Phil's Blog

Friday, March 1, 2019

Construction Project in Wilmot, NH

http://www.philmorse.com/DK

Work in progress, to be completed this year...you can see the project at the link above

Tuesday, August 30, 2016

When my client Lucy and I discussed the project for the Franklin benches I remarked on the sculptures that seemed to have taken over the city's down town. Her comment was that there is art that is bad and then there is that which is just awful. I can add that beyond that there is that which sucks the air out of your lungs and leaves you breathless. This especially hits home because I just recently returned from Peru with pulmonary embolisms (blood coagulates faster at high altitudes) and it took only a little effort to leave me gasping for air.

Out of the hospital, stabilized, and with time on my hands, I set out for Franklin to see what had become of the benches I designed and delivered in April in time for the high school students to submit their enhancements. The idea of the project was to provide a canvas to engage the students and give them something to do besides shooting up. Franklin is one of the epicenters of New Hampshire's growing heroine craze. The last I heard was that parents were objecting to the possibility that their children might be exposed to paint fumes. I was curious.

My design for the benches was minimalist, intentionally leaving spaces for the imagination...but I also felt the design was complete in itself and could stand alone.

It wouldn't be fair to compare Cusco, Peru to Franklin, NH, other than to say that both cities are rural centers, made largely of stone, and that people live there, which is where any resemblance ends. Cusco was re-built by the Spanish in the 16th century on top of Inca stonework that goes back to pre-history. The indigenous peoples are fiercely proud of their Inca and pre-Inca patrimony. While many are much poorer in terms of creature comforts than the people o Franklin, their culture has sustained them so that even now, the Spanish language and architecture are but shadows over an underlying base.

Cathedral and balcony: Cusco

Inca stonework with serpent

There is everywhere in Cusco a refinement that goes from the modern, all the way back to the pre-columbian

Franklin came as a bit of a surprise. The park was particularly impressive.

The sculpture park in downtown Franklin

There are architectural oddities as well

This post Victorian looks like it's wrapped and ready for storage.

I did finally recognize three of my benches. It appears that they gave up on the students and the town sculptor kindly lent a hand.

for sheer breathlessness, this one takes the "cake"

Saturday, December 5, 2015

Calendar Hill

Megaliths are everywhere, not far from where I live, even. An how coincidental could it be that right around the corner from where I installed one of my sculptures in South Woodstock is the little known Calendar Hill.

"Strata" Commissioned by Beverly Fiertz, South Woodstock, 1998

Apart from obscurity, we share some common themes. I was interested in earth forms when I did this piece, and also the play of sunlight. Likewise, Calendar Hill is all about earth and sun. While I knew of its existence from a few articles on the web, finding it was an adventure. First indications were that it was adjacent to Rte 4 in West Woodstock but that was a false lead, so I asked at the Woodstock library. The librarian had visited the site many years ago and told me it was just after the general store in South Woodstock and before the horse place. My next stop was the store itself, which I knew quite well. Very friendly people there introduced me to a man who happened to be going by it so I followed him up a long dirt road and then straight and up some more and then left to where the gate was open. There the woods give way to a huge open meadow of the kind that only Vermont has.

.

There was a light frost and the color of December

Besides Megaliths there are Chambers, or at least one that I could find. It's the first thing you see on entering the area, nestled among the massive oaks that surround it. There are other forms as well, platforms that may have supported structures, and a rectangular depression. Doubtless, the trees came much, much later.

This is clearly a structure like no other. The wood framing has been added in this century for security, but everything else remains the way it has for thousands of years. Inside, light streams in from a chimney like construction at the rear, giving the space the sacred aura of an alter.

Where the light meets the floor the stone resembles nothing so much as a reclined head. This womb like enclosure is very reminiscent of the temple of the moon which i visited in Peru. We were not allowed to photograph there in reverence to the PachaMama. It was much larger but similar in the way the light came in from above, creating a stage. The first thing that always comes to mind is some kind of sacrifice, human or otherwise, but I think of this as more of a place of initiation. When you finally turn to exit the experience is equally impressive.

The stones over head span the whole width, about 10 feet or more across. I was impressed by the way their surfaces undulate, almost as if to eject you out into the light, newly whatever. At least I hope that was the intent.

It's not obvious at first where the standing stones are to be found. When I saw the one at the entrance to the meadow and the drill marks along its side I assumed that the land owner had bought it and placed it the way people do up here.

at first I thought it was a dead tree

drill marks on the right side are from the quarrying process

Although I was freezing I had to find the stones. I felt beckoned by the stand of pines at the top of the hill. They are magnificent and alluring. Furthermore, there were vehicle tracks leading in that direction.

And when you get up there, there they are, off to the left!

The look like a bunch of guys, just standing there

This is a stone calendar, arranged so that when the sun shines through holes drilled in the rocks certain key dates, like the solstice are precisely rendered by where the light falls. I now have to accept that the ancients had the technology to drill granite and that the first stone I saw is of the same ilk. I have drilled granite.

"Limos" granite, steel, wood, marble inlay
it took forever to drill the hole

Diamond bits are essential for this. I have to assume that whoever did this was able to obtain diamond crystals from someplace like Treasure Mountain in Little Falls, NY
In other words, it's entirely possible that they had the tools.

a close look at the stone on the left reveals a hole at the top

A closer look at the quarry marks shows the borings to be uneven
as though they were done with sticks and loose diamond crystals. If they drilled the holes and filled them with water and it froze, that may have been enough to split the rock. Its the way it happens naturally, and surely they didn't have dynamite.

Some kind of residue remains in the borings, perhaps slurry from the drilling.
Whatever it is it has stayed in place a long long time.

One of several calendar holes

I forgot to bring my pendulum. I've read that this whole complex sits on a powerful ley line, but I'm not much of a geomancer anyway. My interest is more in the way things are made. The combination of high sophistication and crude technology is one I find very appealing and humbling. The people who did this were close to the earth and the stars at one and the same time.