Two Presentations: Sourcing Stone for Dry Stone Constructions

The subject of both talks focused on three questions: What makes sturdy dry stone constructions? Where does stone come from? Where do designs come from? In the second question, I pressed the point of seeking out alternatives to what has become the most common go-to place for stone procurement: The Home and Garden Center. I encouraged audience members to investigate six potential local resources: reclaim and reuse, quarry grout, farm dumps, gravel pits, scarified ground and loose bedrock. I suggested that by hunting for the treasures that may be laying just out of sight on the fringes of mainstream retail commerce they can reduce global environmental impact, construct works that are naturally compatible with their surroundings and keep their dollars circulating in the local economy.

A Day of Stone Hunting with Dan Dunn

You have to love a state whose official rock is a petrified “burp.” Large areas of the land that is now the state of Oregon had bubbly, silicic lava periodically flowing out of it for 11 million years. The lava cooled and became buried. Water got into the hardened shell of the gas nodules and brought mineral solutions which eventually turned to agate. Today those geologic anomalies are called “thunder eggs.” Dan Dunn, owner of Alpine Boulder Company, showed me around the inventory of his stone yard. I was amazed by the size and quality of thunder egg, petrified log and basalt column specimens at his Helix, Oregon location. Dan owns or leases properties in Oregon with mineral potential. He prospects for special stones and makes them available to wholesale customers.

TICKON - Sourcing Tools, Stone and Equipment in Langeland

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.

Sourcing Stone in Finland

Yesterday, Professor Markku Hakuri took me for a train and bus ride to check out the site for my installation at the 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.