The Tilting Process

At the client’s property, in the gallery/studio space adjacent to where we were going to be building, we first placed the small sand box maquette of the ‘Tilted Garden’  to the angle of the rising sun.

We used landscaper’s spray paint to scribe a 9 foot 6 inch radius circle where the installation was to be built with a line on a north south axis. 

Our guy running the large backhoe really knew his stuff when it came to cutting the angle we wanted.

The stone supply, a large very random pile of limestone bedrock, was the result of what the backhoe had uncovered the year before digging a foundation for a new art gallery building on the property. 

For good drainage we filled 3/4 sharp clear gravel in along the lowest part of the crescent shape depression up to the height of the base that we would be building off of on that side.

There's what our preliminary excavation looked like from the gallery balcony.

Here's me trying to get my head round how we were going to build this thing.

Sand box designing

We were working all last week doing a dry stone installation in the Perth Ontario area, based on a Sketchup design I showed the client several months ago. I did this sand box maquette recently to get a better feel for the slanted platform shape I hoped to create. Models really help get a feel for scale and perspective. The resulting full size sculpture we completed just yesterday, happily created the intriguing sinking effect I hoped it would. 

More on this installation tomorrow.

Visiting the bridge a year later.

Yesterday was my first visit back to Perth Bridge since we were there building it . It's also after that great June flood where the river overflowed. But everything looked good. Nothing out of the ordinary. Or rather, everything looks 'extraordinary' !

Award for Dedication

 

Again this year, Dry Stone Walling Across Canada sponsored another graduating student in the Algonquin College award program. They were pleased to award the Dedication to Traditional Stonemasonry Techniques Award from DSWAC at Convocation last month. This year’s recipient was Steven Barter.

Sunny's at Night

A piece by Irish artist and dry stone waller Sunny Wieler http://www.stoneart.ie  is installed on the client s property where we are working presently. It's an intriguing freestanding mosaic made with cut granite and broken mirrors. It has a commanding view of field where the art installation is that we have been commissioned to create.

It was a bit of a surprise and definitely a coincidence to see Sunny's work here too. Our patron definitely has good taste. 

Spanning 13 Years

The Canada150 Bridge

DSWAC in conjunction with Fleming College - Haliburton School of Art + Design, completed a week long course on teaching students how to build a dry stone bridge.

A small creek in a public park in the municipality Dysart Et Al was chosen and approved for the site where the permanent foot bridge was to be built.

Ten students worked together with me, their instructor, on this ambitious project.

After the foundations were dug and built up with stone (and the undergrowth was cut back) an 8 foot wooden former was set in place.

The first rows of voussoirs were laid over the thick springers.

18 tons of beautiful stone material was provided by Vince Hammond Aggregate near Minden Ontario

On the second day, the water in the creek rose unusually high, due to the sudden release of a month long heavy rainfall backup in a reservoir upstream.

The water upstream had to be slowed down with plywood over a culvert or the former might have been washed away.

On the third day the class went on a field trip to gather 4 more tons of voussoir-shaped stones from the quarry.

Tight fitting shims in combination with closely aligned arch stones are essential to create the even compression and necessary friction to hold all the stones in place when the form is taken out.

There is no lack of excitement watching the form come out and the arched bridge being born 

Iris got the first underside barrel vault shot.

Work still goes on to complete the bridge on the last day

Including setting the parapet stones and the cobbled walking surface.

( Note the train and the jet in the background, an iconic triad of ways to cross land, air, and water. )

There's a job for everyone on a bridge.

We decided to call it the Canada Sesquicentennial Bridge.

Happy birthday Canada.

Well done students.

https://www.facebook.com/flemingHSAD/

Feile na gCloch 2017

This is going to be a wonderful gathering of the stone clan.
I look forward to seeing many of you there.

So our plan was...

So our plan, when we first positioned the wood form, for getting it out from under our newly built Haliburton Canada 150 Dry Stone Bridge later this week was to chainsaw the supporting 4x4s and have them drop away low enough to have the form drop too and then slide out easily.




Only problem is (as this illustration shows) the water level has risen a foot since Monday and now we'll need to use the chain saw under water!

Good Question.

Why aren't there any stones here, on this part of the bridge, sir?



Because Craig hasn't got his other row finished yet, son.



And Ted and Iris can't put their row on until Craig has put his two on the bridge.



And then, after that, we can put these two rows on.





And maybe by Friday all the other stones will be on the bridge.

Relationships

Stressing about a rocky relationship?  Take a lesson from these stones.They don't mind getting dumped. They're going to join up with all kinds of new ones and be lovingly placed into a beautiful stone bridge that's about to be built in Haliburton Ontario in the park this week.



And here is the centering (along with the students) that will form those new stone relationships to create a permanent structure for all the passers-by on the trail. 

Hoist away

How come rocks never look anywhere as big in the photos as they are in real life?
This huge chunk of granite had to be lowered into place using a tripod and a hoist.
It went in to make up an important section of foundation of the dry stone bridge abutment.
We could have never lifted it in without this tripod set up. 


 

Just as tripods are used to lift heavy motor blocks in and out of vehicles needing major repair, we 'motored' to get our heavy block into the bridge, in order to repair the damage from previous two days of continuous flooding. 

Bridging the Gap

A bridge to some,
where storybook stories happen,
invites all of us to span the time
between now 
and what will become...
- not just fancifully 
but actually possible 
using our imagination. 

A bridge to know
where special,
things happen along the way.
(Things just happen that way)

Friends and bridges like these 
are made, 
not by being 
professional or politically correct,
not by relying on modern adhesives 
or heavy machinery, 

Not by waiting for bridge financing 
or the banks narrowing 
our vision 
and trying to shrink our crazy stream
to something more fordable, 

Not by assessing all the risk factors 
and deciding it's too
expansive, 
too unregulatory chanciful, 

Not by imposing liability limits on our enthusiasm 
and making our babbling creek
some sort of impassible raging chasm.

But by building on and over
the same 
foundation of know 
how and when-to
that we've always intuitively understood. 

Learning how 
and knowing when the time is 
to make that creative connection,

And boldly bridge the gap.

And be only circumspect
in this respect
that we kindly ignore others who tell us 
'It can't be done'.