stonewall — Stories — DAN SNOW STONEWORKS

DAN SNOW STONEWORKS

Posts tagged stonewall

The Odeon Amphitheater

The Odeon Amphitheater

Over the years, experience taught me that not all my ideas work, but that the most risky ones, when they did, turned out to be the most rewarding. If I wanted the Odeon to be something special, I had to have faith. Architectural details from the church have informed the Odeon’s design. A seating arrangement of granite slabs, their surfaces speckled with iridescent mica like the church’s facade, are set atop retaining walls built in a matrix style that emulates that of faceted, stained-glass windows.

Dry Stone Tour: Hidden in the Hills

Dry Stone Tour: Hidden in the Hills

The Stone Trust leads a tour of notable stone walls and other dry stone structures as part of BMAC’s “Hidden in the Hills” series. The tour will begin and end at The Stone Trust, located at Scott Farm in Dummerston, Vermont. Participants will begin with a short walking tour at The Stone Trust, followed by a guided tour of nearby stone structures. Amy-Louise Pfeffer, Executive Director of The Stone Trust, and I will host the event. Come and enjoy.

Walling Workshops at The Stone Trust

Walling Workshops at The Stone Trust

The recent 2-Day Cheek Rebuild workshop that I instructed saw four enthusiastic participants complete their own free-standing cheekend, achieving personal satisfaction from work well done, and a certificate from The Stone Trust, to boot! Congrats to Darrin, Lou, David and Jonny for rising to the challenge.

Stone Stitches Past to Present

Stone Stitches Past to Present

Craft skills typically used for making something new are also practiced to repair something old. Many a waller has cut their teeth in the trade by rebuilding broken gaps in old fence lines. Mending a section of dilapidated, dry stone wall is a form of stitchery, too. When done with respect for what's been accomplished by others in the past, repairs can feel like a partnership that's taken place over centuries.

Recess in the School of Hard Rocks

Recess in the School of Hard Rocks

Hours and days of grinding labor culminate in a finished structure but somehow it’s the intermissions in the process that are remembered, the many cracks of light that shine through the monolith of physical exertion that is dry stone walling.

Working Stone Together

Working Stone Together

Every project has the treasure of time locked inside. The key to spending it wisely is to embrace the unknowns. Seek out and dwell on every moment’s mystery and the day’s toil will pass in a flash.

Dry Stone, Dry Stone Walling, Stone, GardenDan SnowDecember 28, 2021dan snow, dan snow stone, dan snow art, dan snow craft, dan snow artworks, dan snow stoneworks, stone, stonework, stoneworker, stoneworks, stonewall, dry stone, dry stone wall, dry stone walling, dry stone constructions, dry stone sculpture, dry stone art, free stone, art, artist, sculpture, sculptor, handcraft, handcrafter, art worker, craft, land art, contemporary art, art in nature, nature, nature art, art installation, outdoor art, in the company of stone, listening to stone, the solitary stoneworker, willowbank, willowbank walls, charlotte vermont, vermont, Church Hill Landscapes, Birdseye Builders, Miranda Brooks Landscape Design, G.P. Schafer Architect, Whitney Brown, Joe Dinwiddie, Gabriel Dark, Jared Flynn, Curtis Gray, Bryce Hollingsworth, Dan Morales-Walsh, Dave Inman, Black River Quarries, Allstone Wallstone

A Wander Back In Time Imaginable

A Wander Back In Time Imaginable

I was invited to talk to the assembled guests about the built landscape. We led the group through the lush gardens, pausing to tell stories and answer questions. Any puzzlement on the faces of the visitors was completely understandable. Half of what we described was fiction; a historical ruse amplified by the very real existence of the dry stone curiosities I constructed there.

A Dusty Stone Ensemble: Team Rockus in Vermont

A Dusty Stone Ensemble: Team Rockus in Vermont

By expanding my repertoire to include other skilled practitioners of the craft I can now see how there’s nothing lost and much to be gained. The satisfaction of successfully completing a piece is shared by all, without any one having to do it all.

Dry Stone Walling, Dry Stone, Garden, StoneDan SnowAugust 5, 2021dan snow, dan snow stone, dan snow art, dan snow craft, dan snow artworks, dan snow stoneworks, stone, stonework, stoneworker, stoneworks, stonewall, dry stone, dry stone wall, dry stone walling, dry stone constructions, dry stone sculpture, dry stone art, free stone, art, artist, sculpture, sculptor, handcraft, handcrafter, art worker, craft, land art, contemporary art, art in nature, nature, nature art, art installation, outdoor art, in the company of stone, listening to stone, the solitary stoneworker, willowbank, willowbank walls, church hill landscapes, birdseye, whitney brownstone, whitney brown, dry stone joe, joe dinwiddie, vtstone, jared flynn, gabriel dark, darkstone new england, stonebear mason, bryce hollingsworth, curtis-gray-stonemason, maine stone scapes, dan morales-walsh, dave inman, vermont

Working with Stone: A Hammer and a Horse

Working with Stone: A Hammer and a Horse

Building with dry stone is the act of moving bits of rock from one spot to another. Not much new, physically, happens to the material, but the builder’s psychic space gets charged with fresh energy all day long. Its intensity and positivity define the total experience.

Imagining in Stone

Imagining in Stone

Since I’ve only been on the receiving end of interview questions I don’t know how they’re properly crafted but I can tell when they have been. A good interviewer opens a door and asks the subject to step into their own world. I was pleased to be asked by Tom Christopher to be interviewed for his podcast Growing Greener.

Red Barn Stone Walls

Red Barn Stone Walls

Generations of Vermont farmers have picked stones from their fields, to, in Robert Frost’s words, “subdue the growth of earth to grass.” In the 20th century, the diesel-powered bulldozer unearthed and shoved boulders up into huge, mid-field heaps. Three such mounds provided the stone for the walls I recently completed around the Big Red Barn in Winhall Hollow.

Trilitho Sculpture and Rock Scramble

Trilitho Sculpture and Rock Scramble

If the rock scramble and stone sculpture I recently constructed for East End Park in Woodstock, Vermont looks a little like it could have been the result of coincidental events visited on the landscape, then I’ve succeeded in realizing my dream for it.

Fortified Rock Slope

Fortified Rock Slope

It was a simple enough question. How will excavation equipment get to the front of the house? That was the location of the intended project, but because of the side-hill terrain, it was a case of “you can’t get there from here.”

Seven Sisters Surround Wall

Seven Sisters Surround Wall

The Carving Studio and Sculpture Center in Rutland, Vermont is host to a sculpture park chock-full of outdoor delights. The dry stone wall built by participants from a workshop I instructed there in 2019 became the lead-in to a circular wall surround.

Stone Wall History In The Re-Making

Stone Wall History In The Re-Making

A new client had a thorny issue in the form of a failing structure in a problematic location on their property. The home, a mid-century modern perched on a small plateau on the western flank of Mt. Peg in Woodstock, Vermont relied on a stone wall to retain a yard and garden. Without it, stepping out the front door would have put the homeowner back in time to when the site was a launch pad for the community toboggan run.

Art for Earth

Art for Earth

Art is the neutral, but fertile ground that tolerance grows in. By letting our true nature play itself out through the imagination, maybe we can do ourselves some good and do less harm to the place we call home. We can breathe easy, and allow Earth to do likewise.

Stoneworks Spring Newsletter

Stoneworks Spring Newsletter

The world has gone aswirl in recent weeks, turning upside down and sideways like the colored bits inside a kaleidoscope. In these uncertain times, stay connected with hand-crafting traditions. Reach for the next best grip by trusting in the reality communicated through the fingertips. It links directly to the heart and mind with no translation required. Take care, and when you can, get some stone in your hands.

The Rock Shelter

The Rock Shelter

Rock Shelter is an environmental artwork that pays tribute to the materials it’s made from and the place it resides. The sculpture stands unpretentiously on the verge of a Vermont hayfield; a solitary figure with its back to the wind and face lifted to the low winter sun. The only perceivable change in the work since its creation is the mottled patina that’s grown over it.