Schoodic International Sculpture Symposium

Hello once again, folks, and welcome to the Schoodic International Sculpture Symposium being held at Acadia National Park's Schoodic Education and Research Center (SERC) on Schoodic Point. I was somewhat surprised when we were told we were going to attend this, as I couldn't see how it tied in with our work, except that the seven sculptors selected for this symposium all work in granite, much the same as we do. Now, we don't get down and create figures or soaring vertical designs, but we still work with similar tools and techniques, albeit on a much smaller scale. When done, all of these sculptures will be installed in various towns up and down Downeast Maine.


Here is my crew leader, Keith, chatting it up with one of the sculptors, whose name I failed to get, due to my zipping about gawking and taking pictures. Luckily, there were "place cards" at each of their work sites, which made identification of some of them a little easier. (Some photojournalist you'd make, Doug!)


This is what they were looking at, though, a worm-like spiral sculpture. This kind of work can't be easy in any way, and I can't even imagine the thought processes it takes to envision this sort of thing in your head. These guys are good!


This is one of a pair of figures by the Maine sculptor Roy Patterson. This may well be close to the final product, as he works in a rough/smooth motif in most of his pieces. There were a couple of models on a table next to him to guide him along, and I can't believe I didn't get a shot of them. Anyway, they looked pretty much like this.


And here's Roy working on the other of the two pieces. When asked how he comes about his images, he said, "Well, I just sit and think, and it almost always comes out women." Nothing at all wrong with that, Roy.


This is a piece by another Maine sculptor, Don Meserve. He and I talked about this for a while, as I remarked it looked a lot like a cleat you'd find on a pier, but also a bit like a kayak, too. He praised me for my eye, saying that was pretty much how he saw it, too, as it developed its own nautical theme as he progressed. (That's its pedestal right behind it.) This one will be erected right here in the town of Winter Harbor.


This is Narihiro Uemura from Japan using a pneumatic rock drill to carve out a square opening in this shrine-like structure. Most of these artists kept at their work while we filed about, never once coming out of their protective equipment. I can't believe it must be comfortable in there.


Here is what Narihiro is working on. The figure in the center of what will be a recess in the piece is a small figure carved out of black basalt sitting in the storeroom. Most of his figures have uplifted arms.


And here it is. It kind of looks like a Lego mini-figure, doesn't it? Just now, in thinking about his incorporation of a basalt figure into a granite sculpture, I was reminded of the basalt intrusions -- known as "black dikes" -- we have a lot of around here, especially on Schoodic's Little Moose Island. I wonder if he planned it that way?


I don't remember who this is, but they're cuttting into a piece of stone with a water-cooled diamond saw. This is a very common practice to remove large amounts of material, or to create a grooved pattern.


Here's an example of this technique. They do the same thing with granite that we do with wood, sawing parallel grooves in the material, then knocking the resulting fins off with a hammer to remove the excess. At this point, they can either choose to leave it as is for the texture, or use a pneumatic drill to chisel the rest of the pieces off and smooth it all down nicely.


This was by far my favorite piece in the show, a staggering, towering piece by the German scuptor, Jo Kley. This has a very German Futuristic feel to it, somewhat reminiscent of some scenes out of Beetlejuice, or if you're into classic movies, The Cabinet of Dr Caligari. When we came across him, he was working on a round ball to install on the very top of this. I suspected this might be the person responsible for the stacked cairns I found on Little Moose Island, especially when on the way back to Acadia, one of the guys said Jo had remarked about how round our rocks were out here on the beaches. I'll bet that's him!


Here is a little closer shot of the base of his piece, showing the smooth/rough juxtaposition most of these artists utilize in their work. The first tIme I was made aware of this contrast used in sculpture was in Art History class in college, studying the work of Isamu Noguchi, a Japanese-American sculptor whose work totally enthralled me. You can see this kind of work still does.


Okay, one more shot of it before we go -- a worm's-eye view of it towering into the crisp blue sky. I must've taken a dozen pictures of this piece, but I'll just leave it off here. This was a fun and most enlightening outing and I'd like to take this opportunity to thank our boss, Gary -- who didn't even make it here -- and my crew leader Keith, too, for setting this up for us. If you'd like to check it out for yourselves -- either online or in person -- the URL to the website is schoodicsculpture.org. Not only does it have information about the symposium itself, it also has short bios and photos of the artists and other works of theirs. Check it out.


After we were done at the symposium, we still had a little time to head up the Anvil Trail for a short hike. Some of us made it to the end, some of us -- yours truly -- did not, but it was great fun to explore this little paradise. We don't get over here often, so we have to make the most of every visit.


Back at the trucks once more, we rest and re-hydrate and chat a bit -- or smoke -- before heading back. Anna kicks back with a bottle of water, while Paul lights one up in the background. To each their own.


With Helen at the Sirius satellite radio controls and Jeff at the wheel, we prepare to hit the road for home. It was a great little getaway, and thanks again to those responsible for it.

The End of the YCC

No, I didn't break down and push any of them off a mountain (not that I didn't think about it at times). It only means that Thursday, the 17th, marked the end of my leading this pack of obstreperous teenagers around by their nose rings and attempting to get any kind of decent work out of them. This year was especially difficult, as none of them seemed at all interested in the work, and there was no shifting them. I don't really get it, but then I'm not a teenager anymore. As Bob said, "The times they are a-changin'." Oh, well. At any rate, Thursday also marked the re-opening of the Precipice Trail after the work to restore the earthquake damage was finished -- at least as far as the main trail and the East Face Trail were concerned -- of which my kids and I played a major part. But before all that, My crew leader Keith took us on a hike up an abandoned trail called the Cave Trail. And here's why:


A cave, of all things. I don't know if you can call it an actual cave -- it looked more like a huge fissure with a few massive connecting beams across it -- but it certainly has that cave feel to it. It was quite impressive, and very cool inside. The temperature must have gone down at least 10 degrees in there. Here we see Hazel, Gentry, Zev, Zach (with his back turned), and Gavin.


I moved in a little closer after everyone left and took this shot to show the interior a little better, without all the silly people. Nice place.


Finally, we had to move on and head on up the abandoned trail to connect with the Precipice Trail proper, famous for its outstanding and uninterrupted views of the ocean (well, okay, this view is a bit interrupted, but only for the sake of composition), thanks to at least half of it running right along sheer ledge. This one is definitely not for the faint of heart.


To give you a little better idea of what you're up against here -- and to give Zach a little "face time" -- here's Zach turning a corner on a tight ledge face after a rather long series of rungs, ladders, and rock scrambling. We were both a little done in by this time, but the end was near. The summit is only just up a ways.

After achieving the summit (no photos, for some reason), we took a well-deserved break for 10-15 minutes, then proceeded to change out all the signs on the mountain to reflect the trail system's new and improved status. As we were hiking the Park Loop Road over to the Precipice trailhead to do the final opening procedure, we were met by a couple who asked if the Precipice was going to be opened that day and did I know when? (I didn't know there had been a Press Release stating that it would be opened at noon. Nobody told me!) I assured them that that was what we were heading to do, so they followed me to the gate -- along with a dozen or more other people -- and took my photo as I ceremoniously cut the closed sign's rope, officially re-opening the trail. Since they were about to bolt onto it before I had time to put up the new sign, I gave them all a short discourse on the open and closed portions, then the stampede was on. The crew still at work on the closed portion just off one of the intersections said they didn't get any work done the whole rest of the day due to having to answer question after question from a flood of hikers. You see there? You should've gone and given blood at the end of the day like me. That'll learn ya! The YCC kids did manage to get in a few more digs at the Blood Drive, but I just kept my mouth shut and silently said my mantra: "It's all done . . . it's all done . . . it's all done . . . " and went home and dove into the fridge and had myself a couple of hard-earned beers or three. Whew! All I can say is Thank God that's over. These guys would take all the fun out of a root canal.

The Little Moose Island Project

Little Moose Island -- August 2006(When you could see it)
Ever seen the movie The Blair Witch Project? It's a weird, creepy, well-done movie about three student cinematographers who go into the woods to document the area believed to be still inhabited by a woman labeled as a witch and banished from the town of Blair, Maryland, hundreds of years ago. Afterwards, so many people came up missing that the townsfolk abandoned the town and many years later the town of Burkittsville took its place. To this day, people in the area keep coming up missing and -- as the story plays out -- so do our three students, whose film and video gear eventually show up undamaged, giving us the main footage in the movie. Along the way, however, they encounter an area in the woods that has bundled stick figures hanging in the trees and little artistically done piles of stones on the ground everywhere. Well, I had just watched the movie only a few days ago (my first viewing ever), and the creepy effect was still with me as a Resource Management Intern and I went over to Little Moose Island to map and document erosion areas on the tiny island's meager trail system. And what do we find emerging from the fog as soon as we get over there? This:


Now, I'd be the first to admit I have an overactive imagination, but this was just downright spooky. Don't get me wrong -- I still think this could be classified as an art installation, but coming on the heels of Blair Witch, it was . . . well, spooky. While Logan was getting his GPS gear up and running, my curiousity overcame the creepy feeling and I dashed over to document these guys further. Here's another example:


Just look at this work, would you? This is some high-quality, gravity-defying craftsmanship, folks. I looked closer at the ones using the almost perfectly round stones and there are tiny little bits of gravel surrounding them holding them in place and keeping them from rolling off. These guys knew what they were doing. Normally, on the trail crew, we would see a group of cairns like this and send the stones flying to the four points of the compass, but the artist in me begged me to let them be, and so I did.


Again, the worksmanship here has me speechless. Those stones on that black, triangular rock are defying the laws of physics and gravity -- and a couple of local statutes, I'm sure -- as they should not be there. I would definitely like to meet the person responsible for this little display and shake their masterful hand.


Now it's time for a couple of portrait shots of these guys. There were two in particular that leant themselves well to being singled out for display. This is one of the best of these "portraits" with the round verticality of the cairn contrasted with rectangular horizontality of the granite base. The lines streaking criss-cross through the rock add an element of almost kinetic energy, while the fog-draped land and rock massses in the background are calm and quiet. This is my computer's new wallpaper, by the way.


But for me, this one by far wins the portrait prize. Can you believe these two flat, oval, rounded stones are standing on their ends -- vertically? This guy -- or gal -- was a freakin' magician!!! That's all there is to it. If you click on the image, it'll enlarge so you can see the teeny-tiny pebbles used to keep these stones so perilously erect. Absolutely amazing. I'm going to have to try this myself some day, given my penchant for building.


Okay, so you won't think this was a total boondoggle -- hey, the Government is famous for that kind of stuff -- here's Logan hard at work measuring the amount of tread (trail surface) loss. He was showing me how it's done so I could take over the task, as he has his hands pretty full with photos, papers, maps and the yellow Pocket PC. My part of the job was to run the measuring wheel to help locate the site of the last measurement (iffy at best), then measure the depth of the tread, and finally take a current picture of the site to match as closely as possible the picture taken five years ago to see the difference in appearance. Whew! Tough day.


At lunch, we went to Land's End (the southernmost point on the island, not the clothier) and I just couldn't resist taking a picture of this big black basalt rock sitting amongst all the pink granite ones. The contrast was just too much to pass up. This contrast in rock types was brought about by Mother Nature, of course, in a process known as an intrusion. Due to extreme pressures, the pink granite develops cracks in it allowing the volcanic magma underneath to intrude its way through the cracks up to the surface. This results in what is known as a "black dike," of which Little Moose Island is ribboned. Usually, the dike runs along at the same level as the granite, but the effect of the ocean's fury over the milennia -- not to mention the effects of icing and thawing -- probably had a lot to do with this one being so prominent, as granite is a softer rock than basalt and chunks would therefore break away and fall into the sea. Anyway, this guy was absolutely captivating to me, and so it had to be included. You know me.

Well, I do hope you've enjoyed this little show, and by all means check out the other show sometime -- if you dare! It'll creep you out, guaranteed.