In the Company of Stone: The Art of the Stone Wall : Walls and Words"Finding stone, choosing it, and letting go of it are the three things a waller does. I'd miss any one of them too much if I asked someone else to do them for me. I may work by myself, but I'm not alone. I'm in the company of stone." Daniel Snow is a waller, an artisan who builds walls, terraces, caverns, and the occasional sphere or pool out of dry stone. It's an ancient skill--building with only what the earth provides. No mortar, no nails, nothing to hold his creations together except gravity, an invisible glue he can sense in the stones' "conversations" of squeaks and rumbles. A hollow sound means a void needs to be filled; a solid fit is secured with the sound of a bolt being thrown. Snow's evocative prose and Peter Mauss's richly textured photographs of Snow's work reveal the nuance and beauty of walling--and of one man's relationship with nature. The result is by turns poetic and practical. |
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1½-inch crushed stone 12 feet 2-foot-deep base 20 feet asked backfill barn foundation ruin BARN RUIN FOLLY base of 1½-inch began Block-field stone imported brick building Built on soil Built on subsoil cleit cobblestones company of stone create crushed stone Fieldstone Dan Snow Dennstaedtia punctilobula derelict walls drystone wall earth edge Emery fall feel feet Built field FREESTANDING WALL GALLERY garden grass ground hollow Imported block-field stone keep ledge lifting look loose stone Newfane old wall Pages Peter Mauss photograph Picea abies piece pile pit tailings Property Quarry stone RETAINING AND FREESTANDING retaining wall round stones SACRED GROTTO scythe shape side slabs slope small stone space staircase standing stones steps stockpile stone 1 day Stone recycled stone wall surface Syringa vulgaris towns north tree vertical wall face wall's waller Walpole wanted weight West Dummerston x 3 feet