Half Dome

My first dry stone walls for Mrs. Berg’s gardens were built to support terraced planting beds. I gathered stone for the steps and walls from talus slopes lying under ledge outcrops on a wooded mountainside in Townshend, Vermont. I discovered the gold mine of building material while working for the property owners a few years previous. Jon and Anne not only encouraged me in my early career but allowed me to purchase raw materials from their land at a reasonable price. With the help of excavation contractors, Archie and Winn Clark of Newfane, I drew hundreds of tons of stone down from Tobey’s mountain and trucked it up to the top of the Berg’s.

The terrace walls needed to be practical for walking on and through, so there would naturally be steps and pathways included in the design. They also wanted to be interesting, spatially. Inclusion of the half-dome niche in the design was a response to what would otherwise have been a large, unvarying section of wall surface. The creation of the concave feature was also a response to the offerings of the bone yard. An impressive heap of granite cobbles, salvaged from the streets of Bellows Falls, informed the decision to make the unique vaulted shape.

While I labored under the summer sun in the stark topography of the bedrock covered entrance area, others were at work on the house construction. One individual seem to assign himself specialty carpentry projects, and at the same time, generally keep tabs on everything else that was going on. Bill was a tall drink of water from deep in the heart of Texas. Before retiring to spend his summers tinkering for the fun of it on Rice Mountain, Bill was an engineer who’s family business did large-scale projects all over the world. His Texas twang and easy manner made him a welcome addition to the cast of “employed” characters on site. When I began making the false-work form that the cobblestone dome would be erected over, Bill helped me devise a shape made out of plywood fins and sand bags. The sandbags prompted a story from Bill. One of the projects his firm contracted was the dredging of a harbor in the Middle East. His company came up with a method that sucked the sand off the sea floor and shot it, cannon-like, a half mile out into the bay. This was the quality of mind I had at my disposal for finding solutions to my very basic design problems! Bill helped me invent the processes that made the “one of a kind” projects I was doing there, possible. But most of all, for me and others, his presence on site was a daily spirit-lifter.

Entrance Garden

This is the first of ten short essays on the design and stone work I did on Rice Mountain for the Berg family over an 18 year period beginning in the late 1980's. The essays will be posted twice a week for the next five weeks. Happy New Year to all.

Entrance Garden

My great grandfather came from Winchester, New Hampshire to Brattleboro, Vermont, where I was born. So, I could say my roots are in the Granite State. But once the Snow family crossed the Connecticut River they never looked back. I’d been working stone around Windham County for ten years when, in the late 1980’s, Gordon asked me if I’d like to look at a job in Walpole. It must have been time for a Snow to recross the river. The next weekend he introduced me to Mr. and Mrs. Berg and they welcomed me to design a series of terraces and steps to facilitate pedestrian access from the car park to their home. The landscape between the two could more properly have been called a “ledgescape”. Trees had been cleared, stumps removed and all the soil stripped away. All that remained was the mountain top bedrock worn slick by the passing of time and glaciers. This wild, contorted slope of rock face was to be my work place for a good part of the next two years.

I began by making a model of the slope in cast plaster. The walls and steps were applied to the plaster in modeling clay.  The design I came up with was a reflection of the architecture of the house; made of straight lines and right angles. This first design was straightaway rejected by my new clients but with such tact and respect for my efforts that my young artist’s ego escaped bruising. They encouraged me to reconfigure the design, using curves as the theme for the next try.

The second design received enthusiastic approval. Mrs. Berg asked, “When can you start?”, and that was as formal as our business relationship ever became. All work was by verbal agreement on a labor and materials basis. Over a nearly twenty year period I created numerous stone works on the property, most of which provided a setting for the gardens. During that time, I continued to make stone constructions for customers in Vermont but the Bergs remained my sole clients in New Hampshire. I knew from the start that there could be no better place to work in all the Granite State than on Rice Mountain. 

Landscapes Deeply Felt

An Alberto Giacometti sculpture of the human figure retains the immediacy of its making. There is a freshness of expression that continues to exude from the busts he made of his brother, Diego, more than 70 years after they were created. Last week I viewed a show of Giacometti’s work at Eykyn-Maclean Gallery in New York City. The 20th century Swiss artist is one of my favorites. 

While in Switzerland a few years ago I visited the region near the Italian border where Giacometti was born. The mountains are jagged. The traditional homes and agricultural buildings are made of stone, including their roofs. After returning home from NYC I looked back at photos from my Italy/Switzerland trip. I was struck by the similarities between the torsos of Giacometti’s sculpture and the mountains and built landscape of his homeland.

The greater surroundings of our childhood, though they may feel like no more than mere back drops to us while growing up, affect us deeply throughout our lives. Their impact can be as subtle as a gesture in our chosen mode of expression. The environment of our youth is with us always.

Bitter Sweet

After the leaves have left the trees and before snow blankets the ground there’s a time the landscape goes bare naked. It’s the season when pale light’s filtered through thin clouds to softly illuminate every twig and tuft of grass. Frost puts a hard grip on the surface of everything, including stone. Stones that were loose and free a week ago are now clutched tight to the soil. Picking one off the ground tears up a piece of frozen earth along with it. An added labor is added to the work of dry stone walling. Clumps of frozen dirt must be hammered and chipped from it before the stone can be laid. December is a transitional time in the life of a seasonal worker. It can be difficult to switch gears and move on to the next pursuit. Change is hard but it exposes new aspects of life. December is bittersweet.  

Rock Rest

Last week was reveille in the stone yard. I called upon stones I’ve been saving many a moon to create a special sculpture. “Rock Rest” was designed and assembled with the intent that it eventually be disassembled, moved and reassembled. The hope is that a patron of the Brattleboro Museum and Art Center will purchase the piece and donate it to a new garden space being built at the Center. The piece will be integrated with the planting beds and paths as a sitting-perching-climbing area. “Rock Rest” has three seats and multiple perches. Two seats will overlook the Connecticut River and Wantastiquet Mountain, the third will face into the garden. 

Become my new best friend! Contact the Brattleboro Museum and Art Center and tell them you’d like to donate “Rock Rest” for the new garden space!

Testing Trio

I had a request to post photos of the timed test walls built by myself, Neil Rippingale and Chris Tanguay in Kentucky last October. So, here they are, all received passing marks! 

Photos: top - Dan, middle - Neil, bottom - Chris.

Stone Rising

A 1 minute clip from Stone Rising - on a rainy day in Vermont.