Addicted to stone

1 I admit I am powerless over the allure of stones and dry stone walls, and that my life without them has become unmanageable

2 I believe that a power greater than myself has influenced me to see how all-consuming my need to stack stones and build walls is.

3 I have made a decision to at least try to be creative in other ways than just building with stones all day .

4 I have made a searching and fearless moral inventory of my life in regard to stone.

5 I have admitted publicly the exact nature of my love of stone

6 I am entirely ready to have this dependency on stone removed, if it is wrong.

7 I humbly ask that my impatience and obsessiveness about walling be removed too, if it bugs anyone.

8 I have made a list of all the people I may have ignored, in my passion to be close to stones, and am willing to make amends to them if necessary

9 I have made amends where possible and tried to be careful not to get carried away talking about stone walls all the time.

10 I continue to take personal inventory and when I am wrong to see a dry stone installation as the first or only solution to any gardening or landscaping question, I will promptly admit it

11 I have sought to improve my conscious contact with any higher powers, to enable me to know what the reasons and purposes are for my obsessively building with stones.

12 Having had a spiritual awakening as a result of taking these steps I accept responsibility to warn and help others who may inadvertently come under the powerful influence of stone too.

The Photo- Paul Wakefield  www.paulwakefield.co.uk 

This 14 ft dry stone bottle was built to advertise a special export malt for Johhney Walker. 

It was built by Stephen Harrison with the help of Steve Allen.

Hi, my name is John, and I'm a wall-aholic. 

I admit it.

I support my stone-habit by heaping piles of stones in any way I can.

I am completely reliant on their support. I can't do (or do it ) without them.

I've tried substituting chemicals and mortar and concrete blocks and gone to re-bars but I always go back to the hard stuff - stone.

Every time I see stones I feel this uncontrollable urge to use them.
I admit it, I'm a user.

I can't go by a stone yard with out dropping in and getting 'loaded'.

I drive around all day looking for old walls, just looking for a 'fix'.

I get so carried away creatively sometimes I don't even wall in a straight line.

I know, with the size of my stone problems, I've just gotta get some help* 

I need a 'support' group - some sort of organization.

Otherwise at the end of a day of using the stuff I just feel wasted.

I just can't say 'No' to stones.

I'm totally under their influence.

And can't seem to pull myself away from them.

I respect the fact that alcohol addiction can be a real problem for some people

and commend the resolve (and methods) of those seeking help to quit drinking.

Brett McBirnie's Eaton Project

This is the Eaton Project in Cumberland Village, Ontario, completed January 2012. It's all Brett McBirnie's design, and the first dry stone job he's done, though he has been working several years in heritage masonry.  120-140 ton of materials give or take was installed over 3 months. 

The patios and steps rise over 4' of grade. The patios were levelled in such a way that though appearing to be level, actually route any water flow to specific drain ways. Underlying this are two french drains and a web of nearly 200' of drainage tile, to allow for 0% surface run-off and 'grit' getting into the adjoining pool. Square footage is approximately 2000 sq./ft. It also incorporates a/c power outlets and an ample amount of geo-textile base, as the entire job is built on highly unstable leda clay.

 The stone material is from Wiarton and Riada.The design is laid out to allow for traffic flow between two back decks, while maintaining a static seating area that is separate, inclusive of ease of access to pool. Also, and more importantly, the clients are new grandparents, so while seated at any location within the structure, the sight lines are never blocked by anything higher than 20"... so as to be able to keep an eye on the toddlers making a bee line for the pool. 

Something there is that doesn't like concrete

Sean Adcock sent me this video link of 'How to build an arched stone bridge' . 
He wrote... "Knew we were doing something wrong!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y2nJY2tyS8QZS

'Petrofitting' Dry Coasting

It's a tough job, but someone's got to put all this natural California coast 'rock wall' back together.

Waiting for a thaw.

I trudged to our Monarch Bridge last week to take a photo of the creek flowing under it during spring runoff

But winter hasn't run off yet.

The impatience of stones

It has been said that an arch never sleeps.
I think it's because stones don't sleep.
They just don't want to stop.

Stones don't stop with the 'pressure' thing either.

They are so darn pushy.

And -
They are constantly bugging me to build something with them,

To learn something - to understand something from them.

They keep trying to change me - to affect me

The never cease to amaze me, to make me want to paint them, to stack them, to photograph them, to hang out with them, to talk about them, and of course - write about them.

They are impatient with my impatience.

They are in fact, 'permanently' impatient !

When they get going they work up a tremendous momentum.
They basically just want to keep on you!

They never seem to want to stop and turn around or go back or ask for directions

They are so impatient

Look at them! They just cant wait to get down that hill.

Time is just an annoying blip in their agenda

They don't have time for facebook or video games or frivolities or any of our shallow pursuits.

They are constantly shifting, restless beings.
And yes, they are basically impatient ! 

Black House Design

I was going through some old Sketchup files this holiday weekend and discovered the designs that Dean Mclellan asked me to do of the black house we were designing to be built during RocktoberFest 2009 in Grand Valley Ontario – an international DSWAC walling event that he and Eric Landman and I organized that year.

I think the structure we ended up building looked pretty similar.

Kay's Bridge Project 


This is a repost of a video Ryan Lemieux sent me of the 2010 Festival of Stone a while back.

I think it is interesting to be able view this phase of the bridge build from a side most of the spectators were not able to see. 

Life is like a rock wall of chocolates

You never know what you're gonna get.

Or where they are all hiding.

Or how many you will find.

Happy Easter.

Walling as Art.

Art Installation at The Northumberland Headquarters Building

On August 5th I will be teaching an intensive five day dry stone walling course at Haliburton School of the Arts - Fleming College. The emphasis will be on what is termed 'Dryscaping' – the structural use of natural stone in landscape applications without man made products such as glue, rebar, cement, concrete blocks or imitation stone.

This dry stone feature called " C to C" was built by students taking the five day course I taught at the Haliburton School Arts several years ago.

Haliburton Sculputre Forest.

There are several very intruiging sculptures in the 'art park'.

Dry Stone Walling Course Information 

C to C

Hubb Creek Bridge Revisited

Speaking of bridges, this is another dry stone footbridge built in Prince Edward County, Ontario this time, during a 10 day workshop organized by Dry Stone Walling Across Canada with eight students under the instruction of DSWAC director John Shaw-Rimmington back in 2007, which was revisited and videoed in the spring of 2013. It still looks spectacular.  www.dswac.ca

Building on top of the form

The two keystones are in place and the lowest pair of voussoirs are fitted.

The other large sandstone voussoirs we shaped are then lifted on by hand, one by one, and fitted carefully along the outer sides of the form so there were no gaps.

As we built up the outsides, the centre of the arch was infilled with micca quartzite builder stones from Sidney Peak Quarry. They were laid face down in an array of radiating courses spaced properly near the upper edges with the ever important, yet tiny, shim stones.

Watching out for fingers!

Removing the stones from the temporary form was not as difficult as you might imagine.

The concrete outer shell broke out nicely too.

Finished Arch - Strong bones that stand ready for 'fleshing out' into a bridge when the time comes.

Thanks to Sean Smyth, Sean Adcock, Alan Ash and Patrick McAfee for all their help on this project.

Bridge Thinking

A template was made of plywood to trace the voussoir shapes we would need on the chunks of red sandstone

We determined that the voussoirs would be ay least 8 inches at the base (intrados) to fit the dimensions of the arch circumference we had to span and still make the best use of the sizes of sandstone blocks we had available. The sides of the template were then determined by the radiating lines coming from the bottom centre of the form. (the point where the trammel had been fixed to the base)

While it went pretty smoothly tracing and then cutting the chunkier stones into voussoir shapes, there was some difficulty getting the correct angle on any stones that were slightly smaller than our template. Any discrepancies in these angles had to be 'fixed' ( chiseled down with a point) after we tried fitting the arch stones together in situ 

The two huge keystones were then lowered into place exactly top centre of the form.

Formers with Mortar

The next step in our bridge 'reno' was to construct a goalpost-shaped trammel which we centered on the wooden platform we had made between the stone bridge abutments. 

Then using it as our height gauge, we rotated the trammel and built up a barrel-shaped pile of left-over rubble stones, being careful not to extend stones anywhere above the bar . Talk about moving goal posts!  We covered these stones with landscape fabric. 

We mixed concrete and applied a four inch layer with trowels over the barrel of stones. The surface was shaped to the exact contour of the bottom of the bar of the trammel . We left this over night to set. This was now to become the centering for the new arch.