All,
I've been busy having adventures and despite any appearances have not
had a whole lot of time for e-mail or writing.
Adventure #1 is that since November when I attended the Stone Foundation
symposium in Charleston, SC on behalf of the Preservation Trades Network
(PTN), and with a request to help them develop their organization I have
been working with these fine folks. In particular I have been working
with Tomas Lipps, editor of Stonexus, and getting to know him in a
perfectly jovial and playful manner -- including his soundly beating me
in 8 ball each time that we meet. Stonexus, by the way, on occasion
publishes snippets from Pyrate's Stonemason's Journal. The upshot of all
of this is that the Stone Foundation will be holding their 2005
symposium concurrent with the PTN's International Preservation Trades
Workshops at Saint Clairsville, OH in October (along w/ the
International Trades Education Symposium the two days prior). It has
long been a dream and desire of mine to bring together the community of
stonemasons similar to that of the Timber Framers Guild... and in large
measure my involvement over the years with PTN has been one with an eye
to stonemasonry. The Stone Foundation per se has been in existence for
something like 20 years as an unincorporated group of friends of like
interest and love of structural stonework. At the symposium in
Charleston I met some incredibly fine folks in the trade, including Ian
Cramb whom Pyrate has been telling me for years that I need to meet.
Well, we finally did meet and I was enthralled. I have also met folks
who spent their childhoods scrambling around in the stone bed of a
crick, same as myself. It is the playing with rocks and boulders that I
enjoy and it is a pleasure to network with people of a similar heart.
Adventure #2 is more recent and involves Rudy. Our having moved, with
friends, Edison Building #11 a few years back it has put us on the map I
suppose for such electrifying adventures and through one connection
leading to another last week we met with a fellow in NJ that owns an
Edison Schoolhouse that was originally, but not currently, located at
the 'other' Edison, that is, near Ogdensburg (northwest portion of NJ a
bit East of High Point) at the former Ogden Mines on Sparta Mountain. We
took a look at the wood frame structure and have deemed it worthy,
sturdy and moveable. Thomas Edison during his tenure at West Orange set
about the mining of iron ore at Sparta Mountain and as a result built
the town of Edison. Other than the school house, which had been
convereted into a Hungarian Church in a nearby community, only three
other structures are known to exist, these being residential houses now
occupied in Ogdensburg. That particular area of the world is full up
with mining, zinc being one ore, but more interstingly to me is a
concentration of varieties of flourescent minerals. The town of Edison,
and the mining orperation, were a failure for Thomas and what remains
there now is a wilderness management area and a motly of stone
foundations and other remnants. It is also possible that the failure led
to a conversion of the facilities to production of cement -- worth
lookign into. Our task at present is to assist the owner of the
schoolhouse in putting together presentation materials and a strategy
towards relocation of the schoolhouse to its original location to serve
for educational interpretation as well as, we hope, a resource to the
environmentalists (Friends of Sparta Mountain, Audubon Society, NJDEP)
who are stakeholders in the reserve. We will see, but, it is an adventure.
On the long-range radar of dreams and aspirations is work at either a
Morse or a Tesla site. Fingers always crossed. We did a small bit of
work up at Lyndhurst, NE headquarters of the National Trust for Historic
Preservation, and got word back that our report on the condition of
their chimneys gained particular positive attention in Washington. Oh,
and we are going to be involved in building a beehive oven and cook
fireplace outdoors of an historic site, in a designated "heritage play"
area, in Brooklyn. This project is an educational one working with teens
and adult mentors (from Goldman Sachs?). Looking forward to authentic
17th century Dutch pizza.
Rudy and I, with sons Carson & David will be giving dual presentations
at the Traditional Building Exhibit & Conference in Philly in the
spring. The nature of our talks will be on how builders think and the
need for us as trade conservators to to simulate traditional builder's
thinking when we engage with an historic structure with a desire towards
repairing and maintaining them -- as oppsed to thinking like artichokes
or angstioneers.
We have other adventures, but I had better hold on these. Back to work!
][<
--
To terminate puerile preservation prattling among pals and the
uncoffee-ed, or to change your settings, go to:
<http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/bullamanka-pinheads.html>
|
