Raising the Standard

The wall we completed yesterday afternoon at Gateneau Federal Park near the nation's capitol turned out to be our special celebration workshop event for this, the 150th year of confederation – Keep on Dry Stone Walling Across Canada! 

Holding Hands With The Past.

I think the most satisfying aspect of building dry stone walls and and bridges is that even though they are newly completed structures they often give the impression that they are very old.

The bridge in this picture, which was the main dry stone project I headed up for our annual Rocktoberfest event last weekend, was taken yesterday when Gavin, Patrick and Angus and I were there to fit the last stones along the footbridge surface. A dozen or so wallers from Canada and the United States had helped to bring this marvelous bridge into being during the Canadian Thanksgiving walling festival. On Tuesday, the day after the festival, several of us came back and 'pitched' in to finish the stone pathway and then helped to clear up the site.

As we were cleaning up Aaron Wallis a landscaper from the Eastern townships of Quebec and an eager volunteer on this bridge project, came back with his family to take pictures. I took several shots of the new bridge in the dappled afternoon light. I think the sepia filter I applied to the photos of Aaron's wife and children on the bridge adds to this impression of it appearing to be a much older structure than it actually is.

Hands-on dry stone projects like this one provide a visual tie with the past which is as strong as the other historic connections associated with building structures in this traditional method of dry stone construction.

Hand-drawn Conclusions- Part 3

In thinking about how to 'conclude' this current blog subject, I have decided to add a third segment, in order to make reference to a lovely piece of 'hand-printed' silkscreen art by Robert Rutherford depicting the stone beacon we built for Farley and Claire Mowat back in 2006 at their summer residence in St Peters, Nova Scotia.

The beacon was to be a replica of the mysterious dry stone cairns that have been found (and sparsely documented) not only on Diana Island, off Quebec's Ugava Peninsula, but also along the coasts of Newfoundland and Labrador.

These ancient structures were brought to my attention when I first began reading Farley's book The Farfarers . It was this book too, that prompted us to build the dry stone boat structure (described later in his book) at the third annual Canadian dry stone wall festival in 2006. ( see http://www.dswa.ca/event/northumberland-dry-stone-wall-festival-october-7-9-2006 )

This boat roofed 'Alban house' as it is called, now stands proudly as a tribute to this revered Canadian writer, who (unlike many other notable individuals having memorials dedicated to them) is still very much alive and continues to reside here in Port Hope (as does the boat structure) . Both the beacon in Nova Scotia and the boat roofed house in Ontario continue to 'draw' a attention to the fact that there is a much longer history of dry stone walling here in Canada than once first believed.

Robert Rutherford's interest in art began at Trinity College School here in Port Hope, while under the instruction of David Blackwood. He was awarded scholarships to study at the Banff School of Fine Arts and the Ontario College of Art and Design where he studied printmaking with Frederick Hagen. He also spent a year in France, studying at L'Ecole des Beaux Arts d'Avignon. He has spent the past twenty years developing his distinctive style of Maritime images. His works are characterized by: "a lot of wonderful curved movement, powerful, animated lines and dramatic skies."

You can visit his site at http://www.houston-north-gallery.ns.ca/Robert_Rutherford/rr5570.htm

For me, Rutherford's print of Farley's 'beacon' empasizes not only the 'continuity' which exists between things built of dry laid stone and the ensuing artistic creativity they so often inspire, but also, the 'conclusion' to this structure's status as merely a curious pile of 'hand-stacked' stones.

This Hand is My Hand, This Hand is Your Hand...

Hand to Hand directed by Tamás Wormser of Quebec
A baby’s grasp, a lover’s caress, an athlete’s grip, a dancer’s gesture, a craftsman’s touch: hands shape our world. A sensuous visual odyssey following our ever-moving hands, Hand to Hand is a poetic celebration of our quintessential tool.

Faces of the Hand by Tamas Wormser, National Film Board of Canada

I was delighted to discover this short film 'Hand to Hand' today about, what else, 'hands' which was commissioned by CODE Motion Pictures and posted by the Cultural Olympiad on their Winter Olympics Site. It explores the motion and emotion of the hands.

Though there are no shots of hands gracefully placing stones into any dry stone walls, there is a lot of hand-thinking going on. The whole film is carefully 'handcrafted' to express much of the impressions and ideas that I hope this blog has successfully begun to explore in the last month and a half since I started posting thoughts about Thinking With My Hands.

I am posting the link to this film here today in support of the Canadian Winter Olympics which are now in full swing in Vancouver . It seems fitting too, since today I am flying to Victoria B.C. where I'm sure the Olympic fever is spilling over from la 'main' land.