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 stacking techniques learned from master masons around the world to create sculptures and natural landscape installations. She admits to always being a bit of a ‘tomboy’, apparently (in her own words) “When other little girls were playing with dolls… I was eating my 15 pounds of dirt.”
Thea wants to travel the world, leaving works of stone art behind her, and to date, she is doing a pretty good job of that. Besides creating works of art all over North America, she as also created works in England, France, Italy, Canada and while cycling around China she managed to find the time to build ten arches from bricks, tiles, slate and marble.
I believe that my hands are smarter than I am, and that they operate on their own, and bring me along for the adventure, and to take notes about what we did together while we were there.
Besides creating works of stone art, Thea is also an instructor at the Yestermorrow Design/Build School in Warren, Vermont, where she is running courses in ‘The Art of Stone’ and ‘Masonry Restoration’. She is also in the process of writing a book. .
In my last post I talked about ‘Stone Balancing‘ above is Thea’s take on the art of stone balancing.
Thea Alvin has a huge and impressive portfolio of work, check out the rest of her work on her website www.myearthwork.com.
All photos in this post are from Thea’s website, A big thanks to her for her kind permission to use them for this post.