The Creative Block

I thought this piece by my imaginary design assistant Andy Blockworthy, could kick off a new series in T.W.M.H. about 'Art and Dry Laid Stone'.  

Those of us who create with stone sometimes get 'waller's block'. These mental blocks, just like problem rocks, are sent to stretch our imagination. Let's try to be creative with them.

Heres my first suggestion. Buy this book.

creative block

As of February 18th, 2014 CREATIVE BLOCK will be on shelves all over the world! I am still pinching myself to tell you the truth. I could not be more proud of this collection of interviews and art work, and am so thankful to Chronicle Books for making it happen.

WHAT’S IT ALL ABOUT:

I came up with the idea for CREATIVE BLOCK for myself, just as much as for all of you. I wanted to make something beautiful – a contemporary art book filled not only with inspiring images, but also inspiring words, advice, and tips to help amateurs and professionals alike, find their way through those days when the ideas just won’t come. Because everyone who dabbles in something creative{writers, musicians, actors, artists} feels that way at some point – right? Right. I wanted to write this book to show you that if you’re feeling this way you’re not alone either. I’ve written hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of posts about successful, working artists who seem to have this whole “creative thing” figured out. But surely they have blocks from time to time? How do they get through them? Where do they find fresh inspiration? How do they handle negative feedback? Does it stop them in their tracks? Now, these full time artists don’t have the luxury of not finishing, or giving up on a project – not when they’ve got a gallery or art buyer waiting on them! So how do they push themselves through those moments when the ideas just aren’t there? Or when the ideas are there, but their hands or materials will not cooperate.

http://www.thejealouscurator.com/blog/

Modern Sand Castles

http://iwastesomuchtime.com/on/?i=88232

Caged Minerals

Wandering Minstrels

Minerals are our friends

Maintaining a good supply of proper environments and minerals is the best way to keep a healthy body of dry stone wallers active and working efficiently. After all minerals, which are basically rocks, are the building blocks of our day to day life.  

Although most of the minerals we require are found near where we live and work, some job sites have less minerals than others.  

And because we consume a lot of minerals in a normal working day, sometimes it's necessary to bring in mineral supplements from elsewhere. While most of these extra daily minerals can be procured in bulk, by the truckload, some of the more important minerals may have to be specially brought in. And where else better to look for precious minerals than a mineral store? 



The good news is you won't need any prescriptions (or require safety boots or a hard hat) to shop at a mineral store. All the rocks are sold over the counter. You can often find some real gems there too.

 

Some stores have special surprise grab bags of rocks available to buy which makes walling even more fun when you don't know what you're actually 'taking' until you get back to the job.

Very rarely should actual 'trace' minerals be used, that is, 'along' the wall. Ideally they should be taken internally, into the main body of the wall. Complex minerals in specific amounts are very useful for the cheekends, the footings, the main innards of the wall, whereas fractured minerals should be consumed in large doses to maintain a good hearting.

Beware the Irish of March

Thanks to Shelagh Lippay for composing and sending this her timely St Patricks Day poem.

Middle of March Arches

http://www.middlemarch.co.nz/activities/arches/index.html

The Ides of March - March XV *

New Book

A new 60 page coffee table book has just been published containing recent works and collaborations by John Shaw-Rimmington. This, now the fourth book in a series showcasing his work across Canada, England and the States, is available by contacting mcclaryharris@sympatico.ca

Beaver Tails 3

 by Ryan Stananought 

Beaver Tails 2

 by Ryan Stananought 

Beaver Tails

Artist and dry stone waller Ryan Stananought explores our true Canadian identity. 

In this cartoon version of Ryan's, the hard working, ever resourceful beaver (symbol of Canada) shows qualities of both adaptability and ingenuity in walling, rather than being just a Brackish stick-in-the-mud.

to be continued....

Never return to Mortar !

Drive by spiraling *

It's not often one gets to create something permanent out of stone this large that you can then come back and drive completely around and film.  So I did !

Draw a stone

Eka is a young man of marrying age within the lost tribe of the Milcarnicans. He and Nikku, the daughter of the tribe’s Chief, are in love and go to the Chief to request permission to marry. The Chief gives Eka 5 blue stones, 5 green stones and two bowls. Out of sight of Nikku, Eka must divide the stones between the two bowls anyway he chooses. A blindfolded Nikku must then draw a stone from one of the two bowls. If she draws a blue stone then the couple will have the Chief’s blessing to marry, but if the stone is green then the union will be forbidden (green being the color of the evil serpent spirit, Balcan).
How should Eka divide the stones between the bowls to give Nikku the greatest chance of drawing out a blue stone?

Looking for Canadian Context

 The mighty surging ocean - the surf, the salt, the sand, and sky of B.C,  

or perhaps 

snow covered foothills of Alberta - the majestic Canadian Rockies off in the distance?

or....

Just a winter's worth of ugly, salty, sandy snow piled up high  

in some school parking lot, somewhere in Ontario ?

Photo by John Shaw-Rimmington

Where's Waldo ?

At Graniteville, near Barre, Vermont, everyone has a pile of granite waste from nearly 100 years of quarrying some of the finest granite in North America. 

Piles like this are virtually everywhere you go. 
John is standing on a smaller block...kind of like a stonemasonry "Where's Waldo?"

Thanks to John Scott for providing this post 

Explosive Stonework

Stonework is highly explosive but also very implosive. A good worker in stone will not allow the energy to fold back in on itself but rather try to explore this dynamic quality. 

Someone who works in dry stone who has no understanding of this will stiffle it.  A wall or dry stone sculpture can have the material so cruelly trapped within it, held helplessly captive and lifeless so that it drains not only all who build it, but everyone who ever sees it.

              http://fabianoefner.com/?portfolio=aurora 

The 7 photos of 'combustion' above are by Fabian Oefner 

A Lonely Fractal Voyage

As fascinating as this looks, I don't think I'd like to live in the fractal world revealed here by Alexandre Lehmann/ Ricardo Montalban.
This realistically three dimensional environment, though ornate and creatively complex, appears completely uninhabitable. 

That rocky space age potato planet I'm seeing is a lonely and hopeless place. 

There is no sense of scale either. 
Just think how easy it would be easy to get lost there.

When asked in an interview whether he dreams about his creations,  Alexandre Lehmann admitted...

"I have indeed dreamt of fractal structures. These are more like bad dreams, very alienating. When I roam through these structures in my dreams, I always end up feeling very claustrophobic and disoriented. It’s quite painful, to be honest."

Nope, I think I prefer the scale of the earth the way it is. I like that I can usually find my way home in it. That together, with others, we can make some sort of sense of it.  We can create things and relationships that don't get lost in it.  I like rocks and stones the way they come.  Even the mountains and canyons on this our amazing planet, awesome and expansive as they are, still have a familiar almost alluring quality to them.

The fantastic complexity of landscape in this video reminds me why I am content to live in a simpler environment -  in a place where the dimensions and implications of this kind of fractal reality are kept in proper perspective.

Mountveneering *

Before the advent of Mountveenering these enormous rock outcrops were nearly lost to the visible eye (and were a danger to air traffic) as they were so completely camouflaged against the sky.

It was obvious huge amount of 'remounding' needed to be done on many high mountains. A more 'manufactured' look was needed to make these lifeless heights more fashionable, less austere and less dangerous! The formidable task of reworking and re-cladding great expanses of mountainous land, which began back in the 1900s, was gradually completed during the course of many years. Many expeditions of masons risking their lives eventually clad these formidable rocky terrains with a thinner stone coating, (below which was laid electric heating cables) to give it all a more noticeable 'decorative' look.

Big rocks take a long time to split.

This one in Kern River Canyon took ages !

Stones and Cones

A sad Groundhog Day

Writer director Harold Allen Ramis died on Monday February 24 at the age of 69
One of his films, Groundhog Day, is my all time favorite comedy.
I very rarely watch a movie twice, but this one I've seen many times and still enjoy subtleties I missed on previous viewings.
It also has a very spiritual message. There is a 'timeless' cathartic redemptive quality to it.

I can't think of how any of this relates to 'thinking with my hands' except to say that our hands learn after days and days of monotonous continuous practice (and rebellion), how to do some amazingly beautiful and useful things. 

Here's to a man who showed us how to laugh at the repetitiveness of our existence, and get through each same day with a smile.


10 Facts You Didn’t Know about Groundhog Day  

Pediment Arch Part 3

Each voussoir had to be shaped and then carefully dressed with a toothed chisel to give a mottled texture.

The basketball backboard looking thing is the form for the stones in the arch. It also provides a good space for drawing what it is going to look like.

Final under arch dressing

A clever fitting to create a dropped keystone

Timeless beauty

A place to discover as you walk across the property

Back to Beauty - The revolution is coming !

Thanks to John Fisher for making me aware of this powerful counter culture documentary.