I went to Amazon Stone over on the bypass today to see if they could trim my pavers to make the central circle. Yes, they could. But I also asked about getting a piece of granite cut for the center, and it turns out that it’s within in my price range, i.e., another month’s payment on the credit card.
So next Saturday morning I will go pick up the black granite quarter-circles to install around the compass-point bricks in the center. I think this is better in many ways. The stones which I would have had trimmed would never have been very stable to walk on, so we’d always be dealing with people slipping right at the center of the path. That cannot be good juju.
Also, the granite will be gorgeous. I’ll have to rethink the color of the bowl I plan on making next summer in the ceramics studio. I was going to make it black, but now I don’t know.
In other news, I got some new votive candle holders today:
Someone will have to explain to me how to use the rainbow/chakra configuration as part of the labyrinth. I just like the connection: 7 circuits of the labyrinth, 7 colors of the rainbow.
UPDATE:
Here’s what it looks like. Iffy picture of course, but it’s quite striking in real life:
I finished the curved areas of the labyrinth’s pathway this afternoon. Next up, getting the center stones cut so that the center area is round, with a round hole; getting soil to a) build up the northern edge so I can complete the outer circuit, and b) fill in the pathway; spreading seed over the new soil; spreading straw over the new seed; and creating all kinds of interesting lighting fixtures to hold candles everywhere.
I have ordered red and green votive holders, so for Christmas I can outline the whole thing with seasonal lights. It’ll be real purty. I also ordered a set of colored votive holders the colors of the chakras, just for the mysticism of it all.
Here are the rest of the photos. It’s a proud moment.
Here are the central stones, all marked and ready for someone to cut them. Where are the stone fairies when you need them?
The question arises, what have I been up to? I clearly have not been blogging.
Mostly that’s because I don’t have a lot to say. Actually, I might have a lot to say, but none of it is very coherent these days. Much tumbling through the brain, large galactical dust clouds, but no planets forming.
However, I can report on my latest acquisition(s).
First and foremost, I have bought a painting by Dianne Mize, my painting instructor from GHP in 1970. She and I have agreed never to mention how many years ago that was, and I’ll thank you to do the same.
Here’s the painting:
click to see Dianne’s original blog post
Dianne had sent me an invitation to the exhibit opening at the Tekakwitha Gallery in Helen, GA, but since it was November 1, the Saturday evening performance of Coriolanus at NCTC, I couldn’t go. When she sent an email saying the show had been held over until Christmas, I made plans to get there.
Ginny readily agreed to my idea of returning from Virginia via Helen so we could stop to see Dianne’s work. I had already decided that I would just pick one and charge it, so when Ginny offered to make me a Christmas present of whatever one I wanted, I accepted.
I also considered this painting:
click to see Dianne’s original blog post
It was a tough choice, obviously. I may have to have the cows later. I chose the landscape because of its subject matter. I love places like this. It reminds me of a couple of places from my life, and each of them was from a time of great happiness.
One is Snake Creek over on Parks Avenue. When I was a child, we would play there constantly, plashing in the water and running through the “woods” in that narrow strip that runs along the curve of the street. It was and is a beautiful green space.
Another is a park on the outskirts of Athens by the river. I didn’t get to go there a lot, but I remember one time, the spring of my junior year, when Kevin Reid, Cathy McQuaig, and I went for an afternoon picnic there. Kevin had become my closest friend after showing up that semester, he had dropped out of Griffin High School and just come on to UGA, and all three of us were close from working both in the costume shop and in Period Dance.
Kevin and I were a lot alike: young, precocious, serious, ferociously curious, intense readers. I know I was in love with him, and he with me, in the way young men are that verges on the physical. (Jobie, remember that piece I read out loud this summer? It was Kevin that gave my reading that passion.)
He’s dead now, of AIDS, back in the late 80s I think. I didn’t know this until last year when Ginny and I went to LA and had a reunion of a bunch of UGA theatre folk from that time. I had put together a video of all the Period Dance photos, and when we came to one of Kevin, that’s when someone told me of his death. It still hurts me, as I type this even, how I lost touch with him, and then lost him entirely.
As we sat by the river that afternoon in 1975, we knew we were enjoying a halcyon moment, and we even verbalized it. I think we knew that we would lose each other to Time, and we hugged our happiness to us even as the sun set.
That’s why I bought the landscape.
I like Dianne’s impressionistic style, her loose brushwork, and her sure sense of palette. I especially like her methods of working, and they are methods, which frustrates me when I am unable to develop similar methods for my own work in music.
However, I’m not going to whine. Let’s talk about what I am working on rather methodically, and that’s the labyrinth. I haven’t done anything since earlier in the week, of course, and now it’s raining, but I am beginning to see the endgame here.
I shall finish the curves on the pathway this week, working Tuesday and Thursday on that task. Tuesday afternoon, I order the topsoil, and with any luck will have that to play with this weekend. On Thursday, I will seek out stonecutters here in town, one of those granite countertop concerns over on the bypass, to see if they can cut the stones around the center in a more precise circular pattern. I also developed a fantasy today of checking out a four-foot piece of granite for the centerpiece. That wouldn’t be expensive at all, I’m sure.
With any kind of luck, I may have the labyrinth finished, if not this weekend, then the next. I will also be working then on coordinating the mise-en-scene of the entire backyard into something whole: columns, lighting, sculpture maybe? I don’t know. As Marc says, it seems I’m determined to become the Howard Finster of College Street.
Today I worked on splitting the paving stones using an arcane process explained to me by a video on Lowe’s website. It took only an hour and a half to do the three arcs you can see here.
The good news is that it won’t take me very long to finish the curves. I even found a reliable source for soil today.
The bad news is that I’m annoyed I didn’t try this earlier; I could have been done. Still, it’s easy to do and doesn’t look bad at all.
I have all these leftover stones, about 340. Here’s what I’m thinking: buy a drill press, drill holes in them, drive rebar into the ground at the cardinal points of the compass around the labyrinth, and then stack the stones in a kind of rusticated column. Could be pretty spooky in the firelight.
However, my calculations have just shown, and I’m double-checking them as we speak, that if I use all the stones, my columns will be fourteen feet tall. I’m thinking maybe no on the height. But eight feet tall could be cool. And top them with ceramic sculptures or something.
I worked this afternoon on changing the right-angle turns to the curves I had originally planned.
I think it works better, although I’m going to have to work on balancing them out a bit.
It becomes more and more obvious that I am going to have to rent a wet bandsaw to cut the stones for the curves and for the central circle. I have to do that soon, before the dirt is delivered, and I’d like to get all that done before Thanksgiving. Hm… rental for the Monday before, dirt spread that week, seed planted on the weekend. It’s not going to be lush and green for the Lichtenbergian annual meeting, but it will be finished in every real sense.
The other afternoon, I sat musing on my handiwork and wondering if I really ought to consider changing the flush/right-angle look back to the curved-end pathways I originally planned.
I moved some stones around:
I think I like it much, much better. For one thing, it will open up that mysterious little place in the middle where the curves can’t quite meet. For another, it makes the traversal a smoother experience, even if only psychologically. (Technically, in this world, one actually has more room to maneuver with the extra space in the square corners.)
Okay. I have a guy coming by this afternoon to talk with me about whacking stones. We’ll chat about this.
It’s late. I’ve had friends over to dine and drink and walk down to the theatre to see the company’s improv troupe, which was not at all bad. Some real talent there. I’d like to see their “best of” guys do a show.
After Coriolanus rehearsal this morning, I worked on laying out the rest of the labyrinth, always excepting the outer ring on the north side, where I must build up the soil to be more level.
You will notice that I have modified the plan I’ve been working with. Rather than the curved lines I’ve been using, I’ve used the more geometric form usually found in drawings and indeed in my tattoo. Naturally this is easier to lay out than cutting stones to fit curves. However, I’m not sure I like it better. I may try changing the switchbacks to the curved version I’ve been working with.
At any rate, now I have to get many truckloads of topsoil brought in, then fill in the whole pattern with the soil, then plant grass seed, water it, etc. I may actually have a completed labyrinth in time for the Annual Meeting of the Lichtenbergians.
Of course, to get the soil moved in, I have to get rid of the 1972 Mercedes-Benz that has been parked for three years in the only space I have available for dumping of soil.
Even in the time it took to move the laptop from its position over by the outdoor speakers to beside my chair in the labyrinth, the light has vanished. It is dark. The fire is warm. How many more nights will I have to sit out here comfortably by the fire?
Anyway, here’s my thought for the day: it’s not finished, it’s not finished.
The astonishingly geometric arcs of the top half of the labyrinth stop short in a field of mud. I have to use a wire brush on my boots every time I want to go into the house. I got the other 3,000 pounds of stone moved this afternoon in record time, but it sits there in a cenotaph, unfinished.
There are only two weeks remaining before an audience sits down in a park to watch Coriolanus. It is not finished.
I keep seeing graphic images of music in my head. None of it is even started, much less finished.
The fire in front of me glows but does not flame. It is not finished.
The Ruby Red vodka tonic next to me shifts its ice in the dark. It is not finished.
My life, though wonderful in many regards, even enviable, is not finished.
Anyway, I laid out the rest of the top half of the path:
I stopped on that outer outline; I’ve decided to build up the ground there so that the whole thing is more level. Ginny of course is appalled that nothing lines up and that it’s not as smooth as a parterre.
And finally, I used what remained of the stones to begin laying out the northeast quadrant:
You can see where I’ve scratched out a successive approximation of the rest of the course in the dirt. You can also see a couple of double-decker stones; that’s where I’m going to have to cut stones in order to make them fit into the curve. Still no solution for that.
And here is more Cat:
So, having used up all my stones, I will now wait patiently until the next pallet is delivered on Friday. Yes, class, this is what a ton and a half of stone looks like.
Here’s where I picked up today. Actually, I started by pulling out my new cutting thingie and assembling it, reading the directions more carefully than anything I’ve ever read. This thing will put your eye out, if not cut off your leg.
Alas, it only produces a cut that’s less than half an inch deep. What the hell kind of masonry is only half an inch thick? These paving stones are two inches, so the paltry little slice the fairly expensive device made is worthless. It goes back to Home Depot tomorrow.
And now I’m back to where I began: how do I cut the curves for the center?
I decided to forge ahead and start laying the thing out. I can always come back and cut curves later.
I had already figured out east/west/north/south, but now I staked out the whole circle. I cut a piece of wood exactly three stones wide, and began by laying out the three axes:
And then, something that I have never seen before in all my studies of modern labyrinths. I think it might actually be An Innovation.
All right, class, can you see what I’ve done here? Would anyone like to tell me what I’m up to? What is this Innovation of which I am so inordinately proud?
Along the western axis, I have laid out bricks in the circuit:
They’re kind of hard to see in the photo. They actually extend the idea of the Innovation, if you consider its role as a Tolkien reference.
Finally, I began to lay out the circuit:
Here’s the southwestern quadrant, all laid out. I was gratified/amazed to find that the outer circle exactly touched the brick edging. It was absolutely a perfect fit. Here it is from the picnic table area:
It will probably take most of my remaining pavers to do the northwestern quadrant, the other half of the great semicircles that form the top of the labyrinth. I’ll have to order another pallet, have it delivered Friday. Ginny’s going out of town to Virginia again, so I’ll have all weekend to finish laying out the bottom half, with all the turnarounds and switchbacks. That will be the interesting part.
So, has everyone figured out what I’m doing down the middle there?
Here’s where I picked up today. Actually, I started by pulling out my new cutting thingie and assembling it, reading the directions more carefully than anything I’ve ever read. This thing will put your eye out, if not cut off your leg.
