The exhibition artists are: Pilar Andeyro, Riikka Aresalo, Scott Andrew Elliott, Markku Hakuri, Tristan Hamel, Roel Meijs, Salla Salin, Dan Snow and Juliane Stiegele.

Public seminar on Friday 27th of May from 12 o'clock to 4 pm. Why do I make art? Why do I make it the way I do? Artists of the exhibition describe their work and answer questions from the audience. Ossi Naukkarinen, Doctor of philosophy and Head of research of the Art Department at Aalto University School of Art and Design, is the seminar's chairman. The seminar is free of charge. Further information: jenni.meskus@kerava.fi or by phone 040-318 3435.

Kerava Art Museum - Dry Stone Sculpture Emerging

2011-05-15T01:44:00.000-04:00

The dry stone sculpture rising out of the lawn outside Kerava Art Museum is beginning to attract local attention. People on their way to work are slowing down as they pass. Some stop and ask what’s happening. I learned through a student interpreter that one fellow said he liked seeing natural stone being used, that every one has a unique and beautiful shape.

The people of Finland are surrounded by rock. Even in central Helsinki, bedrock outcrops are everywhere. Stone is only surpassed by forest and water in defining the nature of the landscape, and the psyche of the Finns.

On Thursday and Friday two groups of art students joined me in the construction. Two shapes are complete and three more are half way out of the ground.

Sculpture Making at Kerava Art Museum

2011-05-11T15:59:00.001-04:00

The first full day of sculpture making at Kerava Art Museum brought one form to completion. Because this is a temporary exhibit, I’m building directly on the lawn grass. The granite pebbles and cobbles are easy to handle and a nice change of pace from heavy lifting, even though I do have to spend most of the day on my knees. Their smoothness makes them a bit slippery. I wouldn’t recommend using them this way for a permanent construction. This type of arrangement is like making a big ring cake out of small potatoes.

Thanks to students Lauri, Hannah and Iisa for set-up assistance. And to Jenni M. for stone shifting.

Sourcing Stone in Finland

2011-05-09T15:27:00.001-04:00

Yesterday, Professor Markku Hakuri took me for a train and bus ride to check out the site for my installation at Kerava Art Museum. This morning I went ten miles outside of Helsinki to a look at gravel pit. A ‘tailings’ pile I found there has the right ingredients for making a piece that combines twelve hollow cones into a mound shape. Because a group of university art students will be helping me, it’s important that the stones be easily shifted and lifted by hand, and the cones and mound be definable with lines and guide frames. This afternoon I made a 3-D sketch in clay of the design I’ve been working on in my head for the past couple of days.

Firewood Towers

2011-05-04T22:09:00.000-04:00

To be an effective dry stone waller one needs to be an efficient materials manager. An abundance of stone must be gathered, transported, shifted and lifted before a wall comes to completion. Handling stone more than necessary wastes time, and more importantly, personal energy.

The lessons I’ve learned in managing stone have been valuable in other areas of life. Putting up firewood is a good example. Rather than stacking wood to season I scoop it up and drop it by the loader bucket-full into a wire cage. In less than an hour of machine time I can turn a 2-cord pile of fresh-split wood into neat, drying towers. With some roll-plastic on top to keep the rain off, the wood air-dries over the summer months and is ready to burn by autumn.

Each tower is made from two reinforcing sheets. “Resheets” are 5’x10’ sections of wire mesh, customarily used in concrete work. They’re held together with zip ties.

Sky Watch

2011-05-03T06:42:00.002-04:00

The lead up to most of my projects can take months of correspondence and cogitation. That’s alright with me because it allows time for my dreams and desires to grow and wither, or grow and flourish, as they will, before the first stone is picked up and put down. Now and then, an offer to do a project will pop up and within a matter of days things start to happen. Such was the case with this construction, begun yesterday and completed today.

The stones, Monkton quartzite and Panton limestone, were leftovers from masonry work previously done on the home. The site was the back yard with a wide view of the Champlain Valley. The customer’s wish was to have a place to sit for stargazing.

I designed the shape and size of the construction based on the available materials. No drawing was made, I just imagined the piece in my head and went to work. First, I removed the sod and topsoil. Crushed stone was shoveled in for a footing. I wheel-barrowed the stone to the site and had the construction up a foot by the end of the day. On the second day I built up the seat and back, picked up after myself, and was home by suppertime.

Thanks to Karen and Mike L. for having me over to Addison County.

DSWA Test Day in Vermont

2011-05-01T09:49:00.000-04:00

If you went looking for a bunch of guys building stone walls you probably wouldn’t start under an old barn, but that’s where you would have found them today in Dummerston, Vermont. The former milking parlor at Scott Farm has been transformed into a top-notch training and testing site. Eight wallers from as far north as Minnesota and as far south as North Carolina were taking their Level 1 and 2, Dry Stone Walling Association of Great Britain, certification tests.

Thanks to the vision and hard work of Jared F. and other volunteers, the first test day in the new facility was a great success. Michael W. and I served as examiners for Dan G., Peter W., Daniel P., Joshua B., Bill B., Mark J., Dale M., and T.J. M.’s stints. The next session is scheduled for October 23 when Dave G. from Scotland will be the guest examiner.

The Stone Fence at the Eighth Hole

2011-04-23T12:22:00.001-04:00

Work on the 8th hole stone fence at Cochecho Country Club in Dover, New Hampshire ended on a bright note yesterday with sunny skies. The golfers were out in droves. It will be interesting to see how the new wall becomes part of course play. A ball that hits the wall will ricochet toward the green instead of bounding, as it would have previously, into the rough. In any case, Brian and I are happy to be out of the line of fire from long drives gone astray.

Thanks again to Tony P. for doing the stone plucking while we did the plopping. And for his careful equipment operation in guiding the big ones onto the wall.

We will miss the antics of Miss Dursey, the border collie. Each day she would have us throw a tennis ball for her to fetch until deciding she could do the job better herself, at which point she took the ball to the pond, dropped it in the water, watched it float out a bit and then jumped in and swam out to retrieve it. She practiced this routine over and over, perfectly happy to entertain herself for most of the day.

Today, back home in Vermont, the weather is a different story. An inch of snow on the ground and more falling. Happy Easter everyone!

A Day at Green Mountain College

2011-04-22T07:07:00.000-04:00

It’s not every school where you can see chickens free-ranging on the lacrosse field during a practice, but Green Mountain College isn’t every school. During a recent visit to Poultney, Vermont to lecture and instruct a walling workshop at the college I discovered a vibrant educational community that’s leading the way in environmental studies. The eight students I worked with were a ready and willing group. They quickly grasped the concepts and principles of dry stone wall construction and jumped right into building. By the end of the afternoon they had laid up a 24 foot long section of retaining wall using slate cut-offs from a local quarry/fabricator.

It was a treat for me to meet faculty and students at Green Mountain. My gratitude to professors Joseph Markowski for bringing me to the campus as a guest lecturer, Lucas Brown for orchestrating logistics of the workshop and to Philip Ackerman-Leist for his support in bringing the day to fruition. To Carley W., Sarah G., Cody G., Tomer K., Nate S., Nate C., Cris B. and Kris S., thanks for your team work and good spirits.

Stone Hunting

2011-04-19T06:26:00.000-04:00

After the snow has gone and before the leaves bud out there’s a pause between seasons that’s just right for exploring the woods. Because the forest floor litter has yet to rebound from its recent compaction from the weight of snow, land shapes are clearly defined. Ancient trees have left evidence of their former stature in the earth pillows and cradles created by their toppling and uprooting. Dark, moist ledge outcrops and loose stone screes stand out on dry slopes. Stone fences, once lining high meadows, now stand only as a testament to a bygone sheep farmer’s singular tenacity.

Today I took inventory of stone resources I can employ in upcoming projects. My supply is abundant but difficult to access due to its remote location. I’ll return in high summer with equipment to do some harvesting. The underbrush will be thick, the stones concealed. I’ll have to remember this day, the places I’ve been and the things I’ve seen. There’s one memory that’s sure to last. A glossy-coated black bear galloped across the trail in front of me. Up a steep hillside it scampered without breaking stride until pausing briefly to peer through the trees at the invader of its woods.

A Galloway Wall in Dover

2011-04-17T08:51:00.002-04:00

An inch of rain isn’t the best way to start a new job, but that’s what I got Wednesday in Dover, New Hampshire where I was beginning construction at a golf course. The original fence ran alongside of an old town road. Its remnants had been pulled down by the course maintenance crew and a new footing established away from the tree line. By Thursday afternoon the clouds lifted and the wind began to dry the mud. Friday was beautifully sunny.

The style of walling I’ve chosen for this construction is best known as “Galloway”, after the area in southwestern Scotland where it’s most common. Small stone ‘doubling’ is used for the first two or three courses and then its ‘singling’ from there to the top.

Thanks to Brian F. and Tony P. for persevering. If we didn’t work in the rain we wouldn’t know how good we have it under clear skies.