Stitch-Split: The Breath of the Geologic

Paton, David ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2790-7687 (2016) Stitch-Split: The Breath of the Geologic. Architecture and Culture, 3 (3). pp. 267-270. ISSN 2050-7828

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Abstract / Summary

David A. Paton’s work investigates how the everyday practices of labor inform creative practice. It focuses on Trenoweth Dimension Granite Quarry near Penryn in Cornwall (England), where he gained an apprenticeship as a sawman and mason. Trenoweth Quarry, owned and run by Tim Marsh, produces architectural masonry and specialist granite work for mainly local building projects. Splitting granite was an integral part of the substantial dimension quarrying industry in Cornwall, where the granite was assessed in its geological setting, extracted and disassembled into suitably sized components for the masons to dress. An embodied knowledge of the flows and grain of granite was, and remains, essential for the efficient working of a quarry. The multi-sensual familiarity, developed by the quarrymen over time, is a poetic gathering of the grown nature of granite as a magmatic intrusion, and the muscular perception of the tooled-up human body. The non-stratified massing of granite is a crystalline ensemble of older rock, propagating material relationships that have stretched the abilities of mindful bodies in the Cornish landscape for thousands of years. Although the process of stitch-splitting rarely takes place in the few remaining dimension quarries, it is still regularly practiced by Tim when he needs to reduce
large blocks.

Item Type:	Article
Identification Number:	10.1080/20507828.2015.1082061
ISSN:	2050-7828
Subjects:	Arts > Sculpture
Courses by Department:	The Falmouth School of Art > Drawing
Depositing User:	Users 2235 not found.
Date Deposited:	18 Sep 2020 14:46
Last Modified:	23 Nov 2023 17:51
URI:	https://falmouth-test.eprints-hosting.org/id/eprint/4043

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