stonexus MAGAZINE NUMBER IX EDITOR / PHOTO EDITOR Tomas Lipps contents GRAPHIC PRODUCTION Julie Kandyba departments features Printed and published in the USA EDITORIAL . 2 by STONEXUS PRODUCTIONS LLC THE LIME CHRONICLES. 27 116 Lovato Lane, Santa Fe NM USA 87505 PHOTOS to the EDITOR . .3 Repointing and rebuilding with Lime Putty Mortar www.stonefoundation.org Frank Anjo, Todd Campbell, Philip Hawk, Charlie by Mark Liebman email: [email protected] Hazard, Carl Johannsen, Claire Lauder, Mary Ann telephone/fax: 505-989-4644 Matheson, Pierre de Montaulieu, Fraser Muirhead, MEGGIDO. 21 Tristan Opanowicz, Evan Oxland, David Sywalski and and James Warfield AN AFTERNOON IN CANTERBURY. .22 Tomas Lipps TEKTONIKA GALLERY . 30 The Enigmatic Sculpture of Atsuo Okamoto CREATION, PERTURBATION, MUTILATION. 36 Review by Jesse Salisbury A Battle between Art and Morality by Pierre de Montaulieu ANNOUNCEMENTS, CLASSIFIEDS . 64 FOLLOWING THE OLD STONE ROAD. .38 JAPAN, a Photographical Foray reprints by Tomas and Mimi Lipps A CROSS FOR QUEEN ELEANOR. 11 Medieval masonry, a graphic portrayal of the state of the art in 13th century England (the third of four installments) by David Gentleman ROBINSON JEFFERS, Poet of California . 18 (Tor House and the Hawk Tower) by James Karman FRONT COVER: Impression of Wind BACK COVER: Dry Stone Wall, detail. Masayuki Nagare stonework and photo: Marc Archambault Hakone Open Air Museum, Japan photo: T L INSIDE BACK COVER: Khmer Buddha, INSIDE FRONT COVER: Crossing Vault Musee Guimet, Paris. photo: Tony Bowall Canterbury Cathedral, England. photo: T L Our advertisers are our benefactors: Trow And Holden Tool Company Canterbury Cathedral, plan view Select Stone stone (ston) n. nex-us (nek’ ses)e n., pl. nexi or nex-us-es. 1. a. Concreted earthy or mineral matter; rock. 1. A means of connection; a link or tie. b. Such concreted matter of a particular type. 2. A connected series or group. Often used in combination. 3. The core or center. 2. A small piece of rock. 3. Rock or piece of rock shaped or finished mag-a-zine (mag- -zen),e n. for a particular purpose, especially a piece 1. A periodical containing a collection of of rock that is used in construction. articles, stories, pictures, or other features stonexus IX 1 3 of 6 pages photos to the editor stonexus IX 3 6 stonexus IX above: Japanese basalt boulder retaining ‘wall.’ photo: Carl Johannsen previous: Dogon village, Mali, Africa. photo: James Warfield below: Marble paving, the Parthenon, Athens, Greece. photo: Pierre de Montaulieu stonexus IX 7 TEKTONIKA photo gallery Memorial Volume, Water 2004 atsuo right: Interior of sculpture. okamoto To split with mame ya a craftsman must carve oval notches in the stone instead of drilling round holes. Bare, hardened metal by Jesse Salisbury wedges are inserted in the notches and hammered to make the split. Even on larger splits the notches are carved no deeper Many excellent stone sculptors are ac- than an inch and the resulting split is much tive in Japan but there are few whose work more precise and sensitive than is possible is as conceptually interesting and as well with a drill, plugs and feathers. The carved crafted as the contemporary granite sculp- marks themselves leave a beautiful pattern tures created by Atsuo Okamoto. on the stone. Okamoto became famous in Japan for The process of wari modoshi has led his conceptual works in granite using the Okamoto down a fascinating path in con- technique of wari modoshi. Roughly trans- ceptual art. The ability to divide a large, bees from nearby orchards, and he once lated as splitting and returning, this tech- heavy block into many manageable parts placed a telephone inside a stone that rings nique goes back hundreds of years in Japan. has allowed him to create and install large and can be answered by someone standing In gardens three to four hundred years old stone installations in museums and galleries nearby. Once Okamoto even ensconced giant landscape rocks were split into mul- throughout Japan and internationally. He is himself inside a stone installation (from the tiple blocks then transported and put back a very prolific artist, creating large numbers Cocoon series) in a gallery. together like a puzzle to look like a large of unique sculptures that branch off into a In his Turtle Project parts of sculptures natural rock in the landscape. Okamoto variety of conceptual paths. Crust, Memo- were sent around the world and after years works much like these ancient craftsmen in rial Volume, Unit, Cocoon, and Earth Call in a foreign environment the pieces of stone and near the quarries in Ibaragi where he are titles of pieces that inspired series. were returned to Japan and reassembled. has access to large natural blocks of stone, One sculpture in the Memorial Volume We can see the different colors of the stone the knowledge of generations of craftsmen, series, is, in essence, the act of transforming a created by different environments united in and the inspiration of the quarried moun- block of bedrock into cobblestones and final- a single rock. tains and bedrock itself. ly into the pavement the viewer walks upon. Atsuo Okamoto’s enigmatic, provoca- Okamoto is one of the few stone art- One or more pieces include all the material, tive and prolific sculptures have been influ- ists in the world to continue splitting with spalls and chips, everything (except the dust) ential in the development of contemporary the mame ya, or ‘bean’ wedge, (so called that was removed to reveal the form. Japanese sculpture. n Crust, Restoration, 1987 because of its small size) instead of plugs Okamoto uses the negative and posi- and feathers, the more modern and univer- tive shapes created by splitting in a wide va- In the act of reducing a block of stone to a sculptural form many shards are Sometimes the interior can be glimpsed; sometimes not. In Restoration, Jesse Salisbury is a stone sculptor who has created and discarded. Okamoto has on occasion included this material with above, the reassembled husk is left hollow and eloquently juxtaposed against sal technique. Plugs and feathers began to riety of ways. He has filled the inner spaces studied, worked and exhibited in Japan. He is a the finished piece. In the Crust series, pieces of the exterior of the original the inner core from which it was separated. appear within the last two hundred years; of split and reassembled stones with various Stone Foundation member and organizer of the block are reassembled to form a hollow husk surrounding a void. the flat wedge is thousands of years old. objects, with water, with honey to attract Schoodic International Stone Sculpture Symposium. 30 stonexus IX stonexus IX 31 Crust, Shell of the Shape Crust, Nest, 1989 Faraway Mountain, 2006 Twelve singularities from a singular block. Stone Dimension, 1985 There was a time when Okamoto found himself unable, or unwilling, to impose forms onto material as he had been doing; a sculptor who couldn’t bring himself to sculpt. Personal expression had no appeal, occupied as he was by philosophical consid- erations of nature and art, human civiliza- tion, the existential character of stone and his relationhip with it. Then he visited a white granite quarry. Dwarfed by the looming mass of bedrock, he decided to split open a block, to make a paving stone, just that. In the commis- sion of that act a whole new empathy with stone, and new approach to it, commenced for him. Cocoon, 2005 This series started from my wanting to get into the stone, to be wrapped in the stone. Each cocoon has enough space inside for my body. A O 32 stonexus IX stonexus IX 33 Stone has two kinds of surface. one, recently torn from the bedrock is very rough, very aggressive. the other one is more tender, like that of a river stone which has lived in the world for ages a stone exposing these two faces at once might transcend space and time and manifest Eros A O Crust In The Wall 2000 Yamabito (Mountain Man), 2005 34 stonexus IX 2 of 7 pages One mason is squaring-up the rough-hewn block while the other is working on one of the shields with the Queen’s heraldic bearings. Later, when this stone was finally in position on the finished Cross, it would be painted in its correct heraldic colours. The Queen’s estate helped to pay for the crosses, and it has been suggested that Castilian masons may have worked on the smaller crosses, though others think Crundale designed them all. Certainly the Queen’s Castilian background may still be sensed today in the intricate, delicate and finely-controlled decoration of the most exquisite of the three remaining Eleanor Crosses, the one at Geddington in Northamptonshire. The triangular form of its shaft, its slender aspiring delicacy, and the masterly positioning of the three statues of the Queen, are quite remarkable. The statues, like those on the Northampton Cross, have softened and their details have been smoothed away by the effects of time. Even so, the graceful lines of the gestures and the flowing drapery are still easy to discern; and where the detail has worn away, our imagination restores it in the way we would choose. The London sculptors probably used the same soft, yellowish alabaster, which was easy to work but did not withstand the weather well; harder stone took longer to cut and made the work much more expensive. A sharp tool makes the stone seem softer. Chisels were kept sharp on variously named stones: grindstones or greseurs, whetters for whetting, Alexander of Abingdon, the imager or sculptor who carved the and ‘rubber stones for sharping of the tools’.