About Devine Escapes

I started out as a laborer

Drawing pictures and writing short stories during breaks, in a notebook that I carried in my pocket. Eventually I began filling those notebooks with ideas that I could build–using skills that I learned working in the construction trades.

Starting my own business in 2007, at first I was willing to do anything masonry related but soon decided to focus only on natural stone work, and then only on dry stone work–and then mostly on artistic dry stone work.

Within a year after starting my own business the economy crashed. But I stuck with it. By the time the economy was into recovery mode I was well into developing the signature style of Lithadelic Stone work that I’ve become known for, unveiling the first Lithadelic Sphere in January of 2013.

Nowadays my work includes:

• teaching DIY homeowners and aspiring contractors how to build stone patios and walls
• creating one or more major artistic works per year, be they mosaic patio features or sculpture installations
• Participating in Land Art Festivals such as LEAF in Llano Texas
• conducting my own Cairn Building workshops
• building stone shrine-like or temple-like quasi ancient-looking structures called Devy Wovy Cairn Houses
• creating stone benches and bird baths from boulders and coming up with new design variations each year
  –creating custom made memorial benches and cairn memorials

Notable works include:

• a Cancer Memorial, commissioned by a research facility in Boston in 2024
• A 4′ Vase commissioned by the Matilda Pfieffer Museum in Arkansas in 2018
• Lithadelic Sphere the 3rd Commissioned by the Friends of Brookside Gardens in 2016
• Squiggly Noodle, a 7.5′ tall stacked stone tentacle with eyes, on display at Stonehedge Gardens in Tamaqua
  PA
• The Lithadelic Tear Drop, 8′ tall Sculpture commissioned by the City of Sculpture, on permanent display in Hamilton Ohio 2025

As well as many private commissions such as the dry stone Herb Spiral and the Double Spiral Patio, and dry stone spheres.

All of these have been built without any mortar and have proven the test of time by standing long years, even with “only” Gravity to hold them together. But the demands of doing public arts have opened me up to the willingness to add mortar and internal bonding, to these same types of works–when called for.

To date, I’ve completed works in California, Texas, Missouri, Arkansas, Illinois, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, Connecticut, New Jersey, Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia…and counting.

And I still build dry stone walls and flagstone patios– with or without the mosaic and sculptural elements. Right here in Pennsylvania.

Let me know if I can help.

Thank you