Devin Devine, artist based in the Poconos
610-301-4269 devin@devineescapes.com Snow Masonry and ice sculpture
I got the igloo completed a day before the big storm came–13″ of snow fell. My helper for the igloo project was a 2 and a half year old–she had a blast, and especially loved mixing food dye into the water, to make the colored blocks.
UPDATE: I was interviewed about my ice sculptures on WFMZ channel 69 news.
Snow Masonry: Colorful ice igloo and light up ice sculptures
29 years in stone masonry, so far, and for basically all of that time I’ve looked at the snow and ice and said one day I’ll do something, with all this free material.
It’s a flame to keep us warm through the coldest part of the winter
The flame was completed yesterday for imbolc*, mid winter, just before the full moon came out. There was a magical vibe about, last night with the full moon HUGE and bright and my works a’glow, snow everywhere.
*between winter solstice and spring equinox
The Flame Ice Sculpture surprised me by looking pretty good in the day, specially with the sun right on it. Approximately 7′ tall–about as tall as I can reach.
Snow Masonry and Ice Sculpture
Being a stone mason, once I learned of the idea bout using aluminum cooking trays to form colored blocks–of course I was going to use my stone tools to work them.
Cairn House/ Stone Hut in the snow:
Thank you
Hi Devin! I came across your site and your creativity is amazing! We are planning to put in a patio about 1300 to 1400 ft.² in the Blue Ridge Mountain area near front Royal Virginia. So we get some snow we get some frost and heaves. We have a lot of natural rock on our land and we’d like to put in a patio that is natural and in keeping with the many many rocks on our property there’s a lot of browns and reds and rust and we found some reclaimed Pennsylvania Flagstone that’s 2 inches thick and are thinking this could be really good material. We may not be able to put it in right away, but as they excavate the land around to build a house, we’re on many hills and will need to put in some retaining walls and some gravel as a base until we can afford to put the patio in. I’m thinking this Pennsylvania Flagstone would be perfect and according to one of your blogs if we put in road gravel down while they were building, we could eventually put this on top of it as a patio. What are your thoughts?
I’d have to see a photo of the material to offer opinions about its suitability. As for your plan: yes, it’s okay to put down road base gravel now and build a patio later. But this is new construction, so settling of excavated soils is a serious consideration. To build a patio on new construction you have to make sure that they carefully back fill and tamp in lifts. Usually they do backfill and tamp in lifts–but not carefully enough! As such, you’d a) usually wait 3 years before building a patio on new construction or b) dig down deep and re-back fill in lifts, running a plate tamper every 4 to 6″ OR c) just make sure they backfill and tamp right the first time, much more thoroughly than what the excavation contractors usually do.
I do offer consultation services if you’re planning to DIY. and also I do travel for work if you’re looking for someone to build it for you.