SUCCESSIVE APPROXIMATION in the labyrinth: the early years

While we count the hours until my HVAC friends reinstall the system in my attic study (142 hours, but who’s counting?), I’ll tap dance with another post about the ABORTIVE ATTEMPTS > GESTALT > SUCCESSIVE APPROXIMATION cycle and how it works in landscaping.

I’ve written recently about that process in the labyrinth with my most recent SUCCESSIVE APPROXIMATION in the northeast corner, but let’s look at how it all began, shall we?

In August of 2008 I decided to convert my unused back yard into a labyrinth. I measured, I paced, I did some ABORTIVE ATTEMPTS.

See how messy some of the curves in front are?

Here’s some of my ABORTIVE thinking about the center, as well as an attempt to see what it would look like if I were to pave the path and leave the outline as grass:

I quickly decided that paving the path would be too expensive, plus hauling that much paving stone down my steep driveway, wheelbarrow by wheelbarrow, was not going to work for me. (As it was, because delivery vehicles couldn’t fit through the carport I had to schlep 3,000 pounds of stone.)

The center, I thought, would work as shown. I would just have to get professional stone workers to cut the outer paving stones to make it circular.

Having decided all that, I roto-tilled the yard to flatten it as much as possible, and began laying out the paving stones.

The top half was easy: just lay out sweeping semicircles.

It was the bottom half that involved much headscratching and GESTALTING. Here is one ABORTIVE ATTEMPT, using a more geometric, Roman-style pattern.

Not unattractive, of course, and making the turns rounded rather than squared off would mean I’d have to learn some stonecutting myself. But something in me knew that I wanted smooth, rounded curves.

It turns out that cutting these little concrete pavers is not hard. I didn’t even have to buy a special saw to do it, just score a line with a small chisel, then whack it with a big chisel, and four times out of five it would fall apart into two clean pieces.

Then it was time to tackle the center. I marked up some stones, had my measurements and my photos handy, and headed over to one of the granite countertop places that can be found on bypasses everywhere. Of course, they said, we can cut those for you.

But then I saw a rack of “discard” pieces of granite, and I asked if they could, instead, cut me a circle, a ring, of black granite. The answer was yes.

You will notice that the bricks aligned with the points of the compass was always part of the plan, as was the brick “path” to the west.

At this point all I had to do was fill the thing in with dirt (a literal whole nine yards of it, again schlepped down the driveway wheelbarrow by wheelbarrow), and I was done, right?

It is to laugh.

Since that time, I have added art to the points of the compass. I have replaced those little blocks you can see on the ends of the outlines with concrete symbols of the alchemical symbols for the four elements. I have added the firepit area. I have installed two sound systems. The westpoint bowl has gone through three incarnations. I have built a woodpile structure. I have designed and built worktables. I have planted ferns and ripped out ivy. I have reseeded more times than I can count. I have ameliorated the inevitable erosion and sinking into the earth of the paving stones.

I’ve replaced the fence twice, once with that skinny bamboo stuff on a roll…

…and then with a real fence.

The southwest corner, which started out as nothing…

…became a little nook when the fence guys ripped out all the ivy there…

…which has aged into a beautiful little retreat.

And you will recall that this summer I’ve spent replacing the landscaping timbers, adjusting the steps down into the labyrinth, and redesigning the northeast corner, along with other cosmetic adjustments.

The point — as always — is that no one sets out with the finished product in mind and then works in a straight line from beginning to that finished product. (We call that the King of Hearts Fallacy.) The labyrinth just happens to be a 14-year-long SUCCESSIVE APPROXIMATION, and while that may seem like a long time, remember that Beethoven took 10 years to turn a scribble in his WASTE BOOK into the Ninth “Choral” Symphony, and Anselm Kiefer will spend years on his paintings.

And like da Vinci and his Mona Lisa, I doubt I will ever be finished with my oasis.

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SUCCESSIVE APPROXIMATION in the labyrinth: the early years

Lichtenbergianism