Stonework at the Home Show

Since I founded Hammerhead Stoneworks in 2009, I have been showing my stonework and materials at the Western North Carolina Home and Garden Show at the Civic Center in downtown Asheville, NC. I have shown stone benches and some art pieces. The last couple of years I have shown flagstone patios, including a koi-inspired patio design. Flagstone sections like this are much easier than stone walls to build at my shop and then bring in and install quickly.

This year’s Home Show happened a couple of weekends ago. I drew this sketch of my planned design over the winter and then went to work on it, as time allowed. The plan worked out well, the only major difference being that I had intended a metal table, but built a wooden one myself.

The special stone art piece for this show was “The Sultan”, a mosaic made of highly polished granite and marble scraps and Pennsylvania bluestone with a natural finish. It’s a relatively small piece, at about 11 inches by 17 inches, but it suggests to me the direction I want to take my work.

I have scheduled two Do-It-Yourself Flagstone classes at the North Carolina Arboretum this spring.
Saturday April 21 from 9 to 4 at the NC Arboretum
Friday May 4 from 9 to 4 at the NC Arboretum
You can register via the Arboretum’s website.

In April 2010, I spent a day with photographer Steven Paul Whitsitt, touring projects I had done. Just last month the book he was working on was released by Schiffer Publishing. I am very excited by the book which is called Built with Stone: Eight Contemporary Artisans. It includes several projects, including the secretive Cabin on Mitchell’s Peak, a structural stone house I built with Fred Lashley and the Unturned Stone. The book is available from local booksellers and online merchants. There’s some amazing work in there by masons from all across the country.

In April 2012 I will again be offering do-it-yourself flagstone classes at the North Carolina Arboretum. Check back soon for dates and details.

Earlier this week, blacksmith Lynda Metcalfe and I drove to Chapel Hill to put the finishing touches on our collaboration, the Ironwoods neighborhood sign. It was satisfying to see this project through; discussions with the homeowner’s association had started a year ago November. The time invested was well spent. This sign is a work of art.

The sign sits on an island and is visible to traffic in both directions. Each side of the sign has its own flow of vines and is its own piece.

Lynda’s work has great depth. The letters are raised from the back panel and vines wind their way behind the letters, poking through here and there.

In this image from Lynda’s shop, you can see how she lined up the lettering on each side so that one set of fasteners reached through to catch the word Ironwoods running in both directions. Lynda’s primary focus in architectural metalwork; it was great to work with another artisan with such a strong construction ethos. We both aspired to create something strong and beautiful. Craftsmanship should be more than pretty.
(photo by Lynda Metcalfe)

All in all, the experience of working at Ironwoods was unlike any other I’ve ever had in my career. They know how to treat craftspeople. Concerned neighbors brought out orange cones to protect us from distracted drivers. Virginia made me soup. A kindly stranger delivered me hot chocolate (with whipped cream!) on a cold day. Ethan and Logan supplied me with marbles, since I forgot my own back home. I am sincerely grateful for the kindness and enthusiasm shown for the process and the finished product. It is a great joy to create work for people who appreciate it.

Special thanks are owed to Matthew Feldt who saw this project through from a seed of an idea to a fully grown vine. He navigated the design process with grace, championed the project from start to finish and lent his strong back, his photographic eye and even his garage to the effort. The sign doesn’t happen without Matthew. Thank you.

All of the photographs in this blog posting, unless otherwise noted, are by Matthew Feldt.

Back to Chapel Hill for a couple of days recently. The stone structure is finished. It waits patiently under wraps for the ironwork.

Here’s a close up of a wall section. There are two marbles hidden in the wall, gifts from Ethan and Logan. Sadly, the marbles aren’t visible in this view.

I posted a blog entry at Papershine about my visual planning strategies for this project. Click the image to be linked to my other blog.

My current project has me journeying to Chapel Hill to build a entry sign for the Ironwoods neighborhood. Two years ago I built a memorial bench in this same neighborhood for Grandpa Tony. I am delighted that they invited me back to complete this project, a collaboration between myself and blacksmith & artist Lynda Metcalfe. I met Lynda during the Handmade House in the Ramble project and have been hoping to find a way to work with her ever since. I am excited about the collaboration and how the final piece will mesh our two crafts and styles into a seamless design.

The boulders are anchored in concrete and the wall sits on a slab. The wall is structural stone, about fourteen inches thick. The big boulder (roughly 1500 pounds) has a perfect notch for my cell phone.

I used a sheet of foam core to create a template of the boulder’s shape to give Lynda a rough guide as to where her ironwork will tie into the stonework.

Thanks be to Matthew Feldt for the photographs and all his help with this project.

Finished this project today- four small drystone retaining walls. Click the image for a huge view of this section.

I just completed a project in Saluda, North Carolina today. The home was built some time in the 70′s and the existing concrete steps were broken down and needed replacing. New stone walkways were in order as well. I built most of the new walkways over the existing sidewalks, dry laid on a pea gravel bed. The image above shows the new steps; the image below shows the area before we got started. Note the awkward spacing of the original steps; it was hard to hit your stride walking them.

The brick pathways wrap around the house, from the formal front entrance (shown above) to the opposite side of the house, which receives most of the traffic.

This short stretch of concrete was poured recently and broke up quite easily under the jackhammer assault. Most of the sidewalks were poured when the house was built and were a pain to break up. They crumbled into dust and would absorb the jackhammer’s impact. It didn’t help that they were up to nine inches thick.