Organizations and People

I’m not sure where this came from. I took this photo of a photo on the wall of some historical society or museum. Classic 19th century folk who built the walls.

Below is an idiosynchratic mix of sites that relate to the objectives of the SWI.

 

STONE WALLS NATIONALLY:

The Stone Foundation, based in Santa Fe, New Mexico is directed by Tomas Lipps. It’s a great link to stone walls outside of the New England region. I have been invited to speak at their of their international gatherings, attending three: in Oregon, Ontario, and Acadia Maine..

 

MASONRY:

The founder of Monterey Masonry, Mark Mendel and I have become collegial associates. We have worked together on several occasions. Though I cannot endorse his stone work on this public website, I can offer his company as an example of a mason.

Cute-BrickBroken
Brick is artificial stone. When fired, it’s akin to a metamorphic rock called hornfels. Porous brick is a disaster for sidewalk material in our winter climate.

 

PHOTOGRAPHY:

Photographer William Hubbel has a lovely book out called “Good Fences” (Downeast Books), which I helped review and blurb. It adopts the language of Exploring Stone Walls.

After decades of professional photography the photographer Jack McConnell became “obsesssed” with stone walls. We’ve become friends.  He has a popular postcard book in stores nearly everywhere, and has done gallery shows on only stone walls.

 

WHAT KIND OF ROCK IS THAT?

The best access is to go through your state’s geological survey, which can be found from an alphabetical list at the Association of American State Geologists.

Stone-RoundBoulderFarm
My these stones are rounded. Lowland CT.

 

QUARRYSTONE

Know where your stone comes from. Was it strip-mined from an old wall? Some quarries are are no more than staging areas where scavenged and stolen rock is sorted, high-graded, and sold to unsuspecting buyers.   Goshen Stone is one of the good guys out there. Their mica schist, after only a few years, looks as as good as it gets. There are plenty of other good companies out there. Just beware of the bad ones.

 

LANDSCAPES FROM SPACE

The National Geophysical Data Center (NGDC) is a federally maintained archive of information about the nation’s physical landscape From this site, you can find shaded relief maps of anywhere. Try picking a state, then zoom in on your town, then look at a color shaded relief map of its topography.

BrooklynSnow
Brooklyn CT in the winter snow of February, 2014