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Can tradespeople be artists? Lets ask Johnny Clasper.

Can tradespeople be artists? Lets ask Johnny Clasper.

Can tradespeople be artists? An interesting question which is being explored by a new Irish series on TG4 at the moment called ‘Dullamullóg’ Launched last Sunday 13th January, the show follows six tradespeople who take on the challenge of creating a piece of critically acclaimed art. Each tradesperson is paired up with a professional artist who helps them with their work. The final piece is then put in amongst professional art works which are all scrutinised by art critic Cia

A trip to Co. Clare for some dry stone walling with the DSWAI

A trip to Co. Clare for some dry stone walling with the DSWAI

Last weekend the DSWAI had a meet up in County Clare as we were invited by quarry owner David O’ Connor of Liscannor Flagstones Quarries to come build some stone features at his quarry in Miltown Malbay. Despite the long drive, I was looking forward to the trip, as it would give me the chance to take the scenic route through The Burren landscape, a stunning part of the country I have not been to in many years. The Burren is a karst-landscape region or alvar, measuring approxi

True love is set in stone

True love is set in stone

There is something very special about creating a piece of art in stone to celebrate a loved ones life. Probably the most unique and moving example of this is the recently completed Kerry Landman Memorial. The wall is situated at Island Lake Conservation Area on Hurontario Street South and is open to the public seven days a week. The Memorial Forest Trail runs through part of the conservation area and takes you through the ‘Dods and McNair Memorial Forest’ where the dry stone

Drystone Walling on Inis Oírr Island

Drystone Walling on Inis Oírr Island

Last weekend I attended my first dry stone walling workshop on Inis Oírr Island. And I am already looking forward to going back next year. For those of you who don’t know where Inis Oírr (Inisheer) is, it is the smallest of the three islands that make up the Aran Islands in Galway Bay. As a location for a dry stone walling workshop, I could not imagine a better place, as Inis Oírr has some of the finest examples of drystone walls in the country. Altogether the Aran Islands ha

Dry Arch construction at Drimnagh Castle for National Heritage Week

Dry Arch construction at Drimnagh Castle for National Heritage Week

Just a very quick post to promote some very interesting things happening this week. This week is Heritage Week 2011 from 20th to the 28th of August. Coordinated by The Heritage Council, Heritage Week is part of European Heritage Days in which over 40 countries participate each year. I was down at the lovely Drimnagh Castle today in the heart of Dublin City, where renowned stonemason, teacher and author Patrick McAfee held an arch building demonstration. This hour long demonst

More on Stone Benches

More on Stone Benches

So I have talked about stone benches on a number of occasions, and now I am going to talk about them some more. I just had a lady asking me for more information on some of my stone benches, and while compiling the information for her I thought, why not kill two birds with one stone and write a blog post about it. So here it is! Stone Benches. Enrich your garden with one of Stone Arts trademark stone benches. Each one of these immensely popular benches is completely unique a

Theater in the garden

Theater in the garden

Garden Theatres Although there are many grand Garden Theatres and huge impressive amphitheatres out there in the world, they are not something you find very often in normal residential garden design. They are however, something I like very much. So I will leave the many grand garden theatres and the huge impressive amphitheatres for another post for another day. Today I am going to talk about the intimate and sometimes modest (but just as effective) garden theatre. Growing up

Stone Woman, Thea Alvin

Stone Woman, Thea Alvin

A while back while visiting Jan Johnsen landscape gardening blog ‘Serenity In The Garden‘ (a blog I highly recommend checking out if you don’t know it already) I saw this photo (derectally above ↑) and at first glance, thought it was a piece by Andy Goldsworthy. I quickly discovered that this fabulous piece of stone art was not the work of Goldsworthy but of Vermont Stonemason/ Artist Thea Alvin. Thea has been a professional stone mason for 25 years, and uses the dry stone st

Stone River, by Landscape Architect and Stonemason Jon Piasecki

Stone River, by Landscape Architect and Stonemason Jon Piasecki

Stone River is a project by award wining landscape architect and stonemason, Jon Piasecki. Jon Piasecki is a graduate of Harvard University (with a Masters in Landscape Architecture in 1995), and Cornell University (with a B.S. in forest ecology in 1989). In 2004, he received the Prince Charitable Trust Rome Prize awarded by the American Academy in Rome, and was in residence at the Academy in 2005. For this project Jon was commissioned by prominent landscape architect Michael

Stone seats, the building process.

Stone seats, the building process.

A few months back I wrote a post ‘Stone Chairs. Some ancient some not so ancient…Yet….’ in which I mentioned that one of my favorite things to build are stone seats. Well here is a stone seating area I have just completed and the process I used to create it. So recently a lady in down in Co. Kildare asked me if I could transform this old area of her garden into one of my stone seating areas, so of course I was only too happy to oblige. My delivery of stone. So when the old ma

Everglades Gardens at Leura

Everglades Gardens at Leura

A few months ago, I was asked fellow garden blogger Britt Conley from the Photo Garden Bee to partake in a photo meme. For the post I chose a photo I took at the Everglades Gardens set in the Blue Mountains at Leura, Australia. Picking this photo (below) made me want to write a post about the gardens themselves, so that is what I am going to do now. Everglades is one of Australia’s foremost heritage gardens. This treasure from the 1930s sits in twelve and a half acres of Euro

Stone Chairs. Some ancient some not so ancient…Yet….

Stone Chairs. Some ancient some not so ancient…Yet….

One of my favourite things to build is stone seats. There is something very special about sitting in a stone seat, it feels very grand, almost throne like. When building stone seats, a portion of my time is spent sitting, making sure that they are comfortable and positioned right. I must admit I have on occasion sat there wondering ‘will this seat still be here in a few hundred years. Will archaeologists be examining it to try and discover what kind of ceremonial uses it once

Stone Master, Lew French

Stone Master, Lew French

When I first started working with stone back in my late teens, I quickly developed a passion for it. All of a sudden I started noticing stonework a lot more, every time I would see a stone wall or an old castle I would stop and take a moment to examine how it was built and image the work that went into building it. As a mason you definitely do appreciate quality stonework at a different level, as you have a pretty good idea at the amount of work that went into it. You also ha