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St. Kevin’s chapel, Glendalough, Ireland, 1000 yrs old.
@lostfoundartny
Lloyd, hello. I’m Tomas Lipps, used to live in Bolinas late ’70s, early ’80s… I was pleased to stumble upon your blog today and have enjoyed browsing through it. One line in particular struck me [referring to the book Shelter]: “We were both fans of Life Magazine, and felt that each two-page spread should stand alone and be visually balanced.” That’s because I’ve gotten into publishing myself. I edit a glossy print publication called STONEXUS Magazine and a digital counterpart to it called the STONEZINE, and in the print mag I’m particularly sensitive to how the two-page spreads are laid out. (The ‘zine is single-page, 8.5″ × 14″.)
Good to see you’re still at it, and out and about. I’ve been confined here in Santa Fe due to the damn pandemic, but as soon as I get issue #XX printed and mailed out (April), I’ll go off on the trip I had planned in 2020 — to Sardinia. Will be photographing stonework there, the Bronze Age Nuraghi in particular fascinate me. You seem to be familiar with Italy, anything you can tell me about Sardinia?
Hi Lloyd,
Love Shelter and ever since a friend showed me your book a decade ago I’ve been dreaming of taking a copy of it with me to a hillside somewhere in Europe and seeing what might be possible haha
I’ve done bits of labouring and landscaping and walling over the years here in Cornwall, and have never quite managed to earn and save up enough to get a foot on the ladder towards some land here or even elsewhere as life has been quite hectic. However, I somehow managed to come away with enough money to buy the old ruin I’d dreamed of since being 15.
It’s not on a hillside somewhere sunny yet, but that might be the next one, but it is a very special place in an incredibly beautiful and historic area within a world heritage site.
It was built in the late 1700s to early 1800s and the archaeologists that we have to use here in the preliminary stages of the build because of the surrounding ancient history even found a couple of shetland pony shoes (that were often used by the coast here to pull up carts full of seaweed). We also found an old pair of sugar tongs and a half penny from 1861 which was really cool.
From the patchy information that we’ve managed to find in some of the old records it’s likely that it was lived in by mining and agricultural workers as there is an ancient farm 100m down the track and many disused copper and tin mines scattered all over the fields and into the valley.
I’m probably only one third of the way through the works (with some help along the way) towards reinstating it traditionally and working it into a cosy tiny home that will sleep 2 to 3 and maybe even a couple more outside in a small yurt or something.
Read More …
China’s Guizhou province peering over at Mount Fanjing. Rising more than 100 meters above the surrounding landscape, visitors will need to climb almost 9,000 steps to reach the summit. Look closely at the image and you can see how the stairs wind up and around stone outcroppings and through a gorge.
The buildings you see perched at the top are two Buddhist temples — the Temple of the Buddha and the Temple of Maitreya — linked by a small footbridge.
Located in Tongren, Guizhou province, southeastern China, the highest peak of the Wuling Mountains, at 8,430 feet.
www.peapix.com/bing
More info: www.chinadiscovery.com/guizhou/fanjingshan/fanjingshan-temple.html
From Lew Lewandowski
Hi Lloyd.
I thought you might be interested in this small shed, alone in a field up the valley from my home in Southern Snowdonia, Wales. We’re in an area of old slate mining which began in the mid-19th century. and finished maybe 30-40 years ago. The slate slabs on this small outbuilding are between one and two inches thick.
Cheers, and all the very best to you from Corris, Wales.
–Neil Heath
I don’t think the previous post showing a section of this magnificent building does it justice, so I used the Photoshop “merge” command to paste together 4 shots. Not entirely satisfactory either, as there are some weirdnesses in the stitching together, like the truck that passed by during the 4th shot.
The problem is with photographing buildings when you can’t get far enough back to get proper perspective. I used to solve this somewhat with a parallax distortion lens on my old Nikons, but iPhones have no such options.
Anyway, you get the idea (if imperfect) here.
The building, along with Gioto’s bell tower, is just staggering, as you can see, and this angle doesn’t even include Brunelleschi’s dome (at rear).
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The Cattedrale di Santa Maria del Flora in Florence. I hadn’t realized it was faced with slabs of green and pink marble!
20 euros to walk up the 463 stone steps in Brunelleschi’s dome (duomo).
I bought a book, Brunelleschi’s Dome by Ross King, to read later, detailing his ingenious engineering; check it out on Wikipedia, which has a great account.
The fresco, painted in the 1500s, depicts the Last Judgment and includes themes from Dante’s Divine Comedy, with sinners at the bottom going through the agonies of purgatory, which, according to Catholic dogma is necessary to enter heaven. Well, whatever…
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We discovered it on a hike recently.
Teo Briseño did the beautiful bathroom in SunRay Kelley’s temple dome at Harbin Hot Springs, near Middletown, California (which unfortunately burned down a few years ago). It’s shown in Builders of the Pacific Coast.
Here’s his most recent creation, a dome bathroom inside a conventional home in Southern California.
Hello Lloyd…
Here is most recent work of mine towards living in natural sculptured environments.
This dome is made with natural stone and wood; some is locally harvested and wood was cured for 2½ years.
Thin-shell dome construction of one-inch-thick cement over basalt rebar and mesh without metal, so will not rust, corrode or block natural bio-magnetics between the Earth and ourselves.
Planters are sculpted in wall: they include drip irrigation and recycling water drain to flush toilet.
Carbon-sequestering plasters: made of natural lime plaster, an “Old World” technology — warm, inviting, breathable, and is resistant to bacteria.
The shower is of the finest natural lime plaster, giving a smooth, burnished, monolithic finish called Tadelakt, and sheds water as ancient Moroccan bath houses do.
Offering natural bathrooms for healthy self-care environments…
Bringing the outdoors in … naturally, with ancient building ways.
Brisenoarts.org
