Can plumbing be art?

Is it bad art if it doesn't hold water ? 

Does it have to meet code ? 

Do artists who work with copper pipes have to be certified plumbers? 

Now let’s think about stone .

 

Assholes need to have fun too

 

Pebble Town

After seeing the destruction somebody did to the structures kids and their parents and I built, and left there intact, on the west beach, someone who obviously loved the little stone village, we had built, who came across the ruins, wrote an angry letter to the perp, scratched on to the back of a cigaret package. He left it, I think, in hope that the perp would return to see the wreckage, and reading it feel a metaphysical dagger of guilt.

Dry Scone Arch

 

Guarding The StoneZone Watch Tower

With Bow and Arrow

With a Stern Face

And with Low Gap Whiskey

 

Art is Nature is Art

The third phase of the outdoor dry stone gallery is completed. It is an unusual walled enclosure with a narrow hall, window, niches, and two sets of stairs. Found objects of iron and rock are displayed on the walls, along with other manmade works of art.  The installation combines art and natural stone, blurring the division between man's creativity and nature's. The centre 'sculpture' is a life-size, abstract, flowingly beautiful acquisition, sculpted and shaped by natural forces.  

The entire installation is called Path Present Future, and can be seen at the AOG near Frankville Ontario.

 

Richard Rhodes Book

Richard Rhodes has written the definitive book on stonework. His firsthand knowledge of the many ways stone has been used in architecture throughout the ages, as well as sharing his professional hands-on masonry experience, makes this more than a worthwhile read for anyone interested in the history of stone and also the essential properties of stone, along with the fundamentals of how to work with it.

In the book Richard tackles many subjects that sometimes get overlooked  including the many masonry principles that have been lost or ignored by modern masonry practices. Throughout the book, his love of stone and and mankind's enduring connection to it becomes inspiringly evident.

I first heard Richard speak at a symposium in Santa Fe nearly twenty five years ago. His affable and clear way of talking about my favourite subject was more than impressive. Sometime later we had a chance to meet and talk on many subjects including the importance of dry stone walling in art and landscape design.

When he shared that he was going to be in Toronto in 2004 for a conference, I invited him to come and give a presentation here in Port Hope during that same trip. He agreed, and Mary and I  rented the library and made plans to advertise the event in the local paper. I knew a number of wallers and masons who worked with stone locally who would benefit from hearing what he had to share.  

When I asked him over the phone what he would like the title of his talk to be, he replied "Revealing the Hidden Secrets of Free Masonry" 

 

I was somewhat alarmed "Can you do that? Won't that get you (and us) in a lot of trouble?"

I forget his exact answer, but he somehow assured me that it would be okay.

The evening of the presentation, Richard and I arrived at the local library to see a large crowd of mostly men waiting outside. We realized right away that there were too many people to fit in the  conference room we had booked. We quickly had to arrange a second talk for 8:30.

The talk was a riveting explanation of many of amazing properties of stone including little known subjects like quarry sap and bedding planes and the underlying principles explaining how it has been used in the past and how to create proper bonding in order to have it be more structural. He expounded cleverly on other fascinating subjects such as the golden mean, the fibonacci series and various elements of sacred geometry, showing how it all connected with stone.   

It turned out that most of the people who had come to hear Richard were in fact of the Order of Free Masons, who admitted they were there because they didn't know what the secrets were.

In reading an advanced copy of Richard's book which his publishers sent me (which will be available to order mid June) I was delighted to see that along with many new insights and colour photos of impressive stonework throughout the world, the 'secrets' he talked about that evening in Port Hope are also covered in the book.

Whether you're a free mason looking for answers or not, I heartily encourage you to get your copy of Stone - Ancient Craft to Modern Masonry and invite you to come to another presentation we are hoping to have him give in the Port Hope area this summer, 2025.

The book 8 x 10 272 page hardcover book is published by Princeton Architectural Press, and the ISBN number is 978-1-7972-3008-5  

Rhodesworks Website

 

What about a big dry stone Hall of Rock ?

What is the proper definition of a sculpture ?

Or rather, if something isn’t made by a human being, can it (say a natural rock) still be described as a sculpture . And if so, what are the parameters to determine if a boulder say, is piece of art, or just an interesting piece of rock. Maybe it only becomes a sculpture, if it’s shaped a bit by a human, or if it just natural, it has to be displayed or arranged with some sort of human intent, to understand it as art.

Here is a lovely sculpted-looking boulder. Let's move it to a special dry stone gallery we've just built, to put it on display.

 

Framed

Dry stone walls are perhaps the best frame of reference for understanding this enchanted creation we live in.They have a selfless propensity for collective order that puts everything in perspective, and makes us appreciate how attractive everything looks 'framed', not just the fields but especially all the arts and crafts and vernacular architecture it encloses within each landscape.

It’s easy to go fast

 

 

It’s easy to go fast

It's harder to go slow 

It’s easy being strong 

But it's weakness makes us grow 

It’s child’s play to be young

But more effort being old 

It’s easy to give correction 

But harder to be told 

A breeze to just enjoy life 

But harder letting go 

The best is the before date 

But what if you don’t know? 

It’s fine to have a purpose. 

Yet not, if your not choosing 

It’s easy to be lost in thought 

But not the thought of losing 

It’s easy just to take the risk

But hard to pay the cost 

It’s easy saying I don’t care 

But not see what you’ve lost 

It’s easy to expect a break 

the end of every day 

But harder than it needs to be 

When days just slip away 

It’s easy not to think beyond 

The scope of what’s accepted 

But harder just to trust yourself 

And choose a new perspective 

It’s easier to cross the bridge 

Than stand there and just wonder 

Its easier counting lives gone over 

Than the water that’s gone under 

Dust Globe

 

Post-historic man - in a protective bubble, separated from all the natural elements, wearing hearing protection, deaf to the world, while the dust rains down around him and on to what he has created. 

Repairing the Curve

Over twenty years ago I was asked to repair a cheekend section of original dry stone wall gate entrance along Balsam Lake Road near Kirkfield, Ontario. You can see the repaired walled in the photo above.  It had been clipped by a delivery truck cutting the corner too close. Thankfully the original curved section, just beyond that cheekend wall, was not damaged.

The curve had remained completely in tact for over a hundred years, a living historic example of stylish dry stone proportion and line, not just showing what kind of craftwork could be done, but also demonstrating how well a proper dry stone wall can last in Canada. I was so impressed seeing that curved section for the first time that I chose it to be the logo for the Dry Stone Wall Association of Canada,( later to become Dry Stone Walling Across Canada.)

The curve has subsequently been damaged several times over the years by snowplows and a falling tree or two and repaired each time. Here's a recent shot of the damage done by a large tree.

Each time we repair the wall, we do it reusing the existing stone. Today we fixed the curve and the cheek end again and enjoyed the fact, that beautiful dry stone walls can actually be repaired, not just bulldozed. Most materials used in walls and fences made of wood or concrete, when they are damaged have to be trucked off to the dump, and all new material brought in to build anew.  

 

Built to Last

 

Imagine you are one of the stones in the wall.

Imagine too, all that work that went into the wall, to get you to that resting place.

You are one with the wall.

You and the rest of the stones are the wall.

You are built to last

(but not forever).

You are built to last gracefully,

Last acceptingly, 

Last honestly. 

To last, relying on something other than glue or cement. 

To last, not relying on any ridiculous over-engineering.

To last without needing to be all things, all the time.

You are just one thing. 

Imagine you are home at last.

You are comfortable with being last.

Comfortable going slower and slower. Slower like a tree, like a mountain. 

At rest. Just lasting away.

Down from the Ivory Tower

It looks pretty impressive, yes. 

And ,we had a challenge to build it in the time we'd given ourselves.

In fact we never saw it with the scaffolding taken away before we left to go back to Canada.

But we did it, and what a team of talented enthusiastic workers we had.

 

Can you guess where it is?

 It is not constructed of dry laid stones. It's mortared. But the next tower we do will be different . It will made without mortar.

I'll be posting more photos of this one in the next few months.

 

Our eyes sing along the top of the cope-cakes

That sweet line, drawn across the top of the wall, sweepingly level, taking your eyes for a walk along the zig-zaggingly, unsagging line of stones that run parallel to the level of everything we know to be level, and ever was. 

Those tidy tops of the otherwise untidy last-stones-to-be-found, all snuggled together now along one tidy course, all marching in formation, it's all so improbably, perfect 

Those remaining shapes, fortuitously left in the pile after most of the wall is built, now lifted into place, turned upright, bedded and wedged, becoming the crowning toping of the dry stone layer-cake we build, or rather, are baking . 

This is the serendipitous cope-aesthetic phenomena.

Playing on the beach

Real civilization cannot exist in the absence of a certain play-element, for civilization presupposes limitation and mastery of the self, the ability not to confuse its own tendencies with the ultimate and highest goal, but to understand that it is enclosed within certain bounds freely accepted. Civilization will, in a sense, always be played according to certain rules, and true civilization will always demand fair play. Fair play is nothing less than good faith expressed in play terms. Hence the cheat or the spoil-sport shatters civilization itself. To be a sound culture-creating force this play-element must be pure. It must not consist in the darkening or debasing of standards set up by reason, faith or humanity. It must not be a false seeming, a masking of political purposes behind the illusion of genuine play-forms. True play knows no propaganda; its aim is in itself, and its familiar spirit is happy inspiration.

Johan Huizinga

 

Happy endings and beginnings

 

                     Willow's mom tells more of the story of Maeve the orphan calf.

"She was born about two weeks before Christmas. Mike was at work at the time so I decided to bring her in the house for about six hours to get warm. She was born during the day thankfully. Mike who is ever the optimist wanted to try and put her back with Hazel thinking maybe this time she would produce milk, but we both decided in the end it was better just to bottlefeed Maeve in the barn, like we had done with Murphy

At the same time, though separately, Murphy was outside in the field, and the other cows weren’t being very nice to him and he was losing a little bit of weight, not so much that it was dangerous, but more than we were comfortable with, so we decided to bring Murphy in the barn as well, and keep each other company

Not long after she was looking healthy and feeding well and enjoying human company, Mike happened to see on Facebook a post from a local farm something about 'meet and greet adult Highlands Cows' for $200 for 45 minutes a visit, and he realized maybe people would like to help feed Maeve! 

We put up a Facebook add a few weeks before March break just to test the waters and see if anyone would be interested, and it was very successful!

Sometimes we have four 'showings' a day. Each time I go to the barn I put Willow on my back so she gets to meet people too, not just Maeve.

We priced things at what seemed reasonable- $60 for a bottle feed and $40 for a 'snuggle', and we’ve had lots of families and groups of grownups and single people visit and everyone’s had a really great time, petting Maeve (and Murphy) , asking questions, combing her long hair and of course, holding the bottle while she gobbles down her milk. 

Over the past three months it has brought in a nice little boost to the farm income, and pays for a variety of things we always need, like hay and bags of milk replacer." 

Willow's parents ended up selling Muphy for a good price too, and he is going to a new home next month. His luck has really turned around too, He's going to be the breeding bull - From the one being being bullied on the farm here, to the becoming the head of the herd at another farm.

Happy Escher

 

Easter Island Egg Painting and Rock Painting

 

Hazel and Murphy

Hazel wasn’t sure she wanted to be a mother, so when little Murphy showed up, she just left him in the field and walked away.

Happily Maddy and Mike found him and knew just what to do

Maddy bottle-fed Murphy every four hours until he was old enough to learn to eat hay and rejoin the herd.

Murphy and Maddy bonded during his bottle feeding days. 

Murphy, and Mac the farm dog, were almost the same size to begin with, and Mac attended most feedings, as well as spending time regularly in the barn during the day.

While others in the farm herd were not as tame, Murphy became used to human contact and missed Maddy deeply when she could no longer be there as often. 

I went there to bottle feed Murphy sometimes . He was grateful for my company, but I could see his disappointment that I wasn’t Maddy. 

This is Hazel

The troublesome cow. She never seemed at home on the farm.  She’d jump through fences and often looked like she might chase you if you tried to get close to her. 

She arrived at Silver Maple Highland farm nearly five years ago along with her part sister Hannah, who was a much better behaved Scottish Highland.

Willow’s dad got very busy putting up better fences for Hazel and then putting up stronger fences and then higher and higher fences . 

Hazel was not impressed. Maybe her Scottish ancestry caused her to disapprove of the lack of any proper livestock containment walls made of stone.

To solve the problem we built her a small castle ruin wall, with a gothic opening for her to at least appear more at home

 

Maeve Saves The Farm

Our little granddaughter Willow loves having stories read to her. She lives on a farm with her mom and dad, three dogs, a lot of chickens, and nearly a dozen Scottish Highland cows. (You know the ones, cute, long-haired, red cows with long horns.)  

All kinds of things happen on the farm, so Willow will be growing up with all kinds of stories. Some happy, some sad, and some special ones, that will likely be told over and over. One of the stories I'm hoping to make into a children's book is about a beautiful baby calf named Maeve who was born unexpectedly on a cold night last December. 

Maive was lying there, all alone in the snow, when Willow's dad found her,  just in time to bring her into the barn and get her warmed up. The mother cow Hazel was not a good mother and had rejected Maeve, just like she'd rejected Murphy, her previous calf, the year before.  

Willow may remember that poor Maeve looked very hungry when she and her mom came into the barn to see the tiny calf.  It would now be Willow's mom's job to step in and be a mom for Maive too, as she began a long commitment of bottle feeding the young calf every four hours.

The whole of the story is well worth telling, and illustrating.  It is a story with a silver maple lining  (and yes, it has some dry stone walls in it, too) .

I'l tell you more tomorrow maybe, but right now it's time for you to get some sleep.

Good night.

Walls of Traffic.

The highways create barriers to pedestrians and bicyclists 

Dangerous rushing rivers of mind numbing, body crushing, self confining mobilized metal,  menacingly fencing in the perambulating populace

The wanderers can not wander

The drifters can not drift

The meanderthalls are all corralled  

Trapped in the limitations of mindless expediency

These walls are not beautiful. These walls are not friendly. 

And they are for some reason deceptively not obvious. 

They seem so seamless, we can hardly recognize them as walls.

But they are walls. High walls. Loud walls. Annoyingly restrictive. Dangerously constructed and apt to have all kinds crashes. 

Strangely , They don’t appear to be walls for defence or protection or safe enclosure , either.

These are dividing highways 

That allow no merging of those stranded inside to cross from one safe haven to another 

The web of traffic does not allow for emergence!

Veins filled with mechanical entities that patrol and prowl the boarders,  constantly keeping the prisoners in.

A circuitry of high voltage that no one can not cross without permission.

And yet occasionally, a wall may yield an opening , a break within this almost Impenetrable network of free flowing ferocity.

There are in fact, ‘openings’ in these walls which lead to

Paths and parks and the possibility of peace and quiet

To realms where the walls of traffic have not yet divided the land 

And the machine has not yet claimed it’s dominion.

Creativity Prevails

Not surprisingly, A. I. doesn’t understand everything.  

It gave me a completely incorrect response when I searched google about a clever phrase I once read in a book on creativity .

The phrase was “ Creativity is just chaos on a coffee break.”

The response I got from A I missed the point entirely, and gave me this interpretation... 

"The idea that creativity is "chaos on a coffee break" suggests that a period of unstructured thought and relaxation can be a fertile ground for creative ideas. This aligns with the notion that creativity often involves exploring different avenues, making unexpected connections, and allowing the mind to wander without rigid constraints. ”

But surely, the better understanding of this maxim is that, - try as it may, no matter how much chaos might work to resist it, whenever chaos takes a rest, or tries to relax its efforts, it has no power to stop the inevitability of order taking any opportunity to prevail again spontaneously, and unstoppably re-emerge.

Finite Rockage

 

Pop Art and Popcorn Art

 

Sometime we have to work with stones that could only be described as looking like large chunks of popcorn. 

They have no faces, no bottoms, they are full of holes and have

no length. It is a challenge to get them fitted into any dry stone wall.

    

Maybe the best thing to do if you have a pile of popcorn rocks is to just draw them

Or buy a print from Walmart