The Show

The opening for the McMaster Innovation Park Art in the Workplace 10th Exhibit is this Thursday the 29th from 7-9 PM.  One of my jobs as part of the organizing committee has been to help with the installation.  Last weekend, a group of us spent the better part of Sunday getting all of the art onto the walls, stained glass into the windows and sculptures arranged in the sculpture area.  This show includes some really great work, including this sculpture by Jennifer Wilson-Bridgman, which I find breathtaking.

http://www.mcmasterinnovationpark.ca/art_workplace_entries/view/289

If you can make it, come on out to the opening.  The best part is being able to meet all of the artists and to find out what inspires them and how they make their art.  For more information, go to...

http://www.mcmasterinnovationpark.ca/art_workplaces/view/14

All In

My goal was to carry in the curb weight of my car, and this past week, I reached that milestone. Now, I'll take a break from carrying stone for a few weeks until the 29th, and then I'll start to carry it home.

November 8, 2012 - 3,100 lbs

The 29th is the McMaster Innovation Park Art in the Workplace 10th Exhibit opening (7-9 PM). I want the structure complete for the show, and then I'll be a bit pressed to get it all carried home again by early March next year. At least I don't have to worry about finding the stone and cleaning it up now.

The last few loads included a lot of small stone as I tried to fill in the gaps. I also took some time to rearrange some of the stones so that on odd shaped stone that was sticking up is now positioned flush with the top surface. People who work with stone call those odd shaped stones "problem solvers". The idea is that you can use them to fill awkward spots in your structure. While that is a good attitude to have, the truth is that stones that look like they are going to be difficult to work with, usually are.

Where I'm Finding the Stone

I have a lot of stone on my city lot.  Retaining walls ring the lawn, and at the back of the lot, I have walls terracing up to the abandoned lane way.  I had a fair amount of extra stone piled at the very back.

Back Yard Still Intact

However, once I got started collecting and cleaning the spare stone that I have, I realized that I was going to need something more if I wanted to leave all of the walls and steps that I've built over the years intact.  I live at the base of the Niagara Escarpment, and there is lots of stone laying below, but that is public parkland and off limits as far as I'm concerned.

A little less than 2 km from my home, there was a large dump of fill and in that fill, there is a lot of decent stone.  The problem was that it needed to be collected and cleaned before I could carry it to work and add it to my Carry structure.  Since this project is all about carrying stone, I decided that I'd carry the stones that I collect there home, hose and clean them off and then carry them into work.  I chose an area beside my house as a staging area and piled dirty stone there until I could clean it up and move it to another pile of stone ready to be carried into work.

One in the Hand, Two in the Bag
(and a large one in the backpack)

I used that pile as my source for a while, either walking around to it on my way home from work, or making extra trips to gather stone on the weekends.  A few weeks ago, the pile was bull-dozed flat, so the stone that was sitting on top was now buried or pressed into the muddy surface.  Since then, I've been using a similar smaller pile of fill a little closer to home.