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Post by frenchmystiquetour on May 2, 2010 22:42:57 GMT
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Post by frenchmystiquetour on May 2, 2010 22:48:28 GMT
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Post by bixaorellana on May 3, 2010 0:16:19 GMT
Words fail. Whooo ~~ I don't think I can adequately express how much I love this! You really are an artist. There is no mortar in any of that, except for the capping -- am I correct? The design is stunning, and perfect for the setting. I'm having fun finding little touches like the round stone with a ray of smaller stones around it at 4 o'clock on the big fountain. (is that what that is?). And the other fountain, set into the wall ....... perfect. Where does the troll door go? This is so great! Frenchmystiquetour ~~ please go look at the Post Cards board anyportinastorm.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=pictures and let me know if you'd like to see this thread there. It seems an excellent place for it.
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Post by frenchmystiquetour on May 3, 2010 1:02:41 GMT
Thanks Bixa. I'm truly appreciative of your praise. Actually, this type of stone wall is what we would call a "dry look". This means that there is mortar behind the stones holding them in place but none in the joints so it gives the appearance of having no mortar. Sometimes I see designs in the stones after I have built something but it is always unintentional. In a wall this size, the most important thing is to keep building and be sure to put stones together that work, regardless of shape, size and color. There is only one fountain in the wall but I have pictures of it in action and when it is turned off. Since I left the states my friend has since built a small catch pool at the base of the water feature. The troll door leads to the plumbing works and a storage area. And there will be an actual hobbit style troll door on there at some point. My friend has built a few of them before. He is extremely unique. If you noticed in the middle of the round tower there was a plastic tube sticking up. In the future there will be a water fountain in there with a little tea party area around it and the plastic pipe is the tube to carry the water. Would you mind moving this thread to the Post Cards Board? It seems like a good place for sort of off beat stories. Thanks again for your compliments.
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Post by lola on May 3, 2010 3:53:45 GMT
My, my. Now THAT is a wall. Gorgeous. In like New England maybe? Did the stones come from around there?
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Post by Deleted on May 3, 2010 4:56:52 GMT
Beautiful walls. My friend with a house in the Lot has rock walls all around it, but they are mortarless, so they crumble regularly. I think that every time I have gone there, I have spent part of my time helping to rebuild walls. It's a great way to spend a sunny afternoon.
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Post by frenchmystiquetour on May 3, 2010 7:43:23 GMT
Lola - What a fantastic guess. You are absolutely correct. I come from the Boston area and that wall is in a small town west of Boston called Carlisle. Brief history is I built that wall for an eccentric friend. He grew up in the town and sort of does artisan contract work. He spent several years having his local construction friends dump rocks in his yard whenever they were building new housing developments. His driveway is about 150 feet long and when I showed up to start building the wall both sides of the entire length of his driveway were lined with piles of rock about 12 feet wide and about 8 feet high.
Kerouac2 - When I visit my sister and brother in-law in Italy I do the same thing. They live on a hillside with terraced landscaping and every time there is a mud slide/major rain event walls break up.
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Post by fumobici on May 3, 2010 15:37:41 GMT
The Italian muratori are generally very adept and can build walls that are likely to last centuries but many private homes on hillsides have retaining wall that are pretty literally crudely cobbled together out of rocks from the fields- obviously the work of farmers rather than skilled masons.
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Post by bixaorellana on May 3, 2010 15:40:35 GMT
Do the pile of chips eventually get used for something? They seem too pretty to waste.
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Post by imec on May 3, 2010 18:44:29 GMT
I too am in awe of this beautiful, beautiful work - thanks for posting this!
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Post by frenchmystiquetour on May 3, 2010 22:39:28 GMT
You are all too kind. Thank you.
Fumobici, I was trained to be a mason by my Italian brother in-law and got my start at his house in Italy.
Bixa, a lot of the small stuff ends up in the wall in the form of chinks (the small pieces that fill up holes between larger stones) but there is always some waste when all is said and done. They just end up back home in the ground somewhere.
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Post by Deleted on May 4, 2010 10:19:12 GMT
Goodness,what beautiful work!!! It does speak New England,one sees this type of stone work throughout,even in New York,we had a plenitude of stone/rocks to build all manner of outdoor fireplaces,etc. (Is that an old outhouse there in one of the pics? Also,a common feature in New England).
Here in the Mississippi Delta,one never,ever sees rocks,they don't exist in our terrain. I always miss them. When I was building my goldfish pond here,I implored everyone that I knew who was going anywhere that had rocks to bring me some back to use in making a border around. And,whenever I go up North with a vehicle,I always import rocks back with me.
Thanks for this!
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Post by frenchmystiquetour on May 4, 2010 15:02:46 GMT
You're welcome Casimira. Yeah, we've got rocks up in the north and you've got all the mud in the south. No outhouse in the pics, by the way. Thanks for dropping in.
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Post by Deleted on May 4, 2010 19:07:03 GMT
Very nice. There's nothing as cosy as stone walls on a sunny day.
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Post by lola on May 5, 2010 14:48:32 GMT
I love the story of the stones. Artistry + friendship + hard work + technical skill = that wall.
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Post by frenchmystiquetour on May 6, 2010 12:08:09 GMT
Thanks lola and deyana.
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Post by bixaorellana on May 6, 2010 17:23:42 GMT
Do you have any wall-building opportunities where you are now?
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Post by frenchmystiquetour on May 7, 2010 0:08:27 GMT
Hi Bixa,
Right now, no. I'll need some work next winter so I'll be asking around but finding work here is not as easy as in the U.S. And working under the table is next to non-existent. Plus, the type of work I do is not as common here. Most mason work here involves is plaster and concrete, despite all the wonderful stone buildings they have. We'll see.
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Post by hwinpp on May 13, 2010 6:53:06 GMT
Did you make this by hand? It looks phantastic!
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Post by frenchmystiquetour on May 13, 2010 15:26:10 GMT
Yup. That is all done by hand with the exception of the largest stones that you see mostly in the lower half of the wall. Those ones I set in place with a loader that had forks on the front. But even those require some manipulation by hand to keep them in a straight and vertical position. Everything else from mixing the mortar (in a motorized mixer, of course) to shaping the stones (with hammer, chisel, rock drill and stone cutter/grinder) to setting the stones in place was all me. Thank you very much for the compliment.
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Post by bixaorellana on May 13, 2010 23:14:53 GMT
In an area such as New England, does the mason have to learn specific techniques for preventing heaving and cracking because of freezes?
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Post by Deleted on May 14, 2010 5:05:02 GMT
Stonemasons are in extremely high demand in France -- except in the winter.
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Post by frenchmystiquetour on May 14, 2010 21:51:04 GMT
Hmm. I did not know that, kerouac. Something I'll look into. Let me know if you hear of any opportunities.
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Post by frenchmystiquetour on May 14, 2010 22:02:07 GMT
Sorry Bixa, I missed your comment. Well, eventually the weather conditions will catch up to your work in New England so there are some methods to slow mother nature down. First, you have to dig a trench for a concrete foundation. After the trench is dug and before the concrete is poured you need to build a re-bar cage and set that in the trench. You also leave vertical re-bar sticking out of the foundation and tie it together with horizontal re-bar. If you are building a wall into a hill you also need to have drainage pipes that run through the wall. That's pretty much all you can do. The frost heaves and freezing will catch up with the wall eventually but may just crack it and not make it structurally unsound. I think the wall I built should be around for quite some time but I'll be long gone before I have proof of that.
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Post by Kimby on Jun 11, 2010 20:17:01 GMT
Beautiful walls. My friend with a house in the Lot has rock walls all around it, but they are mortarless, so they crumble regularly. I think that every time I have gone there, I have spent part of my time helping to rebuild walls. It's a great way to spend a sunny afternoon. Reminds me of the lovely Robert Frost poem Mending Wall: writing.upenn.edu/~afilreis/88/frost-mending.html"Something there is that doesn't love a wall..." "Good fences make good neighbors." The frost heaves and freezing will catch up with the wall eventually but may just crack it and not make it structurally unsound. I think the wall I built should be around for quite some time but I'll be long gone before I have proof of that. But when you're gone you will have left evidence of your existence and your considerable artistic ability, Bruce. Which is more than most of us will leave as our legacies.
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Post by spindrift on Jun 22, 2010 12:21:40 GMT
fmt - I am overwhelmed at your wall-making expertise. I can see that you LOVE stones and that, no doubt, is why you work as a stonemason. I employed a stonemason to repoint my house and he never stopped talking about his love of stones and trips to various mountains where he could indulge himself. Where do you find your stones? Are they always local stones or do you 'import' some of them? you must know all of their colours and consistency. Do you ever mix 'soft' stone (like soapstone) with hard stone? I love soapstone and have only seen it in Kenya. I hope your back is strong and that you won't damage it lifting heavy weights.
You might find Hampshire, where I live, interesting because in the past most buildings and walls were made with flintstones. Even I, when I lived on a farm, took apart a falling retaining flint wall around a flower border and I tentatively replaced the flints one on top of the other but only to a height of 18 inches. It was not expert but it did the job.
I can imagine you'd be stunned if you visit the Kali Ghandaki valley under the Annapurnas, Nepal for lying around everywhere are fossilized stones with sea creatures in them. It is amazing. I'll photograph one that I found in Mustang and I'll post it for you to see. There is so much evidence everywhere in that region showing that these highest of high mountains were all under the ocean not that long ago. Hey ho!
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Post by frenchmystiquetour on Jun 22, 2010 17:36:50 GMT
kimby - I haven't checked this post for a while so sorry for not responding to you sooner. Thank you for your very kind words. My friend who I built the wall for is a life long town resident and is a very unique character with a very unique house, which he built himself. I keep telling him that he needs to leave a biography of his connection with his house and his piece of land. And he needs to give this biography to the town historian. It's the kind of thing that town historians of the future will treasure long after we've all gone.
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Post by frenchmystiquetour on Jun 22, 2010 18:43:48 GMT
spindrift - Yes, I do love my stones, hence, my love of megalithic sites. As well, I was quite expert at locating Native American sacred sites in the area near my home in New England. These are largely unknown and unheard of but once I became aware of their existence it became a passion of mine to take hikes into the woods in search of these sites. They are often characterized by piles of stone and large (and sometimes enormous) boulders that have been positioned in unique ways. The Native American tribes in my region welcomed my experience in this area and I often collaborated with them in trying to identify and preserve these sites. At some point in the future I will be writing and posting a report on this topic. It requires some lengthy discussion so that's all I'll say for now.
The stones for this wall came from various construction sites. My friend had been stockpiling stone for years in hopes of one day building this wall. Then he met me and his dream became a reality. New England is overloaded with stones and the stones I worked with for this wall were of every type imaginable. As a mason, I am not concerned with color or type of stone but rather by shape and/or size. The most important thing is structural stability and this is very dependent on how well stones fit together. It is like making a jigsaw puzzle where you have to create your own picture to put together. The pieces need to fit. The stones I work with on any job are dependent on what type of stones I am given to work with by the homeowner. That's usually not my decision. But mixing soapstone and harder stones like granite is quite acceptable. And stone masonry does take a toll on the back which is why you won't see too many masons working with heavy stone once they reach a certain age. My back was constantly sore and I would have to do various yoga exercises to help ease the soreness.
I am very familiar with soapstone. Native peoples used this stone to fashion stone bowls, pots and other cooking and storage vessels. It is a soft stone and good for making sculpted objects and has a high degree of thermal resistance. Which is why, aside from it's softness and ease to sculpt, it was used by native peoples for cooking. It is not a very common type of stone but is not necessarily rare either.
Flint was widely used by ancient people for making projectile points, knives, scrapers and other types of tools which require a sharp edge. It is very common here in France and obviously where you live as well. It is very rare in New England and when it is found it is often easy for archaeologists to identify where it was sourced from. This has allowed them to deduce certain trade routes among ancient peoples and some of the flint found in New England from B.C. times has been shown to come from half way across the country, and sometimes even further. Likely it was traded between people and exchanged hands many times before reaching its destination but that can't be proven for certain in all cases.
The fossilized stones you speak of are something I wish I was able to find. My research partner in the states was a geologist and I learned a good deal about geology from her. The stones do have a lot to tell us about the history of our planet.
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Post by cheerypeabrain on Nov 5, 2010 22:12:15 GMT
Truly beautiful....I am filled with a troubling urge to buy rocks.....
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Post by frenchmystiquetour on Nov 5, 2010 23:50:15 GMT
cheerypeabrain - Nice Dalek avatar. Instead of buying them they are free if you pick them up/dig them up from the ground.
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