Full Version of February Newsletter
About this time last year, I started a conversation with a man named Matt. It started like so many conversations start. He sent me an email that read “I love your work... I’d like to talk to you about a sculpture here on our property... we have a lot of stone.” I get that email about once a week. I wrote back, like I always do. “Thank you, Love to know what you have in mind, show me your rocks..” something fluffier than that, but that’s about the gist of it. He replied to me with a photo of
a literal mountain of stone with a 6-wheel drive dump truck on top of it
and several other images of houses and such that had been built of the stone. I didn’t even Google the property that he said he managed. I didn’t even know how beautiful or important it was. I just cared about the rocks.
The context of the conversation changed in the moment that I saw those rocks, though. When the average guy says he has a lot of stone, that generally means he has a pile about as big as his dining table, which takes me a day maybe to use, maybe, if I work with a blindfold on. This guy Matt now had my attention.
With a real mountain of stone, I could build something big. Really big. I could go way outside my box and build. Really build.
The next volley of emails consisted of me sending images of some sculptures I had built and their approximate materials volume, time to construct and budget. Matt said if that looked good to him, they’d fly me down and show me around the property to look at prospective installation sites, meet his team maybe get an idea of some concepts based on site inspection and all that.
Soon enough, I was on a flight to Knoxville and then on to the resort where I met Matt and some of the team and then off to see their 5000 acre mountain. Blackberry Mountain.
And so, it came about, that I landed the biggest job of my career. So far.
Blackberry Mountain is a 5 Star Resort in the Great Smokey Mountains in Eastern Tennessee. It is the hillside little sister to Blackberry Farm that is the heart of the Valley below. The Mountain Resort features a stone lodge settled neatly in modest clean lines, hosting the most exquisite dining room and views of the mountains, beyond the infinite. Just above that, I set up a home base out of ‘The Hub’ a set of buildings where the Art Camp is and the yoga and movement studios are located. From this perspective of wellness and mindfulness, I had so many ideas that would fit the bill, if only there was a flat enough area on this slope-side terrain that would accommodate the scale I was thinking.
We set off on 4 wheel drive carts: out to the summits, to the valleys, to the rivers and tree tops. Looking at rocks and mushrooms, rope courses, other artists’ sculptures and all sorts of “Woah” moments. It was rough terrain and snowing. Hard to see the place as it would look, lush and vibrant in the summer heat, but not at all impossible. I picked a site big enough to go big, in an over grown field adjacent to the rock pile. Then I went up to the Hub to draw. Shortly, I met Mary Celeste, the Proprietor and presented the sketches and my concepts to her and Matt and then in my sweaty sweatshirt and jeans and hiking boots, I clomped into that 5 Star dining room and ate a meal, alone, among the finery, with a fleet of wait staff to observe my every movement and attend to my every need.
A couple sat on their phones in the corner nearest the fireplace. The wife got up strolled off and the husband stood up and walked over to me. A kind looking man introduced himself ‘Sandy Beall’. “OH!” I said. He’s the owner... he’s the owner’s father, the founder. He gave me a brief history and asked mine and said of course he knew who I was, and asked that I forgive him for having forgotten. He owns 12 businesses, how could he know who I was, sitting there alone, embarrassed in my clothing and savoring every bite in his glorious restaurant, in the middle of the lock down.
The next day I had breakfast there again in a crushed yellow velvet chair on a porch seemingly supported by the air itself and the view beyond, ever present. I was distracted by avocado toast and the simple pleasures and comforts of food and coffee. After another meeting, I was off to the airport to put together a proposal and design a dream.
The project I decided upon was a labyrinth with 5 rings and 5 boulders. It would have two entry gates and two windows. These points would have significant and important personal meaning to the family and represent special days of the year when the sun shines through them, the main entry gate being on the Autumnal Equinox. The wall above that would need to be well over 11’ off the ground to shelter the big heavy archway. Could the full diameter really be 150’? Could we flatten out the land enough? Would we plant the top of the wall? What would irrigation and lighting built into the wall look like? What kind of budget are we working with here? So many questions began to swirl around as the design clarified off the paper and into a clay model.
To build this project 12 folks we hired, we lived and worked together coming and going for 5 weeks, eating, drinking, wading through mud and breaking equipment together, building, building, building 10 hour days, 6 days a week. These 12 didn’t really know each other before, a few did though, they all knew me and because of that one connection, they trusted that this bigger group would simply work out. I hired a chef and she turned out to be Ah-mazing, and an amazing collaborator too. I experienced driving and letting go, caring and backing off, having a strong opinion and being over ruled and it was brilliant to not have the loudest voice in the room.
Before, they only knew me, and now we are family. All of us. Bonded.
We would pack a big fat lunch and coolers of ice and drinks and convoy out of the house a little after 7 in the morning and stop at a mountain-side spring along the way, a 45 minute drive on a very narrow and very windy and very well-traveled road that seemed too narrow and too windy for the amount of traffic on it and lack of any line striping at all. We would park in Pasture 3, so it was called, after punching in through the gate and checking last email and voicemail for the day and then hike down into the field where our project was laying in waiting for us. Beyond the bears, and the snakes and boar and all the things that could bite or fly after us, through torrential rains and really, really steamy hot days, beyond the need for diesel for any of the 3 machines we ran, or waiting for this or for that or for the other
we built, we built and we ate and we built more.
The days wore on, the structure began to rise and become itself. We would work in a frenzy and really only stop to look at what we did at the end of the day as we hiked back up the steep hill to get to the cars and trucks and go home. Some days we had built 100 feet of wall, some days we got only 45 feet of wall, but it was all above 3’ high, sometimes up to 6’ high, on planks and blocks, some days higher and some days we were on the top of scaffolding. Some days the music was excellent, some days it was too loud and too rammy and some days the sun set too soon and some days it seemed to last for. ever. At no point was any one grumpy, except me. At no point was any one stressed except me. Only one person had a back ache and stayed home to rest and though there were regular cuts and bruises and muscle aches and one complete body rash, no one complained once, not once and we built and we built and we built.
We were a team set up with me managing from the skid steer, scooping mud and stone and delivering and taking away again. Grace on the excavator with Hannah laying new base stone carefully measuring and setting the line of the wall to come. Troy on the mini excavator helping with second layer, large stone, still too big to handle by hand and Mike and Martin and Bryce and Joe and Bob and Jessea laying wall above that and Loni and Molly filling in the core with hearting, so much hearting. There was Martin building wall somewhere and Hannah swooping back in and Grace in the way in the excavator and me zooming around the long way and Troy late with diesel and where the heck has the stone gone! I just laid two buckets there and Bryce whining like a baby for more waving and pointing and Joe walking away and walking back, that quiet, perfect nod, with 20’ built in the blink of an eye, and I turn to see Loni, she waves, she points, she’s out of hearting, damn you Loni! Jessea’s big laugh but not a peep out of Bob except his ringing hammer, all day long blam, blam, blam, blam and Molly’s constant, constant, constant commentary on everything, and Martins sweet cigar smoke that almost killed me but didn’t and so much wall and we built and we built.
We built 1000 feet of wall: We built 1000 feet of wall with 2 difficult features, 4 cheek ends, (that’s the butt end where the wall stops abruptly), 2 openings to pass through, completely randomly capped, (hopefully to prevent climbing). The wall itself was 4 feet thick, each path was 8 feet wide, we had set over 5 big boulders into the wall as benches.
The wall was never shorter than 4 feet tall and topped out over 11 feet tall, sweeping, swooping, lifting and dropping, everywhere, but over-all, 140 feet across.
We started in the center and built 3 complete rings and then moved over and built the big entry arch in the outer wall and the rest of the outer ring and then we went back in and built the fourth ring in the tight space remaining, and closed the openings we had left in the outer walls to load in material and clean up after. The way we worked, when that section of the wall was completed, it was also completely cleaned and clear of any remaindered material. We moved into the next section, completely complete behind us and fresh and clean and stocked with stone to use both inside the wall to be built and outside of it, so that people inside could work and people outside could work on the wall ahead.
Clean. Efficient. Fast.
We built and we built and we built. And then suddenly it was done and the stone was completely gone, the whole mountain of stone was now organized in 5 neat rings and all the waste was picked up and the surround was flat and there was an entry ramp and boulders to sit and ponder and, and, and, then we all went home.
And now here it is. The Labyrinth: Time for Love.
Sitting safe and warm and at a distance now, I can reflect on this massive and beautiful creation. I know it is important, somehow. I know that first contact was important and meaningful, and that every moment since has been critical. This sculpture is built as a memorial to love, but also a living reminder to love. LOVE.
This is so much work, every stone. Every day. We must work at this big love every day, and build and build it. With strangers, with family both comfortable and uncomfortable. Each part coming together, the muddy days, the long easy days, the perfect ones and the very, very difficult ones. We have some massive drive and obligation to love and live and create.
And so, here it is and here is the time to love because if you haven’t put in the work and the love, it’s never too late and every day you have to love and go big and bigger because you don’t know what will happen next and you need to express your love and speak the words and never hold back not even a little.