The exuberant shadows of the seven participants at yesterday's dry stone wall workshop at Ferris Provincial Park near Campbellford Ontario Canada follow the contours of the stones that create the flat plane of the new wall the DSWAC students have just completed. The old wall was fallen down and had no defined planes or cohesion. The new wall has geometry and structure.
A shadow falling on a random collection of rocks can loose its definition and give no indication of who or what is making it. By contrast, random-shaped rocks arranged and fitted carefully allow the eye to recognize shades and patterns and understand what is causing the play of light and dark.
Speaking of play, the learning has been fun. All the stones and the hands have worked together well on this wall. Much of the weekend has involved the acquiring of new spatial skills where the mind has had to let the hands be involved in the discovery process and do a lot the thinking. It's a learning process that is truly 'contour-intuitive'.
