on display at Clarke Galleries in Stowe, VT

March 15, 2006 Swizzlestick Stowe, Vermont.

Alvin family fourThis is the first full circle I built and my happy tribe sitting in it with me. They, of course, are very embarassed about this photo... they were so young then.

Spiral on display at 'no rooster farm' Gallery in Morrisville, VT

This is the very first arch that i built. It was made of marble in a clean landfill dump which is now under a new bank building in Waterbury, VT.

For Tat and Paul Maxwell in Jackson Hole Wyoming. Autumn 2009

Sculpture at the Center for the Arts, in Jackson Wyoming Autumn 2009

Cork Screw at Jackson, 2009

Built for Patricia Lynn Pender, with love. Autumn 2009. beauty. life. time. it all passes, but may it never lessen its intensity and grandeur. simple beauty will live forever and passes on to the next generation. to you whom i know only through the love my daughter has for your son. a river bed upon which to rest your sunshine for a time.

Spiral of a million stones, no more no less, on the Snake River Bottom, Wilson Wyoming, built for the Center for Wonder with volunteers from the community.

For Robert Johnson, Berlin Vermont, June and again in July, 2009

The Touch My Boobies Arch, built at Bonnaroo, Manchester Tennessee, inspired by a breast cancer awareness bumper sticker. Summer 2009

Built for Kevin Laski near the Calvin Coolidge Memorial, VT. Summer 2009

Circle within a Circle, at Yestermorrow School of Design in Warren, Vt, summer 2009. Built with students and volunteers, made of bartered local field stone.

View from three and a half stories up of the inner courtyard at the Center for the Arts in Jackson. 2009. common gravel.

This massive stair case was built as part of a course sponsored by Yestermorrow School of Design, The Art of Stone, in the English Garden. It was built in a week and a half on the Estate of Laura and Peter Carew in Devon.

Second circle for Robert Johnson. 2009 This circle is set up so that Mr. Johnson can look through it as he looks up hill from his comfy chair beside the fire place.

Crushed Can Phoenix, Bonnaroo Music Festival, Manchester, Tennessee, June 2009. View from the ferris wheel.

This gateway arch is the first of the triple flip. You see it here at dawn.

The Triple Flip and Olive who was eager to be between each rock and me.

You can see the curve of the canteleiver on the base.. see how it shoots out over the grass?

I love the grace of the heavy rocks and their look at being effortless and free. This piece is one that you walk around or sit on and feel its strength. It's about 35 feet long.. just the 'loopy' bit, the wall that supports it totals about 100feet... i keep adding to it as i bring home more sculptures as just simple rocks.. after their installations in shows is completed.

January 8th I got the chance to build these reverse cairnes again. i love that people keep testing gravity, 'cause i get to try out all my ideas for this structure. I built this particular piece 10 times, as folks kept tipping it over.

Jan 2008, i moved the dinosaur into the field adjacent to the house so he could have a bigger pasture to graze in.

I'd love to see this piece with vines and flowers growing all over it.

Some of 20 stairs built for Laura Carew at Tarr Steps House, Hawkridge, UK. Summer 2009. Built with students from Yestermorrow School of Design.

Big things happen little by little. UK, Summer 2009

Partial Gate at the Laski Property Vermont, 2009

Million Stone Sculpture. This piece took four days to get to this point and as i was driving away people were walking down onto the beach to add their own stones to the mix. it is growing and shrinking every day. It rendered my right arm useless for two weeks. Autumn 2009, Wyoming.

Commissioned arch, Private garden Boxboro, Massachusetts. 26' long 10' tall, 22 " wide. Built over three days in a cold rain. This is my first commission, I was hosted in the family home and treated like a real artist. I love how this stone curved into the hill. It felt like it had lived there a long time already. October 2004

The Boxboro arch is 10 feet tall. I pressed the rocks up onto my truck then stood on the tailgate to get them to the top. I love that truck.

Built at Shelburne Farms one day in 2007

High up in the hills above Phoenix AZ

This little brick java nut is climbing across every obstacle to get to its coffee mug on top of the wall. Tarr Steps, NR. Hawkridge, Somerset, England

Proud and happy arch on top of the wall it will soon be a part of.

I love the contrast of color and textures. This shrubbery had grown out ontop of the rubble pile and as I removed the brick to the wall, it created a cavern underneath... very creepy and fun.

Bricks are notorious for doing whatever it takes to have fun. Thats why they have to be set in mortar.. to be kept out of trouble.

Built at Shelburne Farms one day in 2007

Finally, The Coffee.

Built at Shelburne Farms one day in 2007

This brick house I built with Mundy and Polly the children of the house. (That day.) They were playing with me and learning how to use and break stone tools. We built the fort over three days time, it had two stools and a table inside and several windows and a few snakes and a rubber rat.

Round brick house entry door is an over lapped split in the side. There were several windows built into the sides for the occupants to see the 'attackers'. Eventually while I was working there, in England, this round house was completely taken apart and each brick smashed up and put inside the retaining wall.

This arch was built in Boseman, MT. on a working railroad track. I had asked permission to construct it, and was told that the train only ran on weekdays, since it was Sunday I was all ok .. well i was for an hour or so... then I heard the big freight train rumbling into town. I was really quick to dismantle it! This is the briefest an arch has ever lived and been deliberately taken down.

Here you can see the railroad pins creating the wedge that forces the rail baseplates into the angles needed to arch.

Cactus and cactus, Phoenix Az

Simple Cairn on the center of a sacred circle in Western England in Exmoor

Suzhou, China, October 2008

Suzhou, China, October 2008

Suzhou, China, October 2008

Suzhou, China. October 2008

Suzhou, China October 2008

Little River stone arches



Built at Shelburne Farms one day in 2007



Dirty Little Thing. Got all sticky in the Thames River, Rotherhithe London, England building this oil soaked concrete block arch. I did appreciate my steel toed sandals.

Built in the highest point on this section of Exmoor, this balance cairn was accompanied by the sound of millions of buzzing insects, and a few horses and two napping men, and myself, with racing thoughts and racing clouds.

This is the very, very first arch I ever bult.





grotto designed and built in the UK summer 2008

grotto side view. fountainheads spray into the main pool.

the windows over look the pool and soon a dome of roses.

knot here summer 2008

knot here summer 2008

In North London in a part of town called Stoke Newington,, maybe its only one word, i'm not sure..

0021This arch is a construction in my yard, built to take time and rocks and make a pretty and brief installation, It tests how balance works because the white stones are marble, they were saved from the first arch I built. They weigh about 100 lbs. each and make a huge contrast in pushing pressure and resistance to the smaller grey fieldstones. I wasnt sure if it would stand but it worked nicely.



0023 Simple arch built in Tivoli on the site of the cob and straw house. I built a pod there, and a spiraling arch that turned and leaned into a tree. We danced and sang and i thank Janine, Bosque, Jo, Meesh, Julian, Ross, and all the other beautiful souls who filled that place with song and joy.





Giant Pear.. the next time i build it, it will be more roundy on the bottom. Photo by Robyn Alvin 2008

Big yummy pear. Photo by Robyn Alvin 2008

0025 Pivot Point Built at Cotswold Furniture Makers in Stowe Vermont. John and Mike had wanted me to build a perfect sphere. I figured I could build one 4 feet round. I was wrong. What I got was this piece. Balanced on a long and heavy stone planted deeply into the ground. Intended as a temporary piece near the road, I expect it to come crashing down any day when the snow load from a plow hits it. I want my work to live forever, but I love that it's temporary.

Pod. THis one is hollow,, the only hollow one i ever made. looked like a little oven.

0028 Copper Rhino built for the wedding of Kirsten Reese and Patrick Kainz July 16, 2005 Carried through airport security, then across a field a river and in to the woods, he lives now in Boseman, MT.

0029 Waterfall Arch, Tarr Steps, NR. Hawkridge, Somerset, England. I built this arch with a pin hole photography course led by Graham Goldwater (http://www.londonstation.com/)and hosted at Tarr Steps by Laura Carew. It was a wonderful week of experimental photography and rich foods and delicious wines.

0030 Brick arch Johnson, Vermont. Built for Rob Maynard ontop of a wall that he and I repaired in three days in the snow instead of one in the sun. I found the brick burried under several feet and a few years worth of grass at the far end of the wall. See how old the stones are?



0031 I had to find a way to capture the beauty of this one rock I found on the beach of Riomaggiore on the Mediterranean Coast of Italy. I was the only clothed bather there, and made a spectacle of my American self wrapping my body around stacks of rocks to lay them against the boulder. It collapsed a few times, but the building of a piece is the best part.

0032 "A little Screwy" Built for the Exposed! show in Stowe Vt. This piece met with an unfortunate 18 yearold on a binge. But is now happily part of the" Tripple Flip" in my front yard.

0033Double Tripple Flip This series is 2/3 part of a tripple flip plan I started the spring of 2005. Built in my front yard in Morrisville, VT. You can see an arch called 'A little Screwy' in the Installations Gallery. I built this between the gate and the second spiral of this piece and learned to canteleiver stone.

0034Looking through the spiral you can see the stone roll up and around. I love that it looks impossible but the heavy rocks balance and push and stay in place.

Built at Shelburne Farms one day in 2007

Built at Shelburne Farms one day in 2007

Built at Shelburne Farms one day in 2007

Built at Shelburne Farms one day in 2007

This piece is in my back yard. I make and remake it for fun.

Arches take balance and grace to create... to sustain themselves. I love the contrast of heavy and solid with frail and tentative. I am my arch.

Arching is peaceful.you can feel your body work, hear your breath, contemplate whats next and build, build, build. its a beautiful thing to watch and feel and learn. i'm so glad. i wish i could share the elements of it with everyone.

Built at Shelburne Farms one day in 2007

My arches started to sulk as soon as the property was listed for sale. I've tried everythign to be able to preserve their existence, now i'll move them,and tehy will become something else.

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