Finished finessing cottages

 

I spent another 4 hours today finessing the stone cottages today. This included: tidying up the shapes; smoothing the various planes of the cottage forms; grinding away excess stone; and creating a chipped textured area around each cottage. The photo above shows me using a diamond grinder to take excess stone off. I was working around the back of the shed out of the direct wind. I like the art nature of the sieve on the wall!!!!

I chose the five cottages in the photo below for finessing and for the installation that will go into the exhibition; and you can see I bagged the larger offcuts of each as these will become part of the installation.

A close up of the grinding process - done outside - fine day today - all the safety gear on. I got Fiona to take the photos - thanks F.

In the shed I then used stone carving chisels to create the textured areas. As you can see from the photo below the stones are extremely hard and the chisels suffered. A fair bit of work will be required to restore the chisels.

I didn't know until later but Fiona took a few photos of me chiseling through a very dirty workshop window.

Below are the finished five including a couple of individual cottage photos.

As you can see from the photo below I have created a couple of spares as I was not confident about the stone for Sherray and Sleiteil.

I am pleased with the outcome; and given the hardness of the stones I am also pleased this work is complete.

An art challenge

 

Fiona came across a Facebook post that referenced the existence of poetry lines carved into the rocks on a beach just over an hour's drive from the cottage. It seemed like a good idea yesterday to jump in the van and head to Sannick Beach and discover these carved words - simple right? It turned out quite a few things proved a challenge. 

The beach is not well known; but a google map search showed approximately where it was. We had to time our arrival to be at the beach at dead-low tide as the carved stones are under water when the tide is in. We did find the beach - a local dog walker confirmed we had reached the starting point to walk to the beach; and from the photo above you can see we went searching amongst the rocks on the beach and the tide was out - a couple of wins there.

A few of the challenges included: the signal on our phone was not strong enough to show us the way until we got close to the area; the beach was signposted by a small weathered sign at the front of a sheep paddock gate; the parking area and gateway was a bog so we had to clamber over a side fence; as soon a I stepped out of the van to direct parking I was attacked by the thickest swarm of midges I ever encountered - and I mean ever; I immediately jumped back into the van warning Fiona not to go out until we slathered ourselves in midge repellant; after donning rain coats and bog boots - did I mention it was raining lightly by this stage - we headed in the direction of the beach - photos below.

The only instructions Fiona had for finding the carved rocks was to walk the beach towards the John o' Groats. The following photos are of us scrambling and hunting - talk about find a particular rock in a rock pile. We did ask the local guy when we we on the beach did he know about the carved rocks - he replied he never heard of them; and then said we had picked a particularly bad day to spend any time on the beach.

For almost an hour we had walked the beach as far as we could go - slipping and sliding as we went - and no sight of the carved rocks. So despondently we headed back down the beach scanning and scrambling. About half way down Fiona let out a call that she thought she had found some of the carvings at least. 

And so against all odds, and still in the rain and midges, we revelled in finding carved rocks as depicted in photos below - a mix of Fiona's and mine - though the first one is Fiona's showing the start of this particular piece of poetry rising out of the sea and the rain drops.

It is amazing how one forgets the challenges when the delightful outcome is achieved. After getting back to the van and stripping off the wet weather gear we went to John o' Groats for a warming coffee and apple-cinnamon bun - a grand way to share photos and round off a great art experience. 

No doubt Fiona will share more about the poetry and content later - for now I just wanted to share the tough but delightful art experience.

Seeing different sides of the cove

 

This morning the tide was way out at the cove; so Fiona and I decided to go through the tidal tunnel (see above) to check out other little coves and tidal pools that are on the other side of the stone wall. 

The fisher folk use the tunnel to anchor the steel rope used for hauling fishing baskets up from the beach unto the headland. Below are a couple of photos of the hauling wire and mechanism.

Photos in the blog are grouped: patterns in rocks; pools and tidal eco systems; rock stocks; looking back at the beach from the tidal pools; and looking down from our usual viewpoint.

Patterns in rocks.

Pools and eco systems.

Rock stacks.

Looking back at the beach.

Looking down to the cove.

What a great opportunity to view the cove in a different way.

Finessing cottages; and making a lid for a display cask

 

Never a dull moment at the cottage. Yesterday was given over to making a lid for a cask that will be used to display one of my exhibition works; and today was a stone cutting day.

First the cutting of stone. I had done a rough cut of five of the cottages; but now I need to finesse them. This includes cutting off a bit of surplus stone and then carving them with hand stone carving chisels to give a more hand carved and rough ground texture.

As you can see from the opening photo and the photos below Fiona was on hand to take a few photos of the diamond cutting blade in action.

The photos below show the workbench in the shed where I have started to chip away some of the stone.

The top for the cask was scribed; and then cut with a neighbours jigsaw. A few coats of grey paint and it is good to go. Whilst I was cutting and painting I prepared a board to mount a new letterbox and a board to eventually will hold an etched sign for the cottage.

There are always plenty of tasks to do around the cottage. Fiona was dealing with weeding and strimming the area where we had installed the new letterbox while I was cutting stone.