WORKIN' ON A CHAIN GANG...

We were delighted when earlier this spring the contractor who did the remodel of Soundcliff more than a decade ago finally had some time to work on a much smaller series of projects we had long been dreaming.

Falling in love with the views from our part of the Island he bought a house just up the road & became a neighbor... Peter has also become our friend. We trust & appreciate his attention to the details inside his sense of basic, simple & sturdy design... all done with singular quality. Much of the  Soundcliff's character has his fingerprints...

As his reputation grew the projects he took on grew ever more complex as well.  Multi-million dollar rehabs, however, are rather more rare these days, so we were able to attract his attention once again to our several comparably small projects.

The initial work involved remaking the rather steep rock path leading down the south side of the house to the studio with steps to harmonize with those built from the parking during the remodel. As one can see in these two views before we began the change, our entire property is quite a slope down into the view over the edge of our cliff.

That rustic lower path was a great solution in the beginnings of making a garden from what had been a severely raw site reworked after the new foundation was poured & the septic system/drain field installed. Megan, who designed the bones of the garden, gifted us some necessary early traction... gardening here includes a good deal of hiking!

When I moved to Soundcliff we made the garden level into my working space & soon I became involved with the Island's Open Studio tours. I had, for a number of years, wanted to make that path more comfortable & inviting for those guests. Here is the current result:

 

This terrace  broadens into a functional destination giving access to the hose bib & the half wine barrel we use to coil the hose. We got more of the square Indonesian paving stones I first found 5 years ago for another walkway on the north of the house to make this detail. The posts act as guides for the hose while moving around to water the gardens. I've been dreaming all this for several years...

Since we'd decided to do the work of re-laying the old stones into the new frames ourselves... not quite realizing what that meant, there was a summer's worth of rock moving... hence my notion that I've been working on a chain gang!

Indeed, it became a huge jigsaw puzzle!

I particularly like this image from the beginning, when the stones were first lifted, leaving the sod which had grown between them... like a negative "print".

Peter had worked very carefully to plan so the steps would be graceful to both eyes & feet, then sprayed a working drawing directly onto the ground from from his various horizontal measurements & vertical leveling stakes, since ultimately such work must be accomplished

I believe he accomplished that grace...

But... the project continued to include more... just as the path continues... down & around, leading to my studio door, which itself acquired another terrace paved with those Indonesian stones & presenting a cedar plank bench... a working surface for garden projects or to become a buffet or bar for entertaining...

This was built atop a new drainage system to relieve what had become a problematic puddle during winter’s wet.

[Peter is on the left, directing that work...]

This view shows the terrace from the deck above when it had just been filled with a pristine layer of  sand into which the stones were laid:

Then with the bench & stone installed:

Inside the studio a new step levels the entrance, replacing a ramp which had served when we stored the lawn mower in the space now occupied by the metal polishing area:

Another terrace laid out some years ago finally got paved with the same dressed volcanic Indonesian paving stones. I’d first used them to make the steps & path traversing the north side of the house, on the way up from the house deck to The Forge, Stephen's writing cottage, or down to my studio, which in turn, we call, The Hold. I again called the Islander who had back then advertised them in the local newspaper & we bought 120 more. They are gently geometrical , yet have wonderfully subtle variety of color & surface... they are easy & fun to lay in comparison to finding a fit of the irregular shapes. I love both their looks in combination for contrast!

A new step was made from the end of the plank used for the bench of the studio terrace... bringing additional harmony to our wide mix of materials...

A mystery emerged deepened when several more stones revealed a curious marking carved into the surface. I had evolved a notion that perhaps it indicated a sign for some "hotel", even as the spacing seemed odd for that, but each of the three additional examples we found were quite similar, with the same three glyphs. Another opinion suggests them to be some sort of mason's mark, like a signature or brand. I settled one into each terrace...

While I tried to resist tackling the final bit of path, even as it is the route which I personally use in daily frequency on my way from house to studio & back. But, I was in a groove, so that resolve lost to one last project, building several steps from recycled lumber & relaid the stones which largely had become buried. 

 

I also reconfigured a crudely rough pile of stones at the corner of the building into a new garden for miniatures...

 That  brings my recent attentions fully 'round the perambulation of the house we use to negotiate our slope... I am content.

One last overview from the deck brings us back to the bottom of the steps... all rock laid during my stint on this chain gang. I'm back in the studio now, reorganizing the aftermath of all these projects!

 

You're invited to come take a walk!

 

CHTHONIC TIME...

This slicing view of Tahoma last week captures something of recent moods of intensity focused at depth, drawing down attention to discerning what might be missed with the distractions of what sometimes considers itself "whole".

Time happens for rocks as well...

While I live now on a cliff of an Island of alluvial fill left, a bit too loosely piled, perhaps, while a glacier retreatingly melted only several thousand years ago, I've spent many years earlier meditating the history written in Arizona rock cliffs... eons of alternating oceans & deserts laying down parti-colored layers of sediment & dune, water & wind. Limestone intermixing sandstone... all before having become sculpted by wind & rain over eons more to make the spectacular spires & canyons of that territory. There is then the scattering of lava from the much more recent, yet now ancient, volcanoes which are the San Francisco Peaks above Flagstaff, known these days for skiing.

Time happens at so many speeds... place finds itself only in movement.

The slice of this spell of deep time carving wax is similarly dramatic. I do not fight these yearning impulses when left to my own schedule. While Stephen has been in Philadelphia I have been waxing irregular inside the sort of time it takes to move the mountains of wax... or so it seems from inside my magnivisors, those head strapped hooded lenses I wear to bring my vision down into the macro ranges necessary to carve the wax masters for bells, or earrings or rings... one of each has been current on my bench.

To get to scale useful to my work I must admit my gargantuan sensibilities, which often prove clumsy with a ruinous stroke of the tool. I study the flow of moods as I study the flow of material... positif-negativf again.

Years ago, in Sedona, I designed a hinged lily earring in two sizes. The smaller of those has had production problems which I am aiming to solve by re carving it. I began this wax last year, but have found the focus again toward finishing it. It fits nicely on a dime, to give you some scale.

The ear wire is fat in the wax because I can more easily finish it down to size after it is cast into sturdier metal. It is quite too fragile to refine in wax.

As perhaps you can visualize, it is inserted into the lobe from the back, the wire clicking into position so as to present the flower facing forward. While they always sell, I do not wish the bother of keeping them in stock, given the problems in the original. I trust this new version will allow them to be produced more gracefully.

Another extant design, for a frog ring has long wanted to be available in larger sizes. That is an essential consideration in designing rings: fingers & hands are perhaps the next most facile parts of the body after the face for expressing individuality... coming in a variety of sizes & proportion. One size does not fit all, if you remember the rings in Cracker Jack boxes. OK, I show my age. But after years designing custom rings I am cautious about involving myself again with the vicissitudes of fitting objects so precisely to such wildly organic variety, much less matching each with its own personal taste atop that!

Part of what I like about bells is that they is not quite so specific to the body...

I have been bringing this rarefied, focus back to the THIS IS IT bell about which I've written in earlier posts, these are shots showing the subtle progression as I refine each of the 126 glyphs as sculpture to hold as legible forms against the requisite degradations of molding, casting & polishing processes of production. The better I anticipate problems the easier all that might be...

I've spent three decades trying to teach my willy-nilly artist self that... Is this it?

From the vantage of Soundcliff I collect images of goings-on. I intend one day to post showing the variety of boats which pass by. Something more than a weeks ago I heard a repeating helicopter several times before looking to realise it was hauling a secession of utility poles. By the 4th or 5th time I was ready with my camera. I read later in the local paper the rarity of such obviously expensive method.... required by the remote stretches of our coastline, reached often by narrow roads not accessible to haul such lengths by truck.

That is synchronous with the process we are going through to have a leaning pole, holding our electrical service, replaced. The truck to deliver it has made it down our short road... the pole lays in the ditch, waiting for the crew which will commandeer our lane for the several hours necessary to set it... at their whim.

What must be the logistics of flying such poles in front of my camera's eyes?

Narrow segments of intensely focused time have allowed me to begin toward harvest several designs long on my books... I still study rocks.