• Boulder and oak-tree and stone

    background, Latest projects
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    A stone-tree for the group home

    Today in Amersfoort, a new group home for people with a mild intellectual disability was inaugurated. I've lately been involved (pro deo) in a number of things in the new home, including the stone-tree and the boulder in the garden.

    The stone-tree was a special project for me, because it led me to undertake several things that I do not normally do. It's a long story, so let's start at the beginning!

    Read an earlier post about the boulder here.

    The mad squire in 1661

    boulder and oak- pulling the Amersfoort boulder, on an old print

    Each Amersfoort resident knows the story of the mad squire and the Amersfoort boulder. Or, at least, he/she should know it. In short it goes like this:

    Squire Everard Meyster makes a walk on the Leusden moors with his study pals, and comes upon a huge boulder, sticking out of the ground. After some speculation about the origin of the boulder the squire is willing to bet that the boulder would be easy to move. He gets 400 Amersfoorters crazy enough that they willingly, and for promises oflots of beer and pretzels start to move the boulder of 7 tons and hoist it on a cart, and under loud cheering bring it into the city. A man lost his legs in the excitement, but that couldn't spoil the fun.

    Then the stone was set on display at the Pig's Market. Later, the squire writes a mocking rhyme about the gullible Amersfoorters, and the boulder was buried out of shame. Only in 1903 the boulder was dug up again. Today, the boulder is still visible at the beginning of the Arnhem street. A stone's throw from the group home.

    Real Amersfoort boulders

    Amersfoorters have been nicknamed Boulder pullers ever since that day’ and the city is also called Boulder Town. So what was a more appropriate name for the future residents than The Boulder Club?

    At one of the meetings of the Club every resident has painted their own stone. And these remained lying around in a basket somewhere in the house. A pity though, thought the central committee, and after some discussion an idea came up for a work of art, a tree with these stones as leaves. Boulder and Oak.

    Whoever thought up what, I don't know anymore, but in the practical part, it ultimately came down to a collaboration between me and painter Sandra Nanning, who has made a lot of murals,  and from trees as well. Sandra was going to paint a large tree in the stairwell, and I would attach the stones to stainless steel tree leaves.

    Making tree leaves

    I bought a sheet of stainless steel and cut out the shape of the leaves. After that, I made a hole in the middle, and a fold over its length. I tapped the leaf halves around a thick tube to get the leaf effect, and welded an long M8 nut on the rear side. Into that, I welded a threaded wire piece, with which I can fix the leaf into the wall. It is a somewhat cumbersome construction, but now every leaf has a nut into wihich I can screw a stone.

    Each stone had to be pierced. And there were hard ones among them! Limestones I can drill without the hammer function, but a piece of granite can't be drilled with a hammer drill. It would break in half. So many of these stones I needed to patiently pierce with a diamond bit. 32 in total, so I had enough on my hands there.

    A huge tree in the stairwell

    boulder and oak-tree and stone

    Sandra then went to work on the back wall of the stairwell. She painted one big tree, from the ground floor up to the second floor continuously. It also runs out into the two side walls, so it stands with an imposing presence. At the bottom are the names of the initiators of the project, plus the architect and the owners of the property who have put so much work in.

    On the first floor is a poem about a tree that was good at letting go. And on the top two floors are the stones of the residents, criss-cross all over, each on their own stainless steel tree leaf.

    Should it be necessary, they can be screwed out again, and there are still four spots left for future residents.

    The Tree in the Wood

    The tree in the wood

    in autumn let everything loose

    He let go of it all and as he stood

    he whispered softly:

    'Letting go is paramount in life, to stand stronger and be sound ‘

    boulder and oak-tree and stone2
    poem on tree
    boulder and oak, stone and tree3

     

     

     

     

    Placement of the boulder with the house numbers

    A week earlier I have here too placed the boulder that I recently provided with house numbers. The boulder was put in the front yard, right next to the entrance. I had transported the nearly 500 kg heavy boulder in the back of my white little van. I could lift it out with an engine hoist I'd brought along in a trailer. After that, it was only a matter of laying planks and planting it into the garden.

    boulder and oak- boulder hoisted
    boulder and oak-positioning of the boulder2
    boulder and oak- planting the oak tree

    Boulder and Oak

    This boulder was not the only thing that was planted; later that week a young oak tree (Quercus Robur) was also planted, in appreciation of the architect and the two developers. Because an oak can live for over 450 years here, we hope that both the group home and the oak will live a long and happy life.

    Update 3 June 2023: painted

    Because the boulder was rather in the bushes and was difficult to visible in the dark and in rain, I just painted the numbers for a while. So, here goes.

    Kei with gold paint

  • Thomas Aquinas (sandstone) for St. John's Cathedral

    Restoration, Saint John's Cathedral
    statue of Thomas Aquinas
    Thomas Aquinas: Here the statue is still in its niche of St John's Cathedral

    St. John's cathedral

    The major overhaul of St. John's Cathedral is steadily continuing. Each year or maybe every two years, I'm not quite sure, one bay of the church is restored: 1 buttress and 1 window facade. This year I already did some work on two finial bases, a slanted profile and some crockets, but this time no canopy.

    Weathering on the statue of Thomas Aquinas
    In particular, the folds at the bottom of his habit were considerably weathered

    Thomas Aquinas

    I received a request to bid for the carving of a copy of a statue from this church. To my pleasure I got the commission. But at the time it was not yet clear to me which saint was depicted. It is a statue in Udelfanger sandstone.

    Stylistically I thought from the 1920, because it is so highly stylized, but it is about 40 years older: around 1880. It's a monk in a Dominican habit (as seen by his hood) with a book, a quill and a dove. The book and dove made clear that he is a "father of the church’ as it's called.

    The dove stands for Divine inspiration

    a father of the church (nowadays Teacher of the Church , because there are female teachers of the church as well, such as Teresa of Ávila, Catherine of Siena, Theresia of Lisieux and Hildegard of Bingen) is someone who has left important writings on faith and doctrinal matters and has led an exemplary life of holiness.

    I thought his book to show something like 'Lausal da van Sion Tower', but a search yielded nothing. I wish I had read vertically!

    Long live Whatsapp

    Lau da Sion Sal va torem

    After a few questions via Whatsapp to the right person it became clear that this sculpture has been on the outside of the cathedral in front of a stained-glass window, and that he probably was depicted on the inside as well. And yes, he was, he turned out to be Thomas Aquinas. And so the text becomes immediately apparent: an opening sentence from a famous cantata written by him. 'Lau da Sion Sal va torem'. Praise, Sion, the Savior.

    strange, For Aquinas was, according to tradition so enormously fat that he did not fit in a regular choir bench. They had to saw away one of the separation pieces, so he could sit at twice the normal width. Here he is pictured almost ascetic lean.

    Vertical layering

    Anyway, I was not hired for a hagiography or for art historical research, but to carve a copy. The first step is to reconstruct it, and then I need to carve a copy from that into a new block of sandstone. And just there's the catch. The old statue was carved in Udelfanger sandstone. But this stone is not available in this height. How is it that they were able to make a statue in one piece anyway? Simple. The stone they can retrieve from a bank of about one meter thick. So a statue of 152 cm is simply not possible. Unless you take a horizontal block of stone.

    But this choice has its drawbacks. The sedimentary deposits of this block will then be in line with the statue. Vertical. You'd prefer that the layers run horizontally through the sculpture, because if something breaks, the fracture will run horizontally as well, So the chance that everything stays in place anyhow is quite large. But in a statue with vertical layers, after some weathering an entire slice at once could come loose and fall down.

    The layer deposition in the quarry is called layering. Horizontal layering is desirable, upright layering is not. For this staue, they wanted a block with horizontal layering. That just is not possible, because the bank thickness in the quarry is not more than at most 110 cms wide.

    Patching it up

    The pictures show clearly that this sculpture is missing entire parts at the bottom, which fell off after weathering. I had to remodel those first and make a reconstruction of how it must have been originally. Now I do prefer plaster for this, so I can presaw the statue more easily on my copying saw. But Thomas Aquinas must be preserved intact because he will be stored later in the museum The Bouwloods, at St. John's Cathedral. That's why I modeled the missing parts in plastiline clay, which never dries out. That can later be easily removed again.

    In two parts

    Statue of Thomas Aquinas (sandstone) reconstruction in plastiline clay
    Missing parts are filled in with plastiline clay. The chalk mark approximately indicates the seam.

    This week, the committee came to see me to review the results and discuss how we can make this statue in horizontal layering. Eventually it was decided to create a thin seam between the two new blocks. On the dividing line of the monk's hood will be a cutting surface. But this seam runs quite irregular. When I cut a straight line here it will firstly be very visible and secondly the seam runs through the knuckles of the right hand.

    After some deliberation we decided: I'll make a separate top part and a separate bottom part. Exactly on the axis of the cap, I'll carve a parting plane toboth parts. Next, I'll put the two pieces together and insert two thick stainless steel pins. That will be an interesting puzzle!

    Read more about this image in the next post.

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