Cahokia

While in St. Louis on Sunday, Meg and I went to Cahokia Mounds.

 This is Monk's Mound...and it's impossible to capture the sense of scale in a photograph.  It is 100 feet high and there are tiny figures going up the left side (if you look close).

 It is almost exactly the same size, height and shape as the Pyramid of the Sun in Teotihuacan, Mexico.

 Follow the line of the stairs, across the modern road and the grass-covered "courtyard" is a truncated pyramid that is very similar to the Pyramid of the Moon at the same Aztec site as the Pyramid of the Sun.  Coincidence?

 Then, looking a little east of The Pyramid of the Moon (or whatever they call it), is the Interpretive Center.  I wish that we had more time to see it, because we got there about closing time.  It is GREAT!!!   Unlike the Ft. Ancient museum in Ohio, which didn't have hardly any Ft. Ancient culture artifacts, this center focused on the importance of the Cahokia culture and the singular nature of the site.

To the west of Monk's mound, is a reconstruction of 1 of 5 woodhenges that they unearthed.  They also found a decorative pottery beaker (lower left in the photo) near the main siting post ...which is strange...because they discovered a decorative pottery beaker near a main siting post at Stonehenge in Great Britain.  Coincidence?

 From the top of the largest pyramidal mound, also toward the west, you can see downtown St. Louis.  There is no mistaking that skyline - the Arch is like nothing else in the world.  (all photos copyright Meg White 2013).

St. Louis Installation and Laumeier Sculpture Park

On Sunday, April 28, Meg and I made the 270 mile trip to St. Louis to install my stone sculpture "Revelations".

 After riding 6 hours in Meg's "new" truck, we arrived safely with the sculpture at a private residence on the south side of the city.

 The installation went smoothly, and the piece looks natural in its new setting.

 This is a close-up of the sculpture.  The Indiana Limestone fits in nicely with the Missouri Limestone on the home and the bed of crushed Missouri Red Granite.

 Laumeier Sculpture Park was only 2 miles from the site!  It was an excellent treat to walk the grounds on a fresh spring day.  This is "Eye" by Tony Tasset.

 I've always been a fan of Mark Di Suvero.  He has an excellent sense of design and implied movement in his metal sculptures.  This one is titled "Bornibus".

 It's difficult to get a sense of scale in photographs - this sculpture, "The Way" by Alexander Liberman is HUGE!!!.  It's made from recycled oil tanks.

 One of the cool things about the park, besides scale, is the variety of colors and textures in the sculptures.  I thought this image of "Sugabus" by Robert Chambers in the distance was well complemented by "Alpha" by Beverly Pepper.

 "St. Loui Bones" by Robert Stackhouse appealed to my Viking heritage.

Laumeier has one weakness - there are very few stone sculptures.  I think that under this "Christo-like" winter wrapping is 1 of only 3 stone sculptures on the grounds.  I think that it is "Aurelia Roma" by Manuel Neri, but it's hard to be sure.  (all photos copyright Meg White 2013).

Bird Bath Installation and John Hartford Pre-Party

On Friday, April 26, Meg and I went to Yew Dell Gardens to pick up a bird bath that they had sold for me.

 I delivered and installed it into a private garden behind a home in Middletown.  The intimate space was extremely well designed with an ample use of natural stone.

 My bird bath found a good home - appearing to spring up naturally, out of the ivy.

 While in town, we went over to the Burkhart Company for the John Hartford Memorial Pre-party. There were several live bands that played in the large space of the custom cabinet business owned by Tom Burkhart:   Whiskey Bent Valley Boys, 220 Breakers, Dave McCool, Steve & the Installers and The Ebony "Cat House" Band.

 An unexpected treat was to see the set up in the basement where a friend of Tom's was making custom guitars and bass guitars from old whiskey barrels.  You can see the preforms of the guitar bodies in this picture.  I was told that the dense wood made for a deep bass sound in the finished instruments.

 Meg and I wondered into the attic, too.  This huge building is on the historic register, having been built around 1880.

It was used as a factory for making burlap sacks and bags.  This is an "artifact" from those long-ago days.

(all photos copyright Meg White 2013)