The Sunken Schooner

A few years ago Don Woudstra of Black Rock Landscapes near Haliburton Ontario, came up with this design for a dry stone schooner . It is nearly completed now . This week he sent me pics of the project . He writes that he still needs to flame some of the sawed edges…"add a railing on back with ropes...sails and a mermaid or canon to the front… a skull in the porthole with lights which is mounted to a plastic culvert…we started it last year and finished it up last week so we could host a mini concert in the boat over the weekend with a local rock artist….it will seat about 100 people"

Flora Flattery.

We enjoyed creating this curving dry stone planter wall last summer. It was designed to morph into a boxwood hedge and then back into a low stone wall again. Plants and dry stone walls often compliment each other but rarely do they try to imitate each another.

All Nature is but Art, unknown to thee.

Cease then Nor 'order' imperfection name
Our proper bliss depends on what we blame. 
Know thy own point; 
This kind, this due degree Of blindness, weakness, 
Heav'n bestows on thee. 
Submit--In this, or any other sphere, 
Secure to be as blest as thou canst bear:
Safe in the hand of one disposing Pow'r,
Or in the natal, or the mortal hour.
All Nature is but Art, unknown to thee;
All Chance, Direction, which thou canst not see; All Discord, Harmony, not understood;
All partial Evil, Universal Good.
And, spite of Pride, in erring Reason's spite, 
One truth is clear, whatever is, is right.



Excerpt from An Essay on Man. Epistle I.  A poem by Alexander Pope 1734

The School of Arch and Design

I promised the students at Haliburton that after we completed building the wall at the museum we would get to 'work' on designing and building arches

Well actually it was more like getting to 'play' with arches

This one, which involved each one of the students holding a rock in place to form a sort of 'communal arch', took about five tries before we got it.

Magically, on the 6th attempt it snapped into place. 

It seems that in the enjoyment and challenge of trying to connect stones together to form an arch, it somehow also brings people together.

Surrendered?

Have all these students somehow just 'given up' ?

Well, yes - but not before they completed their task.

They surrendered a week of their valuable vacation time working in the hot sun (when they could have been lying in it ) to learn about building stone walls without mortar, and in the process ended up making something beautiful at the site of the Haliburton Highlands Museum.

Do these women look proud? They should. They lifted a lot of stones.

And the whole crew gathered yesterday morning, while it was still a bit overcast, and before the sun got too hot, for a photo op at their wall.

All I can say is 'Well done, to such good bunch of hard workers.'

 The wall thanks you too and says you should all go home and rest now.

Modern Sculpture and Part History

 Before

After

The word ‘art' comes from a base word meaning "put together"; its original general meaning referred to any kind of skill. 

This week at the Haliburton School of Art and Design we 'put together’ stones to create a wall that rather fittingly forms the border defining the place where the Haliburton Highland Museum ends and the Highlands Sculpture Forest begins. 

Is the wall sculptural? Does the wall have artistic significance? Does the wall represent anything historic? Can such a dry stone wall be appreciated as being something more than just structural? Can its skill and historical significance and artistic merit be merged? Do the disciplines of art, structure and history intersect in such a wall? 

I rather like to think so. 

Livestock walls without electricity.

I took my dry stone wall class on a field trip yesterday to gather more stone at Godfrey Tyler's farm just outside Haliburton. He has a lot of walls, some good, but mostly in various stages of disrepair. We gathered from the stone piles dotted around the property, not the walls. 

Godfrey manages to survive as a farmer despite the fact that small Canadian farms are so disadvantaged. There is no money in family farming, especially on a small scale. His main income is lumber. He has some cattle and sheep too. 

Godfrey loves his dry stone walls. The walls help contain the livestock. He explained that when the electricity goes off the walls still work.

The Privileged Vegetables

Intuitively, many of us know there is something about a walled garden. It somehow takes on an underlying sense of sacredness. We imagine that what grows here is not just protected, but also must be specially cared for. In this economy of space we devote our time and attention to seeing the small selection of plants thrive to become representatives of all that is good in that greater realm of horticulture.  

Enclosed herein is a place where quantity and variety make way for predilection. The quality of life here is unique. This place becomes our tiny planet in a universe of over choice and confusion. The narrow rows of vegetables and flowers grow in the security of royalty, surrounded by castle walls. If entitlement has any merit in the plant kingdom, here is where that humble greatness becomes possible. The weeds must not grow here. Water must not be withheld.

   

Fuzzy thinking = Fuzzy building

I'm teaching this week in Haliburton. A blacksmith I met who lives and works in the area informed me about how they built dry stone walls around here "back in the day".

According to him, all the settlers pretty much just heaped them in up in piles along the fields. He'd built a few himself. Because the older ones all looked like the wall he'd made, which he took time to show me (above) he figured that nobody could have taken any care or time to make them properly, "the way I was going to be teaching my students to build " . 

He told me to go look at a wall nearby in a forested conservation area, for example, and see what he meant about the settlers not stacking them very carefully . I got the directions and went on a good old 'Wall Safari'  and to my delight found remnants of a very old fallen down wall hidden in the woods. 

It seemed to me that the wall had actually originally been built very well. Now a lot of it was mostly a meandering heap of stones lost in the ferny undergrowth, but here and there I uncovered sections of beautiful looking orderly arrangements of glacial granite that confirmed my understanding that many of the settlers actually knew what they were doing and took time to do it properly.

It disappoints me that people nowadays rarely take that kind of time anymore. The fact that most of the remaining older walls appear to be merely long piles of stones, looking kind of disheveled, does not mean they were originally built that way. 

That kind of fuzzy thinking surprises me. That's like thinking Hadrian's Wall was built shoddily because of how a lot of it looks today.

Stone Detectors

I predict one day all the great stones that have been buried by heavy machinery over the last fifty years will become very valuable - especially the lovely 'builder stones' from all the Ontario barn foundations that were knocked down and covered over, the ones that took hours and hours to shape and square.

In the future stones of every shape and size which were once despised cleared away and buried by land developers will become so rare, people using specially designed 'stone detectors' will be swarming all over the countryside looking for these lost buried treasure stones. Then hopefully there will be so much of it rediscovered that it will become affordable again, just like the days when it lay in the uncleared farmer's fields..

All the squared stones which were deemed useless will then become available to a new generation of masons who will once again build structures like this reproduction blacksmith shop which we built in Uxbridge Ontario back in 1991.

Wallers will be able acquire truckloads of this natural material from special 'hardsquare stores' and 'stone depots' and use the new found stone to build beautiful 'dry reclaimed stone walls'.

And the walls will last and last, until the bulldozer craze starts again.

Name suggestions for new fake stone products.

Alternative rock

Phony stone

Sham rock

Foe stone

Cultish stone 

Ashliar

Mock-rock 

Badstone 

Stoney Baloney

NOT Gneiss Stone

Poopy-stone

Arsecraft

Shim Sham

Rubbish Rubble

Boulderdash!

Flintstone flimflam

Simulate Slate

Aggregated basalt (to the eyes)

Quasi quartz

Fallacious fieldstone

Fraudulant fragments 

Shifty shards 

Philistone

Stoneless

Doctored Fakinstone

Ersatzite

Facial erratic

Lying Con-Cretan

Fecking fauxlithic

Unreal-a-lickandstick

Celebrity Interview

"Tell the viewers a bit about yourself."

My nime is Shown Adcowk. O'im from Whiles. An Oi'm a droy stoawn whoaler.   But oi down av any use for an 'ammer an chissew. 

An'  oi reeelly  down loyk to av myewsic woil Oi'm whoaling

An' I reeelly down loyk aving moy foh-oh tiken !

Spoiling The View ?

Place cursor on image 

Tower Power

Sean took this photo of me yesterday building a small tower on the beach.

It gives the suggestion that I have  powers of levitation, as the stone I need to fit into place, below the one I am holding, seems to be magically rising into the air. 

I will not give away my secret.

 

A Visit to Amherst Island.

Sean and I spent the day at Amherst Island the site of last year's dry stone festival. We took photos of the stonework there. He commented that it was 'far from a complete disaster'. On the Adcock scale, this is praise indeed! 

We met up later with Jacob Murray and a lot of his friends and fellow islanders having a late solstice celebration at the western end of the island. Not that the solstice was late, but that it was a celebration one week later. 

Sean and I built five small stone arches on the flat multi-layered, rock shelved beach and one in the water. 

The stones magically snapped into place. It seemed like all the stones enjoyed having a chance to take on arch shapes, however briefly. 

There was great food and lots of happy excited  talk about the past festival and the one coming up in Perth Ontario this July. Sean has been invited to attend that festival.

Sean who is often quite dismal at most social events even admitted to having a good time yesterday .

A simple question.

Sean Adcock is with me this week and we're building dry stone entrance walls with 4 foot square pillars that have a subtle Japanese rampart-type curved batter to them. 

Because its a more interesting project than just straight pillars it's turning out to be a lot of fun. There are plenty of things to consider and we stop every now and then and ponder the best way of building it.

So here's one question...Do we build the pillars separately or lock the corner stones in with the walls as we build up ? 

Reading between the stones.

When I used to do mortar masonry, I had a helper who mixed all my mortar. When we finished a fireplace and took away all the scaffolding we used to stand back and admire the chimney. I'd say something like "Look at all that beautiful stonework". He'd stand there and then say "Look at all that beautiful mortar"

Arch at Goodwood

Andy always knocks the Wall out of the Park !

A piece by Andy Goldsworthy built in 2002 at Goodwood Sussex England, - a sculpture organisation and outdoor park devoted to the promotion of 21st century British sculpture through public commissions and exhibitions.

Opus 40 Restoration Report - Last Instalment

Here’s Sean Adcock's final instalment and a whole raft of photos of his and many others exploits  at Opus 40

"Capping it all

Finished at last...

I don’t have any really good before shots.  There’s one I took from 2013 and a now shot, too much rigging yet to be removed to show it properly.  There’s another of me repairing the path at the base to give a bit of scale.  I should imagine Tomas will post more on the Stone Foundation Facebook page in due course.

The last major job was resetting the ‘flatwork’ a bit of a euphemism at Opus 40 where the settlement means hardly anything is flat.  Here TJ Mora is hard at it... the temperatures over the last few days have been unbearable... high 80sFahrenheit in the shade on a reflective stone surface it was silly... hot stone, burning chisels.  The fits at Opus 40 are not very tight, so whilst we use stones of generally the right shape we did not go for snug, cut joins.  Again we were restoring not renovating.  We did however fill all the gaps with small stones and debris to avoid the potential of anyone breaking their ankles on ‘our’ bit.

So to the caps... The wall had to be built specifically for each stone, measuring from a string to build the required height at either end and usually in the middle.  The stones were generally too irregular to build the whole length (shelving, tapering or quarter inch differences here and there which mess everything up if you try to build the whole length unless you are very lucky).  The key to getting a good consistent line it to measure everything as accurately as possible then allow an extra 1/16 -1/8 inch as stones always seem to sit ‘proud’ of your measurements, how inaccurate you can be and still get it right is I think down to ‘feel’, it is however worth being painstaking as a nice crisp line to the top of the blocks always sets the work off and catches the eye (distracting from the less than perfect wall below). 

 The Stone was then rigged and hoisted into place using a gin pole, similar to the way Harvey Fite wthe creator of Opus 40 worked.  Us old guys manned the ropes or shouted instructions, whilst young intern Alex Banfield did the boom hoisting.  Harvey did it by himself, we needed a small army.  Originally we hoped that this would be motor driven, but a succession of motors could not cope, once we gave up with modern technology, found one of Harvey’s old handles and adjusted it to fit, it ran like clockwork, and Alex is now well toned into the bargain.  There’s a video of the whole torturous hoisting process taken by Benjamin Maron a local waller, frequent and invaluable member of the team at https://www.icloud.com/sharedalbum/#B025Uzl7Vy7qps 

Once roughly in place the stone had to be ‘teased’ into position... in this instance using our “battering ram” a tool originally devised to knock in stones in the remains of the original face we were trying to join into (hearting behind them first removed) back to something approaching the ‘correct’ “batter”/slope hence its name... nothing to do with castle doors after all.(Photo courtesy of Gerry Pallor).  It pays to have a Karl Kaufmann to hand for this kind of work.

Once in place the stone is tweaked front back and the ends for level, not always easy when some are slightly dished.  Voids under the stone are filled carefully from all sides including the front (leaving space for the final face stones).  “Spaghetti arms” help, failing that thin metal bars, hammer handles, other stones to nudge them until they are tight.  Finally any gaps in the face are filled with carefully selected tight fitting stone not always easy when the stone tapers down into the wall.  

All in all, fiddly and time consuming, but well worth the effort, as indeed I’d like to think the whole job was.  Hopefully there will be a full report of the project in “Stonechat” and “Stonexus” in the not too dim distant future.

The Upcoming Perth Dry Stone Wall Festival

Wallers seek a roof over their head for Dry Stone Walling Festival

Give a waller a home this July

Desmond Devoy

Algonquin College stone-working teacher John Scott listens to the discussion around the town council table during the committee of the whole meeting on Tuesday, June 7, before his own delegation on the upcoming Canadian Dry Stone Walling Festival, July 22-24.

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Perth Courier

By Desmond Devoy 

The Canadian Dry Stone Walling Festival, being held in Perth from July 22-24 is seeking help to put up wallers from around the world. 

Billet families are being sought for people coming from around the world to take part in the festival, which will be part of the 200th anniversary Homecoming Weekend. While homes have been found for 20 wallers, another 20 spaces are needed, though Algonquin College stone-working teacher John Scott said that “there might be more than we had planned for. I’m setting up tents in the back yard,” he said, half-jokingly. 

The wallers are coming from Canada, the United States, Scotland, England, and Ireland. If you are interested in billeting wallers, please contact Gerry Welsh or John and Carol Ann McNeil at 613-285-6625 or email john.mcneil99@gmail.com. 

One of the more well-known wallers in attendance will be Norman Haddow, master craftsman at Balmoral Castle, the Queen’s holiday residence in Scotland. 

I see the world through stone. They really contribute to the landscape. John Scott

Following a series of lively discussions earlier at the June 7 committee of the whole meeting, including a proposal for Perth to seek to become a United Nations World Heritage site, noted Scott, that many world heritage sites “have dry stone walls in it,” thus making his presentation to council “very timely.” 

“I see the world through stone,” said Scott. “They really contribute to the landscape.” 

There used to be many dry stone walls throughout Perth, part of the town’s Scottish architectural legacy, but with the invention of cement, “we’ve lost a lot of them,” he said. 

“I’m very excited to have them here,” he said of the wallers from the world over, as they converge on the old swimming hole off of Mill Street to build a dry stone bridge parallel to the Mill Street bridge on the other side of the swimming area. According to a press release presented at council, “the bridge will be constructed of tightly laid rubble limestone and will feature granite abutments and limestone copings. The Indiana limestone arch stones are being cut by students of the Algonquin College heritage masonry program under the supervision of Daly Drevniok, a UK-trained banker-mason currently working in the restoration of the parliament buildings in Ottawa.” 

The bridge will also incorporate rubble limestone from Madoc, Ont., as well as Gananoque granite. 

Another way in which the college will contribute to the festival is by utilizing Early Childhood Education (ECE) students who will be volunteering to monitor the kids rock area, making for an “interesting cross-pollination.” 

Community services director Shannon Bailllon said that the abutment on the east side of the property will be removed and replaced at the swimming hole to facilitate the bridge building. 

“Talk about a legacy project! That will stand the test of time – 800 years,” marvelled Mayor John Fenik of the proposed bridge. “It’ll outlast the rocky ramp debate,” he joked. 

No swimming

At a follow-up committee of the whole meeting on June 14, Baillon alerted council that while the bridge will be built next month, “there is nothing changing the swimming area,” she said. “We are not doing anything to prevent people from entering the water. (But) we are not encouraging swimming. The infrastructure will still be there.” 

“People will be jumping off of the Rogers Road bridge on hot summer days (still),” said Fenik, of the difficulty in policing swimming along the waterway. He added that it would take “a lot of time, money, and energy to open that up to public swimming.” 

“I can appreciate the complexity of doing this,” said Coun. Jim Graff. 

Baillon said that they are looking at options for fencing for the area. 

“We are considering the idea,” said Baillon, possibly bringing in a landscape architect to consider options for the area. 

Deputy Mayor John Gemmell said that even if new fencing is added to the area after the new bridge is built, “kids will still be jumping off of it (into the swimming hole) anyway."