A few months back, I prepared a submission for a national call to artists. I responded to the City of Palo Alto’s Request For Qualifications (RFQ) and was chosen as a finalist for creating an artwork at the city’s newly reconfigured public golf course. Two other artists and I were commissioned to create proposals. My plan was to build an environmental art piece titled, “Ground Swell 12”.
Read MoreThe creation of a low, curving wall that leads the way up a hill to the newly restored St. Patrick’s church will be the goal of a dry stone walling workshop, July 19-20, in Woody Point, Newfoundland. Ken Tuach, a Level 3 DSWA craftsman, has asked me to join him in presenting the workshop to area stone enthusiasts. This two-day workshop will offer a challenge to beginners and improvers, alike. Workshop participants will be building a short retaining wall on a gentle slope. With a low student-teacher ratio, participants will learn the best practices and techniques for dry stone walling.
Read MoreWhile my work days have been spent in solitary seclusion, my evenings have been quite sociable. The town of Norfolk hosts Yale University’s special summer art program, located on the Stoeckel estate. Selected colleges from across the country and the world are invited to nominate candidates, enrolled as juniors, for fellowships in the six-week program. Sam Messer, the program director, visited the worksite and invited me to join the group for meals, lectures and figure drawing. It’s been over forty years since I held a charcoal stick in Audrey Flack’s drawing class at Pratt Institute. It was great fun to try my hand at it, again.
Read MoreThe second time I was invited to teach in Finland, the environmental art class was part of a seminar in Koli National Park. The theme for the Sixth International Conference on Environmental Aesthetics was “Stone.” Presentations were made by a Swiss geologist, a Japanese dry-garden builder and a modern dance troupe that performed at a soapstone quarry. Besides presenting a slide talk at the conference I had a group of university students for the week to make environmental art in the Finnish countryside. My description (below) of one of their projects will be included in Site or Place.
Read MoreDoing good to the environment is not humankind’s long suit. There are precious few ways for us to interact with our natural surroundings that have a positive impact. That’s why it’s important to approach the making of art out-of-doors, sideways. It should not be difficult for nature to deflect or absorb the making of art in its realm.
Read MoreMuch of the art and architecture of ancient cultures was funerary. The Egyptian pyramids and the Taj Mahal, for example, are tombs. Artistic creations such as The Terracotta Army of the Qin Emperor and large pieces of pottery that marked Early Greek burials were artistic creations separate from the venerated human remains. Works I’ve done recently fall into both categories.
Read MoreOver time, I’ve expanded the walling work that’s been the backbone on my career to include dry stone sculpture and environmental art. The designs typically take dry stone techniques and traditions into new territory. A concept will be explored through the lens of what’s known to have worked in the past. The core of a design is always some borrowed understanding. It might be my own knowledge gained from a previous project, or, it may be the experience of others made intelligible through observation and study. Design is applied comprehension. The creation of an art piece begins with fabrication and ends with installation.
Read MoreThe stone globe I built in 1983 had become timeworn. The hollow construction cracked open under the strain of carrying its own heft for thirty years. Barbara and Ernie commissioned the original. Their daughter, Nicole, asked me to bring it back to its former glory. In the intervening years I’ve laid up hundreds of dry stone constructions. I like to think I’ve learned a new thing or two along the way. The process of rebuilding the ball taught me that I both have, and haven’t.
Read MoreWhile I was in Newfoundland, ET, John, Andy, and the rest of the crew were making a full size mockup of the three-stone piece that will soon be installed on Hogpen Hill. The “inflatable stones,” as ET refers to them, are made from steel frames sheathed in plastic shrink-wrap. Yesterday the mockup took flight, with the aid of the excavator bucket, around the field seeking a site for the permanent installation.
Read MoreHere’s a little secret about building a dry stone wall on a busy construction site: work on the holiday. I spent the Memorial Day weekend constructing a seating wall for the Hall Art Foundation in Reading, Vermont. While packs of touring motorcyclists occasionally rumbled past on Route 106, bird song was the predominant sound track. No distractions from the other contractors, who are busy there on the weekdays, meant I could concentrate on the task at hand. I built two sections of wall beside one of the galleries at Vermont’s newest art museum.
Read MoreOver the past few months I’ve been a guest speaker and adviser to senior students in the architecture department. Their thesis project was to develop a program, and design the buildings and grounds for The Water House, a destination spa and environmental education center being built in western Massachusetts. The studio was sponsored by the New England distributor of Marvin windows, A.W. Hastings. Prizes were offered to the top three designs, judged by me and and a dozen other landscape professionals and regional architects.
Read MoreDriving on the left side of the road, rubber sink-stoppers on a chain, grilled tomatoes for breakfast; these are some of the things to get used to, quickly, when on a six-day visit to the UK. I was there to take part in the DSWA Standardization and Assessment weekend for craftsman scheme examiners. Along the way, E. and I took in two of the three legs of the “Yorkshire Sculpture Triangle.”
Read MoreGetting to work with skilled professionals under the direction of an artist who takes great joy in the making of things is pure delight for me. This week I was again on Hogpen Hill with Edward Tufte creating monumental lithic assemblages. From time to time, over the past year, I’ve gone to western Connecticut to collaborate with my stone-loving colleague. With each session, we’ve explored new ways to combine large stones with the landscape. The stones are dug up from just under the surface of the ground near the assembly points. Each “foundling” is a gift of unique shape and texture bringing with it another possibility for construction.
Read MorePaul Bowen brought his Marlboro College sculpture class students to my work site today for a flash course in dry stone walling, and an outdoor "gallery" tour of nearby installations. My normally quiet scene became very lively for an hour as the group practiced building a field-stone retaining wall.
Read MoreEdward Tufte and the crew at Hogpen Hill Farms stayed busy on the land while I was away in Newfoundland and Oregon. An exciting collection of stones greeted me on arrival this past Monday. Edward’s sketches illustrated the direction he wished to move the work. Frank, Rob, Tom and I got right into it, constructing an 14’ high A-frame shaped piece. By Wednesday we were back on the ridgeline connecting the network of dolmens built earlier in the summer with high cross-members. A three-stone colossus now frames a dramatic view of the extended works.
Read More"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 builder who recognizes, and utilizes, the unique character of stone"
- Dan Snow
My time in the eye of the stone has passed. Yesterday saw the final vertical pieces set in the Horse Eye sculpture. Phase One is complete except for two elements being carved by Chris Curtis of West Branch Gallery in Stowe, Vermont. They will be lowered into place at a later date, replacing the styrofoam mock-ups. The carved pieces will represent the “third eyelid.” The third eyelid of a horse is the lightning-fast flap that zips across from the inner corner to seal the eye shut against threat even before the lids can close. It's also the source of lubricating tears.
Read MoreYou 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.
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