Stump Castle

Imagining this old stump in the lake is all that remains of a proud old castle that existed once in a strangely different time and on a charmingly miniature scale.

Hobbit House Workshop - a short movie

Recently, over a period of three week days and two weekends a gathering of competent dry stone enthusiasts participated in an unusual workshop. Yesterday we completed the construction phase of our version of a Hobbit House. 

Later this month tons of earth will be ramped up over the structure and then planted with sedum and green roof material so that only the door will show. The small Hobbit hole opening in the side of the hill leading into a cozy vaulted chamber will be the only thing that will be visible. 

It seems almost a shame to have taken such effort to create the exterior ring of stone hobbit hut and it then become invisible. But then again lots of characters in the book who have come in contact with the ring become invisible too.

Where do you get your stones from?

Im often asked, "Where do you get your stones from.?"

It can sometimes sound a bit of a demeaning question .

Your skill is somehow diminished.

But maybe they're right to ask that question.

Maybe it IS the stones

Maybe it WAS the paint?

Maybe Van Gogh was a mediocre painter but incredibly, had a special almost magical set of paints!

Maybe the colours took hold of the bristles of the brush, he merely needed to hang on to, as the paint guided the artist's strokes across the canvas, to create a masterpiece.

Maybe the talented people who use paint, or stones, or wood, or metal and or any other artistic material, are not amazingly skillfully but just helplessly obedient to the medium they have been chosen to work with?

Moongate Sonata

It was a full moon on the 15th of this month. It seemed appropriate to do an all-nighter, filming the moon rise and then slowly cross the sky, through the moongate we built recently during Moonstock on July 20th. 
The swiftly moving clouds help make this stop action film of night sky action quite dramatic, especially during this segment where the moon enters the middle of the screen. It was surprising too how bright the moon was that night. I hadn't thought to bring my moonglasses. 

Sun to Moon

Farley and I watched the sun fully go down yesterday through the empty moongate, as the evening light became more intense, and as the surrounding stone silhouette became more muted and subdued. 

It was visual poetry. The shape and presence of the huge 'mantle clock'- looking structure seemed impressively real in those closing moments. 

Nothing seemed rushed, or plastic. Nothing felt urgent. 

I thought, by contrast, of the energy it took to align all those tons of stones so carefully, and yet on time to finish exactly fifty years after the first moon landing. 

I was thinking not just about all the flat stones laid so energetically around the circle in the geometric radiating pattern, but the massive side shoulders, where a good number of people had clambered over the moongate for three days, toiling to add stone after stone, and thus together create the final structure, with the finale coinciding so perfectly with that memorably momentous moondate. That impressive structure is now a monument, a circular gateway arch, to peer at, and contemplate, the silent, still, peaceful energy of the moon. 

We were joined later by Brian, Georges and Reggie, in time to, and in hopes of, watching a 'nearly' (one night early) first full moon since the moongate was built, 24 days ago. We were fully expecting it to fully rise in the northeast sky last night, and so I had carefully aimed the time lapse camera in order to catch the arc of the moon travelling through ( or should I say across? ) the opening. 

To our surprise the moon rose much more south than we anticipated. The camera never got the sequence we were looking for. 
However, we will get that quintessential time lapse one evening, but it won't be this month. 

Nevertheless, with our iPhones in hand  we all gave it our best shot and wanna give you that best shot now, (below) cleverly taken by Georges, on Georges's iPhone,  with Reggie, our special effects technician, directing her iPhone in flashlight mode, for much needed inside back-lighting.

At one point in the evening, Brian and I discussed the fact that we revolve around the sun, and that similarly, the moon revolves around the earth. 

And so, in a certain light; we are the sun to the moon.

There’s a Drone Over the Moongate

Here is a short clip taken on Saturday afternoon July 20 of our nearly completed moongate, being built during our Moonstock Festival . Stay tuned. There will be more footage soon of the first full moon rising through the moongate, since we built it.

Moonstock

Sandcastle pics

Sandcastle competition

Today we’re going to be participating in the sandcastle competition being held at the Cobourg beach. We have this idea to do a spiral staircase tower. Yes it’s true, its not actually dry stone construction , it’s wet stone. And sand particles are just very small stones. But it’s just water that holds the grains together. Not mortar. Come on down if you’re in the area and watch the tower being constructed.