Handsome to me.

The word 'handsome' originally had something to do with hands. Something that was handsome was easy to 'handle' in the sense that your hands could 'work with it'. The word evolved to mean 'something of a fair size' and ample, as in 'a hand full' and then later the meaning extended to implying 'fine form'. Hands were the defining factor. Nowadays if something looks good we might say it is 'easy on the eyes'. Back then people placed more emphasis on holding and handling the particular commodity. They needed to 'grasp' it.

If we were to talk about a 'handsome' wall, looking back into its original etymological meaning and developing the idea, we would have to conclude that it had something to do with hands, and that the elements and materials in the wall would have to be handled and worked with properly and that it would have ample mass involving many handfuls of stone, in other words not lacking in form, structure or material. And presumably the end result was that the wall looked quite handsome.

Handsome stones on the other hand would be manageable stones, easily shaped and fitted, easy to work with and not too irregular.

Now in having built many walls myself and in studying many more walls too, it occurs to me that there exists an inherent problem with trying to make a handsome wall with handsome stones. The truth of this is born out by many examples I have seen of what appears to be much 'better looking' walls generally being made from a lot of very 'troublesome' stones. These are stones that not only look 'irksome' or 'cumbersome' to work with, but in my experience are often more 'gruesome' than 'handsome'.

A wall, on the other hand, made from stones that are 'fair-sized', easy to handle and handsome: those that are 'manageable' and easy to shape (say coming on pallets with modular or guillotined stones) - a wall made from this material, unless you are really really careful, will often end up looking quite plain and uninteresting and indeed not very handsome at all.

In short I have discovered that in general, the more awkward and challenging the stone looks to work with, the more impressive the wall looks. (as long as it is built well, of course) By contrast if a waller uses a less awkward stone, it is not likely to be as impressive. Unless you build it absolutely 'right', a wall can easily look 'bad' or unattractive when using and shaping regular squarish stone, where as a good honest attempt at building with awkward stone can often produce a good looking, handsome wall.

Farewell to Arms

I have always maintained that building a dry stone wall doesn't have to be a trade-off between beauty and sturdiness, and that both can be accomplished using even a random assortment of stones. It is possible to erect something that is built like a tank, but is a tank really beautiful. A wall, unless it is built in a war zone, doesn't have to look like a tank-barrier either, just the same way a house surely doesn't have to look like a bunker.

Like good art and much of life, restraint is the key. War is about excess. A wall built without restraint is a wall that wastes too many of the better sized and squarer flatter shaped stones. Such a wall demands that more and more 'recruits' come in and lay down their lives for the 'wall cause', which doesn't so much 'raise the standard' as raise the cost .

"But" you say to yourself, "why spare any expense?"

I suppose such a walling effort will appear to be a kind of heroic 'war effort'. If you are not in love with what you are doing, then your wall can be excessively blocky and dull, and you can call for throughstones to be inserted every other foot and use fairly unchallenging stones everywhere. It is no longer about being ecological or being frugal with what you have or even being creative, but it's about militarily 'securing' your position and establishing your dominance over a section of wall, even if it requires using a lot of pre-cut stuff from the pallet and anything else you secretly know is pretty hard to come by .

Yours becomes a pragmatic wall, the antithesis of art. You can pretend it is the 'Wall to End All Walls'. You can assure yourself that you haven't skimped on anything in a slavish commitment to permanence. But there is an obvious point where the beauty and spontaneity are lost. A wall like that might win the battle for lasting the longest or the prize for looking like you couldn't push it over with a tank, but it won't necessarily be is a 'handsome' wall, and in the end, ironically, it wont be a wall you will want to remember..

The Walls Have Fingers

In John Ruskin's extensive book 'The Stones of Venice' which I'm presently reading, I was interested to come across a chapter he wrote on walls, which includes a introductory reference to them having 'fingers'.

Our first business, then, is with the Wall, and to find out wherein

lies (it's) true excellence ....A wall has no business to be dead. It ought to

have members in its make, and purposes in its existence, like an

organized creature, and to answer its ends in a living and energetic

way; and it is only when we do not choose to put any strength nor

organization into it, that it offends us by its deadness. Every wall

ought to be a "sweet and lovely wall." I do not care about its having

ears; but, for instruction and exhortation, I would often have it to

"hold up its fingers."

A wall, in a way, mirrors the means by which it has been built.

If it is constructed mechanically with bobcats, back-hoes, industrial power-tools, cranes, manufactured blocks, and guillotined or concrete-based stone products, it will reflect these aspects and appear to be 'dead'.

If, however, it is constructed carefully, with human hands, there will be life to it.

Surely as wallers, this is what we are looking for.

And surely, if we are building and thinking with them, they will be reflected in our 'handiwork'.

Hand Tricks - Turning 'Rocks' into 'Stones'

Unlike the few problem-types we come across occasionally, (examples of which I described earlier this week) rocks are simply a pleasure to work with. Masonry restoration expert, and good friend Bobby Watt explains that the difference between a rock and a stone is that "a rock is simply an unemployed stone". It is safe to say all kinds of rocks will end up being very useful in your wall if they get half a chance. When you try to build with them, it's as if they actually 'want' to be part of your dry stone wall. They often have at least one or two nice faces. They are usually 'kind' faces too, the kind that are agreeable in terms of working together well with others in a wall.

Almost any rock will 'work' naturally in the wall because of its elongated shape or flatness ( making them able to not only show the best face but also really 'get into' the wall). Many others 'work' because of their ability to take the hard breaks and still stay together or their willingness to take up the slack and add 'heart' to the middle of the wall.

Anyone who 'employs' rocks and makes good stone walls will know you can make walls out of any of the three basic types of rock - igneous, sedimentary or metamorphic. ( as well as almost any combination of these naturally occurring geological materials ) While I cant quite say that 'I have never meta-morphic rock I didn't like', I have found most rocks, like most people, to be level bedded, cooperative, responsive and dependable, individuals who bond well with each other and are beholden to the basic principles of form and function. They make good stones.

Special Handling Requirements

There's a kind of hard to place rock that thinks it is special and needs special recognition. It's a rock that often 'sticks out' from the wall, or appears to be set too far back into the wall. Usually this is because its difficult to know where the 'plane' of its 'special' face actually is, and so setting it becomes a problem. While it may seem that this type of rock would best be put in a prominent place in your wall due to its special shape or interesting colour, it is usually not a good idea. If a rock is chosen and placed merely for its looks, disregarding its structural value, then it will be a rock that is basically in a 'race to the bottom' While others in the wall cooperate and become one tidy entity, these 'posers' may end up bringing their part of the wall down, visually, if not literally.

These high-maintenance rocks, the kind you'd actually like to cement in the wall, can come in other shapes too. There are the ones that are not very natural at all. They are more than likely guillotined, or specially quarried/chosen 'veneer' stones. A wall that incorporates a lot of these so-called 'tracers', the kind that are way too shallow or with their bed face showing ( no matter how special or beautiful they are ) will start to slump and fall apart before too long.

Hard to Handle

Another type to be aware of is the 'hard-to-handle' rock. The kind that play and lay 'dirty'. They never seem to be happy where they are put. These are mean stones that not only pinch and crush and give you what Kevin Gardner refers to as a 'granite kiss', but have an agenda and want to bite your whole leg off. They are the temperamental ones which you would do best just to avoid. In thinking with my hands, is it ironic to describe these easily irritated stones as 'touchy'? Perhaps they are related to 'erratics'? Basically everything about them is edgy and angular. Their shape seems totally unadaptable. Their hardness only makes them more hard to handle.

While most useful walling material almost 'speaks' to you (if you are patient enough and take time to listen) these rocks don't seem to have anything to say. If you have to, place these rocks very carefully in your wall but remember you don't have to use every rock that you have in your stock pile.