Welcome to Thinking With My Hands where a picture is worth a thousand hand-thoughts. Stone is such a lovely medium. It not only stands alone as a highly practical and beautiful building material, when used in conjunction with other things such as glass, steel and concrete it compliments them and accentuates their good qualities. The contrast between stone and more modern elements of construction make for very interesting visual effects.
Unlike these materials however, most stonework completed on a site, at any stage of the rest of a construction project, exists as the 'final product', in that the plaster, steel or wood and most of the other elements of a building project or landscape installation require covering, painting, preserving or protecting in some way before everything is finished, and this by contrast is done usually quite near to the end of a project.
Stonework, on the other 'hand', will get bumped and knocked by contractors, fireplaces and benches will get used during construction, new walls will provide support for other less finished elements of the project, and outside dry stone retaining walls will provide the finished 'base' for plantings and other landscape features, which otherwise could not be introduced on site . Any number of decorative functions are accommodated and assimilated by stone, which then humbly goes on doing the job while these things get finished, and it still goes on looking good after everything is done too.
This dry stone platform was completed yesterday. It will be the base for a special steel sculpture which after being fabricated will be installed on top. The sculpture will need to be welded together on site, secured properly, and then touched up so that it looks good.
Afterwards people will come and admire the sculpture.
