Jake Sandison

April 24th 2010

Fall 2010

Jake Sandison is a professor at Loyalist College in Belleville Ontario. He has taken two or three dry stone wall courses with me and is now an avid fan of building walls without mortar.

His main project is a folly he has been building on and off for the last two years in his back yard.

He writes...."This is a garden wall feature that is in the form of 2 "L" shaped walls, joined in the middle with an arched opening. It is west facing to block the prevailing winds (which we get a great deal of) from the garden plants. It is made from a variety of local fieldstone. The dimensions of: height, width and the various inside and outside lengths of both the long and short segments of the walls correspond to months and days of our family's (myself, my wife and 2 boys) birthdays and anniversary. It is truly a family wall. There is currently crushed brown limestone that continues the footprint of the wall to form a rectangle. I will bed flat stone into this limestone so that it looks like a foley perhaps...that this wall and arch is the remnant from an old building.

I am not overly happy with the cheek ends in the arch way opening... I was trying to do little to no shaping of the stone - but I am going to disassemble down to a course or two off the ground (just at the opening) and shape the stone all the way up (including the voissors and keystone). It may not look quite as natural...but I will sacrifice the look in this case for safety.

I think one of my next projects will be a stone school bus shelter for my boys out at the end of the driveway… I think I will be using limestone for that one"

Nov 2010

Jake emailed me a photo (above) of his nearly completed project yesterday. It just needs an arch and vertical coping. He goes on to tell the story of the amusing super-hero who is building the wall and despite evil foes ( not to mention old man winter ) he intends to complete it sometime in April 2011

"When we last left our hero... he had been battling his "arch" enemy, the evil Corporal Concrete and his sidekick, Private Pressure-Treated from the planet Fakescape. It has been a gruelling battle... if it wasn't for the assistance of Dr. Fieldstone... our hero might not have made it this far (strictly a "plutonic" relationship). He still has not been able to "cope" with the circumstances completely. However, it is a common "sediment" that Concrete and Pressure-treated will not prevail here and it would be "igneous" to think otherwise. With "heart" and determination, our "battered" hero will be the "keystone" to a "metamorphic" revolt against the powers of manufactured Fakescape everywhere. Tune in April 2011 for the season finale... check your local listings

The previous has been a sad example of just how long this winter is going to be for those of us who like to drystack stone... hang in there everyone."

Scott George- A hands on guy.

Last weekend while in New York state giving a presentation and teaching a workshop in Brockport with Norman Haddow at Sara's Garden Centre, we stayed with George Scott at his historic cobblestone house in the country. George is an amazingly creative waller who builds many unusual structures on his own property just outside Brockport. Although he is employed as a firefighter in Rochester, he uses much of his spare time building very professional looking walls, as well as artistic pieces. His dry stone work reflects a competence that suggests that Scott may be turning to walling full-time very soon.

About six years ago George started to build one of his first walls laying the stones in a diagonal arrangement, which gradually turned into a sort of semi-herringbone pattern. Im not sure why I find this wall is so intriguing. Every time I visit this wall captures my imagination possibly because it is vaguely suggestive of curving patterns I've seen somewhere in nature. As Scott took us around his property and we saw some of his other stonework (some of it not yet completed) we sensed that Scott had possibly set out on an unending and delightfully entertaining journey, exploring different styles and even more fanciful designs with each new project.

Here is one of several experimental 'trees' that Scott has built over the years and dotted throughout parts of his enchanted walled garden. Scott is also a knowledgable gardener and horticulturalist as well as part time farmer. He has goats and chickens and raises hounds too. He is interested in all things philosophical and artistic, especially in the context of designing and building structures of dry stone.

Thinking Clocháns

Patrick McAfee, an author on restoration masonry and an expert on lime mortars as well as traditional dry stone and masonry methods, is leading a group of us this week from all over North America in replicating a small 14 foot diameter Clochán.

Patrick explained to those of us at Monday evening's opening session of this year's Marenakos StoneFest in Seattle that it will be a traditional round dry-stone hut with a corbelled roof, dating back to the 5th century in Ireland. Most of these original dry laid structures were built like round beehive huts, but rectangular plans are known as well. Some clocháns were not completely built of stone, but may have possessed a thatched roof. But this one will be all stone. The walls are very thick, up to 1.5 meters. Sometimes several clocháns are joined together by their walls. Clocháns are mainly found in the Southwest of Ireland, a good example of this kind of structure can be found at Skellig Michael (Saint Michael), Church Island off Beginish Island and County Kerry on the Dingle Peninsula . They were used by the monks following the teachings of Saint Patrick and later his successors continued building in this style in the Scottish Isle of Iona and then further parts of Scotland beyond.

The one we will be building during the five days of the StoneFest has the shape of the curve for the beehive established by displaying the dimensions marked on a 'boom and mast' trammel arrangement which Patrick devised (and Russ Beardsley of Borrowed Ground LCC cleverly erected beforehand) where the height of the mast (measured in numbered intervals of 3 inch vertical jumps) corresponds to numbers on two 'booms' showing marks where both the inner and outer diameters of the wall extend.

Both booms swivel freely in a circle around the pole. The pole will be removed when the last course goes on and then a huge cone-shaped capstone (made of limestone) be placed on the top. This beehive capstone is being carved this week while the structure is being built by carving students under the instruction of Bobby Watt's son Graham who is a restoration mason in Ottawa Canada.

The stone material being used in the Clochán will probably be a combination of large chunky granite (some of this has already been installed near the bottom to form the base of the hut on Monday afternoon) as well as an interesting grey crunchy basalt to be used mostly on the inside (described by one of the masons as a 'young basalt' ) with quarried sandstone on the outside gradually worked in more and more towards the top.

The contour of the Clochán changes slowly at first, but the curve becomes more pronounced nearer the top and this will require thinner and thiner sandstone slabs to accommodate the angle the corbelled roof as it steps in.

Lending a hand

Our DSWAC field director just happened to drop by today to check out the wall we are building at the three-day Knox church dry stone wall workshop in Dunedin Ontario. Eric timed it right. We stopped for lunch just as he arrived and after lunch he got to talk to everyone about some of the beautiful water feature dry stone walling projects he has been doing in the Creemore area. He then took some time and worked along side some of the female students and showed them a bit about hearting and gave them some advice about building along a curve and crossing the joints. It was nice of him to drop by and lend a hand.

We took a short field trip and visited another waller who had dropped by and happens to be working in the area. Nick Lynch is doing a big project repairing a 100 foot dry stone retaining wall along the bank of a river. He and his friend Justin Koifman have been there many weeks. Eric had some words of advice about walling for them too.

Pointing 'Along' the Wall- No Pointing 'In' It!

Along with seven other people and myself, Martyn Leaver participated in a walling weekend at Cleabarrow farm near Windermere on the second weekend of March. The three hundred plus acres of rolling farmland owned for many years by the Scott family (who are related to Captain Scott who led the famous expedition to Antarctica ) is criss crossed with seventeen and a half miles of free standing dry stone walls, some of them quite tall. The farm and the walls were built in the early 1600s. Martyn who is a professional waller and a member of the DSWA of UK single handedly maintains these walls and over the years has repaired many of the sections where time has begun to take its toll.
He is seen here standing in front of a large section 'pointing' to the rest of the 250 feet of wall he has recently completely rebuilt. All the stones which are mostly mill gritstone including the large through-stones and heavier cams were lifted by 'hand' into place, using milk crates to stand on.
Martyn lives with his family in Kendal in Cumbria which is part of the lake district. He told me he enjoys working with his hands. His interests include restoring old boats, shooting the longbow and rock climbing. He spends every other weekend doing volunteer walling with other members of the DSWA repairing many of the walls in the area.
Martyn has a private business, Leaver Stonework and Paving, and explained to me that he does mortared work and cement 'pointing' as well as dry stone work. Like many other waller/masons Martyn admits that he loves building free-standing walls and prefers it far more to having to work with cement or doing flatwork. This preference seems to be the acid test amongst stoneworkers in Canada as well as Britain. To work with stone structurally, without adhesives or cements is far more satisfying and is considered a craft rather than a just a job. Martyn talked about hoping to visit us in Canada in the future to help 'lend a hand' and further strenghten ties between the DSWA Canada and the many wallers in Britain.

Hand of a Professional

Master-craftsman and chief examiner for the DSWA of UK, Andy Louden, took us on an all day tour of some interesting dry stone walls and bridges in a very remote part of the Lake District yesterday. Andy explains (with his hands) that his favorite stone to work with is this irregular volcanic stone ( seen in this picture) found in the walls throughout the area we walked through, near Wasdale, Cumbria. The stones are quite small and slightly rounded and few of them have any length at all. These are not easy stones to work with and the walls have no through-stones and generally no caps. The slate stone found in many of the other parts of Great and Little Langdale provide a much better selection for wall building. Nevertheless these walls are both beautiful and obviously structural as they have survived the test of time. Many of the walls are much wider than necessary and reminded me of the consumption walls found in parts of New England. The corners of the walled fields broaden out into great stockpiles, made up of all the extra stones that have long ago been cleared off the land.

At the end of the day we stopped into Andy's Local pub for a drink and met with John Aitkinson of the National Trust and learned more about the training session Andy is going to be teaching coming up later this month, which will be run for several of the National Trust trail workers including our good friend Gavin Rose.

Hand Delivery

DSWA secretary Alison Shaw met with her Canadian counterpart Mary Harris in the lounge of the Old Dungeon Ghyll Hotel to discuss new DSWA books and dry stone literature that we will be taking back to Canada to make available at our 2010 walling events. Alison has done a great job for the DSWA for some time now and has ran a very tight ship for them. We have been able to order a lot of very good dry stone literature from her over the last 8 years of our association. This time the walling books will be 'hand- delivered'.

Along with professional waller George Eddington and National Trust trail builder Gavin Rose, dry stone artist Andy Loudon also joined us for a social drink. Discussions turned to differing walling techniques and career opportunities in Britain and Canada.

Andy shared some interesting asides about working with well-known artist Andy Goldsworthy on the Tilberthwaithe Sheepfold.

Alison tells us the DSWA is gearing up to host the 12th International Congress on Dry Stone Walling September 4-6 in Ambleside Cumbria. This year's theme will be 'Dry Stone Walls as part of the Cultural Landscape'

Ambleside is a beautiful town right in the middle of Cumbria and has many dry stone walls.

We walked Ambleside today and posted this from Esquires, a Starbucks like coffee shop with a view overlooking all the old slate stone buildings.

Bridge Hands

It was about 8 years ago that I saw my first dry stone bridge. My friend and colleague Norman Haddow took me to see this bridge which he had built using local stone in what seemed like quite a remote part of Scotland. It was based on the bridge at Glenn Lion which he had visited with his family many times as a boy. He had built this bridge barely two years before he showed me it and yet it looked as old as the hills.

I had a bit of an epiphany when I saw it. I couldn't remember ever seeing anything built of stone that looked so right, so beautiful, and so structural. I was pretty sure that we didn't have any bridges like it anywhere in Canada and yet it was plain to see as far as adding character it would be a wonderful thing to introduce into the Canadian garden landscapes.

A year later and with Norman's help we organized the first DSWAC 'pack horse' dry stone bridge building workshop in Canada. A handful of enthusiastic stone aficionados signed up for the course and together tried their 'hand' at building a bridge in Port Hope, Ontario at the first Canadian Dry Stone Wall Festival. Norman was a fantastic teacher.The footbridge we built and the whole idea of the festival too was a tremendous success.

The rest is history. Five Canadian bridges later and another one planned for this October at our 'Rocktoberfest' in Gananoque, Ontario (which Norman will be attending again, as he has done for the last seven years) we have now returned to Britain to tour the Lake District visiting the many beautiful stone bridges that can be found all through this part of the country.

I am particularly fascinated with one in little Langdale called Slater's Bridge, made of, you guessed it, slate. It has a very uneven walking surface consisting of the rounded-down well-worn tops of the long slate voussoirs. It has an unusual rugged look created by even longer voussoirs forming what may have been the original handrail posts which have since been replaced with metal ones. I suspect it was the bridge the quarry men used every day when they went to and from the local quarry.

Ironically they don't build dry stone bridges here anymore in the Lake District. They build new ones and replace the old stone bridges using wood or metal. This is a great shame because so much of the countryside and architecture here has been maintained and preserved so well. Perhaps we can bring dry stone bridge building back to this part of the world some day, like reintroducing some endangered species to its native habitat.

A dry stone bridge perhaps represents all that is good in this craft. Where the idea of someone 'putting up walls' can sometimes have a negative connotation, the analogy that is suggested by describing someone as a 'builder of bridges' is a very positive one. Of the people I have worked with on stone projects, those who have worked on bridges with me have demonstrated a fairly unique strength of character. While a person might build a 'wall' out of selfish or guarded motives, a bridge by definition requires a cooperative and accommodating nature. If a waller loves his craft and he is good at it, and more importantly, has integrity, then he will have no trouble making and maintaining 'bridges' in all areas of his life.

Handy Goldsworthys

Any in depth exploration into the connection between hands and walling would have to include a section on Andy Goldsworthy. The stunningly beautiful and uniquely impressive body of work he has created and documented so well continues to be a powerfuly positive influence on everyone who comes in contact with his work. His energy and output is a testament to a seemingly relentless drive to push the envelope of the creative process. While a lot of his installations are not permanent, many of his dry stone pieces are. And while some might quibble whether his work fits into the category of art at all, there are many others of us who think he just might be the most significant living artist today.

Having said that, it surprises me how often I run into people who have never heard of him. It is always a treat then to have the opportunity to introduce them to his amazing work.

Yesterday Mary and I were hiking in Cumbria from The Old Dungeon Ghyll Hotel in Little Langdale to Coniston. We were being shown many of the more interesting and historic dry stone walls as well as abandoned stone quarries in the area along the way. I wonder if you can imagine how exciting it was for us to come around the corner from Tilberthwaite to discover one of Goldsworthy's famous sheepfold installations situated unobtrusibvely off to the side of the road. Our friend and guide Gavin Rose very cleverly made sure we 'stumbled' across it in our ramblings. There were no signs.

This sheepfold is one of many others which are part of a major countywide sculpture project created by Andy Goldsworthy. The project began in January 1996 as part of the UK year of Visual Arts and the building program continued until its official conclusion in April 2003 having achieved 46 folds.

The offical website explains that "Rather than making new sheepfolds Goldsworthy committed himself to working with existing folds in various states of disrepair or in some cases folds which had disappeared altogether but were clearly indicated on old maps. This enabled him to connect directly with the farming tradition and history of Cumbria but, at the same time, as each sheepfold was rebuilt so he invigorated them with a new energy by incorporating his sculptural response."

Andy and his colleagues (one of them being Andy Loudon) built the particular sheepfold we visited as a large squared-in area. The four traditional dry stone wall sides each contained an unusual large square section of thin slate each incorporating a four foot circle of the same slate material fitted so that the stones in each circle of each wall angled in four different orientations.

These circles are so tightly fitted you can't wiggle even the smallest of the thin slate pieces. The structure invites you to touch it and try. As with so many of the beautiful older slate walls (examples of what could also be considerd artist's handiwork) that we had been seeing all day on our walk through Cumbria, there was no sign anywhere that said 'Work of Art by so and so' or 'Please Dont Touch'. I was reminded again about this connection there is between 'hands' and 'dry stone walls'. It was this 'touchstone fold' structure that made me realize that it is not just those who create them but those who come to discover and appreciate beautiful dry stone walls (found in so many 'handy' places throughout parts of Britain) who also are drawn to touch the stones with their hands.

Thyme On Our Hands

Evan Oxland doesn't have thyme on his hands, but he does have sedum.. When he isn't traveling through Europe inspecting historic stonework, or at university upgrading his 'history of gardening' knowledge, or pouring over architectural stone or garden design material in books or online, then he is usually building walls with me here in Canada.

Here is a photo of his hands inspecting a sedum mat material that is a product designed and produced by Mathis Natvik of Navik Ecological in Guelph Ontario Canada. It is a perfect alternative finish for the top of a wall instead of using either flat or vertical traditional coping stone. These are mats that come in 1X1 metre squares and weigh 25 KG’s each (depending on water content at the moment).They are pre-grown on the ground and then can be installed anywhere, usually as green roof material, but we are starting to use them as a very nice wall capping material too. Walls with sedum tops look beautiful and soft, as if they have been there for hundreds of years. We topped one of the workshop walls at our festival last year with sedum. It looked great.

Evan and I discovered, by growing/testing various vegetative material, that sedum grows much better on Canadian walls than thyme or sod (sod topping on a wall is know in Scotland as 'turf-top'). Our first attempts proved to us that sedum could last the dryer hotter Canadian summer, though we still have experimental walls with both grass and thyme growing on them, and it is surviving reasonably well.

It is a treat to see plants and dry stone walls skillfully combined in a landscape. On the other 'hand' it is so sad to see a nice use of plant material but lacking any really inspired stonework around it, or the reverse, where the stonework on a property is exceptional but the plantings are glitzy and inappropriate.

What we need are tripple combination 'gardener-designer-wallers'. I am excited for Evan to keep 'thinking' and working in this direction (with his hands, of course)

Look at these hands!

You can tell a lot about a person by looking at their hands. Hands that do physical work are quick to give away their occupation. However, there are people that make a living telling you what your hands say about you. They are called psychics and they don't give this information away for free: you have to pay.

I, on the other hand, can tell you — for free — that these are the hands of Alan Ash, Master Stonemason. These appear to be hands that have just recently been used to help build the Japanese Ramparts in Ventura California. I perceive that they are hands of a professional mason who often works with a difficult-to-work-with Basalt material. There is evidence, even in his palms, that he does lovely structural retaining walls and installations in parks. His hands are well-trained and also very skilled, from years experience. I see a lifetime of walling in his future, and lots of dancing too.

It appears there is an impressive assortment of accreditations and papers that verify a quality of workmanship that anyone who knew about this sort of thing could see right away if they inspected any of the works of his hands. He has a website too which is www.thestonemason.com/

Yesterday was Ash Wednesday, so I decided to feature Alan Ash on the blog with a picture of his weathered, rugged-looking hands. Happily, Alan doesn't look as creased as his hands.

I am wondering whether hand images like these are interesting to readers? I hope to have more of a show of hands about this in the future.

It occurs to me too, that fortune tellers and psychics could keep their overhead costs down if they practiced their business all online. Palm-reading becomes expensive if you have to rent a spooky house and decorate it with all the appropriate psychic para-normal-phernalia . They could more economically read people's palms by merely looking at photos sent to them by email and, for a fee, paid online through Pay Palm, tell them everything about their lives (perhaps by Googling them, first).

Hand Rising

Im not sure where Norman Haddow was when this photo was taken, but this is apparently a picture of his hand. In the email he writes that it was 'taken' 25 years ago by his friend David Wallace. No other information.

I know that he must have found it again because he had both of his hands and was using them building a beautiful dry stone wall when I saw him last at our Dry Stone Wall A. of C. Festival in Grand Valley Ontario last October.

I was delighted to get this picture as it represents a new phase of feedback for the Thinking With My Hands blog. It's great to see people adding their comments on certain daily entries, and while there have been no checks in the mail (just joking) it's encouraging to see lots of checks in the 'funny', 'interesting' and 'cool' boxes.

However except for this one, no other pictures have been sent in. The idea of picture submissions has put an new spin on the content of this blog. Perhaps people will begin to send in all sorts of thoughts and clever 'hand-responses'. Wallers, especially, please feel free to send in any interesting pics of your hands, with or without any body ( ie. accompanying text).

As I look at Norman's younger hand and try to read between the lines, so to speak, I see

a delightfully funny man. Just as his hand appears here coming out of the humus, humour is always coming out of his hands. If you have ever met him you will know he has humour to spare. His walls too are not just well built and beautiful, they often express a kind of creative whimsy that makes you smile. You might like to visit his blog at http://www.wallswithoutmortar.blogspot.com/ where he documents some of his work as well as all kinds of wonderful walls and stonework from all over the world.