Sticks and Stones

Lew French

• Publisher: Gibbs Smith
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781423637592
• Topic: Architecture
• Subtopic: Urban Planning & Landscaping

Lew French is a master stonemason who finds and gathers hundreds of individual stones to create a single fireplace or an outdoor stone wall that looks like it had been there for hundreds of years. Rather than use a chisel, his stones have to fit together naturally; he remembers and fits them together in his mind's eye. From a huge outdoor water feature at an office building near Boston, to a residential landscape on Chappaquiddick, to his own retreat home in the mountains of Brazil, each creation is breathtaking. New to this second book on Lew French's designs, are gallery-quality, framed art pieces, puzzled together from rock and driftwood, resulting in one-of-a-kind wall sculptures. Fans of natural building and all kinds of masonry will be more than impressed. Lew French is the designer, architect, and builder of his work. He has spent over 30 years working on Martha's Vineyard, Boston, in the Adirondacks, and other Northeastern locations. He has built his own home in Brazil. He was inducted into the New England Design Hall of Fame in 2015. Alison Shaw is a fine art and editorial photographer who works and teaches on Martha's Vineyard. Over 8, 000 of her original fine art prints are in public and private collections. There are 19 books of her work so far, including a book she wrote about photographing Martha's Vineyard.

Sticks and Stones

Last year, my mom sent me a small, wobbly pine table from Minnesota to Martha’s Vineyard; it had one leg longer than the other and was full of bent-over nails. My wife, Claudia, was puzzled to find this rather unimpressive piece of furniture when we opened the box.

Earlier in the year, my mom had moved from the house I built for her thirty-five years ago. In the process of packing her things, she had told me that she rediscovered something important—and this was it. My first impression upon looking at the little table was that Mom had finally lost her mind. Why was she sending me this Charlie Brown Christmas tree–like piece? However, on second look, the rickety structure sparked my memory: I made that! I was around five, and my dad had a woodworking shop in our basement. I would often hang out with him after his regular job, watching him make things. This table was the first wooden object that I had built. I guess since a young age I’ve been involved with wood. Right after graduating high school, I started a construction company and built several houses in Minnesota.

Today, the wooden sculptures, driftwood panels, and furniture I have been making have brought a renewed energy to my work. I find the same yet different satisfaction in making objects from reclaimed weathered boards, beams, and trees that I get when I work with stone. As with stones, for a lot of my wood projects I try to leave the materials I work with mostly unaltered from the state in which I found them. To accomplish some designs, though, I find myself cutting, chiseling, sanding, and shaping the natural pieces into my vision of what they could be. Building my house in Brazil has certainly stimulated my desire to create with wood as well as other found natural materials.

A few years ago, clients who wished to have more portable pieces of my work encouraged me to develop smaller sculptures. The idea was also supported by Chris Morse, the owner the Granary Gallery on the Vineyard, who proposed a gallery show of these works. Thus came an opportunity for me to build smaller, movable objects. With my large installations, I ...

Table of contents

• acknowledgments
• Continuity and Change
• Fireplaces
• Brazil
• Three Walls
• Middle Road Farm
• Chappy
• Adirondacks
• Water Feature
• Sticks and Stones
• Afterword
• About the Author