Friday, January 7, 2011

Stone Woman, Thea Alvin

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Stone Artisan Thea Alvin
A while back while visiting Jan Johnsen landscape gardening blog 'Serenity In The Garden' (a blog I highly recommend checking out if you don't know it already) I saw this photo (derectally above ↑) and at first glance, thought it was a piece by Andy Goldsworthy. I quickly discovered that this fabulous piece of stone art was not the work of Goldsworthy but of Vermont Stonemason/ Artist Thea Alvin.


Thea has been a professional stone mason for 25 years, and uses the dry stone stacking techniques learned from master masons around the world to create sculptures and natural landscape installations. She admits to always being a bit of a 'tomboy', apparently (in her own words) "When other little girls were playing with dolls... I was eating my 15 pounds of dirt." 


Thea wants to travel the world, leaving works of stone art behind her, and to date, she is doing a pretty good job of that. Besides creating works of art all over North America, she as also created works in England, France, Italy, Canada and while cycling around China she managed to find the time to build ten arches from bricks, tiles, slate and marble.
 



I believe that my hands are smarter than I am, and that they operate on their own, and bring me along for the adventure, and to take notes about what we did together while we were there.



Besides creating works of stone art, Thea is also an instructor at the Yestermorrow Design/Build School in Warren, Vermont, where she is running courses in 'The Art of Stone' and 'Masonry Restoration'. She is also in the process of writing a book.
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In my last post I talked about 'Stone Balancing' above is Thea's take on the art of stone balancing.
  
 
Thea Alvin has a huge and impressive portfolio of work, check out the rest of her work on her website www.myearthwork.com.
All photos in this post are from Thea's website, A big thanks to her for her kind permission to use them for this post.

22 comments:

  1. Wow..super wow..magnificent and magical.. she is amazing! Gorgeous photos and info..thanks so much..i love visiting here!

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  2. OMG!! I am in LOVE!!!!! She is my hero for sure, a girl after my own heart...aleady printed out her class for my bucket list!! It seems that it is a more attainable possibility than I ever dreamed!!! Thanks for the inspiration & information.

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  3. Such beautiful artistry! I thought the stone archways were perfect, but that sinuously twisting stone wall is phenomenal!

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  4. Absolutely stunning. Beautiful - thank you for sharing.
    Lene

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  5. So excited that she's from Vermont -- that gives me a good chance of seeing some of her work in person since my boyfriend's family lives there. We're impressed with her muscles... no trouble believing this woman created all these masterpieces.

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  6. Great circular compositions. Greetings.

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  7. Amazing. Nothing like girl power...

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  8. Thanks for letting us know about another amazing artist in stone. Some of her works look like the moongates that Charlotte over at The Galloping Gardener is looking for.

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  9. Sunny, Thank you for introducing me to a wonderful artist who is practically in my own back yard. I am a big fan of Andy Goldsworthy's work, and I agree that there are a lot of similarities in his style and Thea Alvin's. The serpentine stone loops are wonderful and remind me a bit of my favorite Goldsworthy installation, "The Wall that Went for a Walk" (at Storm King in New York state). -Jean

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  10. I very much enjoyed this post and absolutely love Thea's work! Thank you for featuring it on your blog.

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  11. Yes . . . .I Love Her work very much - has been following with great admiration for a few years . . .

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  12. Thank you for sharing the works of this incredibly talented artist. Should she want to stop by my Nashville garden and talk stone~she's more then welcome! gail

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  13. Thank You Sunny, for your very nice comment about my blog, Serenity in the Garden. I appreciate it greatly.

    And you did a great job about Thea Alvin here!

    I think your blog is terrific too.

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  14. Amazing work - I was directed to your blog by a friend and was immediately interested because I'm also a 'rock person' - for the last 10 years I've been building a house with rock ...

    Greetings from Namibia.

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  15. Sunny --- if I could have "picked" this post more than once, I would have! Thea is incredibly talented - thank you for sharing fellow stone artisans. You live & work in an amazing 'world'. --Shyrlene

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  16. Wow - a lot of inspirational stuff here - as a photographer it just makes me wish I could make a tour of all these places, always aty timers when the light was perfect. Great work.

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  17. PS it's very cool that Thea Alvin lives in Boulder - there is a Flintstones gag in there trying to get out

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  18. Amazing and truly gravity defying. Have you ever seen her work? Are those arches and circles somehow balanced with the dry stack or do she used an adhesive or rebar? I have created a few drystack walls but never anything that soared like her work.

    Just wow.

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  19. Wow, that's amazing. I have never seen anything like this!
    Thanks for sharing- so inspiring. :)

    Beth

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  20. That's the type of work my dreams are made of. I can't get over the serpentine arches. Posts like this make me forget my bad back.

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  21. fantastic, you are an inspiration... :-D

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