Tag: Interstices

The Art of Thresholds

I’m slightly obsessed with transitions and betweenness. Liminality and interstices. Metamorphosis, reawakening, and transformation inevitably weave themselves into my words about gardening and historic rehabilitation. In fact, in a not altogether exaggerated sense, Rosslyn Redux is a kind of carefree contemplation of thresholds, the art of thresholds, and the artifacts of crossing thresholds…

Transitions. Flux. Liminality. Interstices. Inflection. Evolving.

[…]

From carpentry fiasco (boathouse gangway) to carpentry triumph (house deck), from summer to autumn (bittersweet seasonality), from hale and hardy to COVID crash dummy, from perennially postponed icehouse rehab to 100% timely reboot, from Adirondacks to southwest,… We are awash in transitions! (Source: Transitions)

Supi and Peter Fabricate a Charactered Threshold (Photo: R.P. Murphy)

One of the most notable changes in the icehouse rehab is a considerable increase in apertures, transparency, and porosity. With an eye to more seamlessly integrating the interior and exterior experience while reducing the potentially confining ambience of such a small (approximately 18’ x 30’) structure, we have introduced lots of glass.

Windows and doors blur boundaries between the enclosed environment and the exterior views, landscape, hardscape, decks and courtyard. Within the interior we’ve also endeavored to maximize transparency and porosity by embracing an open plan.

Only the bathroom is fully enclosed. Other zones (entrance, coffee bar, main room, and loft study/studio/office) flow into one another permitting the small volume to feel more ample. Design continuity and viewshed integration enhance this sense of openness, favoring cohesion and harmony over spatial subdivision by function. And yet, subtle transitions (i.e. a doorway threshold, the staircase and banister to loft.) are present and necessary.

In these instances delineation and boundaries serve us. Sometimes the utility is practical. For example, the loft is enclosed with a banister that extends from the top of the staircase to the north and south knee walls. Although code compliance is the most obvious reason for this, the underpinning logic is that a railing enclosing the second-story loft ensures that we do not accidentally pitch off the edge. The porosity of railing and balusters affords transparency, but the sturdy boundary ensures safety, as much a visual cue (caution, stay back, etc.) as a functional restraint.

Flooring transitions and how they help differentiate space and use warrant careful consideration. This is true in the icehouse where the top stair riser meets the loft floor, representing a meeting of dissimilar materials (painted poplar staircase and sealed beech flooring) and a blurring of function (stair tread and flooring). It is also true in the elm and garapa threshold that I conceived and Peter created for the icehouse bathroom doorway.

The highly charactered elm — grown, harvested, aged, milled, and finished on Rosslyn’s property — will integrate with the ash and elm flooring in the main floor of the icehouse. (Source: Elm and Garapa Threshold)

Today’s update considers the passage from the east entrance and coffee bar area into the main room of the icehouse. In addition to a shift in function and feel, the 8’ flat ceiling in the entrance and coffee bar area opens up to a 2-story cathedral ceiling in the main room. Accentuating this transition with a pair of columns that flank the passageway adds a touch of drama and playfulness given the incongruity of the diminutive space and the dominant pillars.

The elm and ash flooring will run east-west, so a threshold of sorts, seamlessly conjoining while differentiating the two zones presented an opportunity. Thresholds — door treads, doorsills, etc. — signal the ending of one space and the beginning of another space. But they often function as weather barrier and/or doorstop as well, resulting in a profile raised above the floor plane. I did not desire this threshold to deviate from the floor. Subtler than a doorway threshold, I nevertheless wanted to offer a visual cue that a transition is being made between two zones, a perhaps subconscious delineation of usage.

I explained my vision, first to Hroth and subsequently to Peter, for a threshold running perpendicular to the flooring and wide enough to frame the column plinths equally around the outer perimeter. Fabricated out of the same ash or elm that we are using for the floor, I proposed a pair of book matched planks that would cause pause and invite interest. I asked them to think of this over-wide threshold, not as a throwaway intended simply to bridge otherwise similar areas of flooring, but instead as an integrated piece of art. A contiguous embellishment within the broader “tapestry” of the floor. Character-rich grain and coloration. Precise joinery, perhaps an inlaid bowtie if necessary and aesthetically pleasing. An interstitial experience/object as bold and intriguing as the columns that rest upon it.

Peter Conjoins Charactered Boards for Threshold (Photo: R.P. Murphy)

As you can see, Peter has begun to transform the vision into reality. A mesmerizing tableau to be tread upon. The art of thresholds.

April 23, 2023
Persimmons & Seasonality
Fuyu Persimmon (Photo: Geo Davis)

I’ve waxed whimsical on autumn before, and I’ve celebrated wonder-filled winter aplenty, but what of the blurry overlap between the two? Well, today I’d like to pause a moment betwixt both current seasons. Or astride the two, one foot in autumn and the other in winter. To borrow a morning metaphor from my breakfast, let’s pause for persimmons (as a way to grok — and hopefully embrace — our present seasonality.)

What?!?!

For the time being let’s sidestep the vexing fact that almost a dozen years into cultivating three persimmon trees in Rosslyn’s orchard we’ve never produced a single edible persimmon. Instead let’s look at persimmoning in terms of this morning’s sweet and sour, ripe and rotten persimmon episode.

Fuyu Persimmon, Sliced (Photo: Geo Davis)

I’ve been monitoring two pretty persimmons in the fruit bowl. I’ve been checking them daily for ripeness. Firm, firm, firm, less firm, slightly supple, soft, ready! Or so I thought this morning. I lifted the first much anticipated fruit in the lightless shadows of 5:00am. If felt perfect. I gathered the second and grabbed a small cutting board. I prefer to allow my mornings to illuminate naturally, calibrating by circadian rhythms holistically, so I generally avoid turning on the lights, even this time of year when 5:00am is still shoe polish dark. As I prepared to plunge a knife into the first persimmon, I detected something unsettling. The slick surface of the persimmon had a fuzzy spot about the size of a quarter. I turned on the light, low, but enough to show that I’d missed my moment with the persimmon. It was rotten. Moldy. Both. I’d literally been checking daily, often lifting both fruit from the bowl to examine them, but somehow this previously perfect fruit had suddenly become rotten. The second fruit showed not fuzzy rot spot. I carefully cut out the leafy stem, and sniffed the inside of the persimmon. Perfection. Somewhere between the consistency of gelatinous custard and viscous liquid, the persimmon was divine.

Fuyu Persimmon, Sliced (Photo: Geo Davis)

At this point seasoned persimmon aficionados are aware that I’ve been recounting an experience with hachiya persimmons (rather than fuyu persimmons), and the photos portray the latter. You are correct astute reader/persimmon connoisseur. And as my prologue likely betrays this morning’s experience was not well suited to photography. But it did remind me of a previous persimmon apropos of the actual topic I’d expected to explore in this post (but have so far mostly skirted.) And that memory, of a similar morning anticipating and then partially enjoying a persimmon is what lead me to these photographs. Why partially, I can hear you think. I partially enjoyed that persimmon, a fuyu persimmon, because the first few slices were ripe and delicious. But partway though the small fruit the sweet turned to astringent. And this puckering experience is a sure sign that the fruit is not yet fully ripe. Now, lest I’m misleading you again, I’m sorry to say, the photographs in this post are not of that persimmon either, though they are, in fact a fuyu persimmon. And, as a discerning eye might note, this photographed persimmon was delicious throughout.

So why all the persimmoning? The memories of this morning’s fruit and the part ripe, part unripe fruit a year or two ago, offer me a glimpse into the sort of autumn-into-winter transition we’re in right now. Almost ready, almost ready, over ready! And sometimes ripe and unripe at the same time. And, as I understand it, persimmons are often culturally associated with joy, good fortune, and longevity. I am hopeful that our present season change, still in limbo, but creeping closer and closer to that transition from autumning to wintering, from autumn vibes to winter vibes, might — like persimmons in the best of circumstances — may portent joy, goof fortune, and longevity for the rehabilitation projects underway in the icehouse, the boathouse, and our home.

1-1/2” ZIP System insulated panels reading for installation (Photo: Hroth Ottosen)

Willing Winter Away a Little Longer

There’s something meditative about this time of year, a marginal meditation on interstices, on the span between autumn and winter, harvesting and larder hunting, biking and skiing, Thanksgiving and Christmas,… This liminal space is tied with winter-to-spring for most dramatic transitions in the circle of seasonality. And yet some years, this year, the switch is far from binary. There are moments when we appear to be on the crux, the hinging moment between the most abundant season and the leanest season. And other moments we’re currently in both concurrently. Ripe and rotten. Well, not rotten, really, but in terms of exterior carpentry, the going gets exponentially more challenging once snow arrives and temperatures plunge.

And so, for a while longer, we’re willing winter away. Tomorrow we’ll be installing the first round of spray foam insulation inside the icehouse, and we’ll *hopefully* begin installing the ZIP System paneling outside the icehouse. In other words, we’re getting really close to having the icehouse ready for winterier weather. The boathouse isn’t really winterizable, however, and temperate conditions are a huge boon as we forge ahead. At the risk of temping fate I’ll admit that it’s almost as if nature is holding her breath, stalling between autumn and winter. With luck, we’ll be able to take advantage of a little more borrowed time. But she can’t hold her breath forever, and we’re all aware of that…

Autumning: haiku
```
Contented, hearthside,
contemplating afternoon,
crackles mesmerize.
```
This non-harvest, autumning haiku was born of Carley‘s lethargic mid-morning siesta by the fireplace. Contentment, canine style. It’s a tough life.

https://www.instagram.com/reel/CljJSOFgoFV/

Wintering: unhaiku
```
Between blushing vegetation
and gingerbread outbuildings,
what name for this season?

Hustling pre-hibernation and 
melting flurries with breath,
what post apple appellation?
What pre skating designation?

I echo my own refrain again
into the autumn interstices
ringing with wintering song.
```
Willing Autumn Linger Longer

Like ripening persimmons, the transition from unripe to overripe happens whether we’re watching for it or not. Likewise fall vibes have been exiting gradually, and winter’s stark contrasts have been insinuating themselves into the autumnless voids. It’s inevitable that winter will arrive, and it will be glorious in its own right when it does. But here’s hoping fortune smiles upon us a little longer, that we can dwell in this construction-centric liminality for another week or three. Or right up until Christmas!
December 4, 2022
Redacting Rosslyn
Geo Davis Redacting Rosslyn, summer 2011

[Note: This story has been updated.]

I’d like to introduce you to Redacting Rosslyn, the newest theme / navigational thread to join the original three: Wanderlust to Houselust, Archeology of Home, and Rehab Ad Infinitum. (Update: Yet another theme, Houselust to Wonderlust, was added circa 2020.) For the sake of clarity and candor, I should go full disclosure before getting in much deeper. Redacting Rosslyn is actually less of a theme than it is a catch-all. Since that’s a little misleading, I’d better clear matters up from the outset. Let’s start with the idea of redaction…
```
redaction noun
1 The process of editing text for publication.
1.1 The censoring or obscuring of part of a text for legal or security purposes.
1.2 A version of a text, such as a new edition or an abridged version.
Origin Late 18th century: from French rédaction, from late Latin redactio(n-), from redigere ‘bring back’. (Source: Oxford Dictionaries)
```
Early on in the process of transforming our home and lifestyle reboot into a story, I recognized that there wasn’t a nice tidy package for Rosslyn Redux. Or better put, I wasn’t successfully wrangling this adventure into a familiar format. A book, for example. This was my initial thought, but what sort of book. Memoir? How to? Thematically structured nonfiction? Lyric essay? Poems? Scrapbook?!?!

As I mucked around collecting and creating and curating content, I needed a temporarycontainer until I could formulate a plan. The blog was born. But soon it grew sprawling and unwieldy, so met with agents and editors to pick their brains. What’s a storyteller to do when his story is wayward and willfully independent? Their advice: make it a memoir, tighten the timeline (ideally no more than a year), and focus on my relationship with Susan.

I was unconvinced. That formula might well have been sellable, but a 1-year story about my marriage wasn’t really what interested me, and it certainly wasn’t the adventure I’d been exploring on Rosslyn Redux.

So I went rogue. I developed a short, solo performance piece to
1. explore whether or not the stage might be the best vehicle for telling our Rosslyn story,
2. solicit feedback from an audience (different than the blog, I presumed) about what sort of story they thought I should be creating. Maybe they could offer some fresh insight?
On August 3, 2011 I performed Redacting Rosslyn Redux at the Depot Theatre in Westport, and the experience transformed my understanding and hopes for the project. I’ve tackled the takeaways elsewhere, so I’ll try to stay on track here.

Let’s flip back to the idea of redaction for a moment.

Origin and Etymology of redaction

French rédaction, from Late Latin redaction-, redactio

act of reducing, compressing, from Latin redigere to bring back, reduce, from re-, red- re- + agere to lead (Source: Merriam-Webster)

Reducing, compressing, and bringing back are the crux. Although Redacting Rosslyn has evolved into a fourth theme, it’s really more of a meta look at my early decision to DIY this home rehab, my decision to morph the adventure into a storytelling project, and all of the other bizarre ancillary developments that I stumbled into as I became more and more obsessed with how (and why) to tell this story in this peculiar digital age.

It’s worth noting that the flavor profile for Redacting Rosslyn differs decidedly from Wanderlust to Houselust, Archeology of Home, Rehab Ad Infinitum, and Houselust to Wonderlust. I hope that the audience overlaps, but it probably leans more toward indie authors and artists, makers, and the sort of independent (and inevitably stubborn) DIYers who’d rather figure things out for themselves. Think of it as an afterward that so far has evaded completion…
June 1, 2011
Redacting Rosslyn v1.0

Hiatus Interruptus: Rosslyn 1822-2011

Redacting Rosslyn. A concept. An experiment. A risk. A plunge.

And then… an ellipsis.

Stillness. Silence. White space.

Not a pregnant pause. Not AWOL.

An interstice.

Carving out a space for stillness amidst the throng will open up the possibility of stillness. But there must also be room for chance, for stumbling accidentally upon these somewhat paradoxical interstices, and then honoring them… an invitation to wander into the unfamiliar. (“A Cadence of Choice”)

I accepted the invitation, and I wandered into the unfamiliar. For seven weeks I wandered and stumbled in search of stillness. But it eluded me.

I succumbed to the siren call of my sister’s wedding, the Depot Theatre Gala, a bountiful vegetable garden, windsurfing and water skiing and learning to wakesurf, a welcome parade of house guests, #ADK827, and an unforgettable TrekEast cycling excursion.

As the weeks tumbled past I dipped into the bucket of feedback cards I received from the audience after my August 3 Redacting Rosslyn Redux at the Depot Theatre performance. I discovered that almost universally the audience enjoyed the “Just Google It!” video, and that generally speaking the vignettes that wandered into storytelling and performance trumped those that were read. Long, read vignettes were the hands down least favorite.

I’ve been simultaneously honored and flabbergasted with how much feedback I’ve received. Thoughtful conversations and telephone calls, lengthy emails, and comment cards so filled with handwritten notes they’re difficult to decipher. As much enthusiasm for oral storytelling, digital storytelling, and performance as for a written book. Interest in video and multi-modal narrative, more even than I’d anticipated.

Almost two months later, I’ve sequestered myself in Taos, New Mexico for a week of stillness. Comment cards are scattered over the horizontal surfaces of a small adobe pueblo style home at the tail end of a dead end road where I’m living, writing and revising.

Stillness and solitude.

I’m making inroads, adapting Redacting Rosslyn according to audience feedback, culling material which failed to engage and adding new vignettes that answer questions left unanswered. I’m liberating stories from the page, and tightening the passages better suited to reading.

I’m typing in the backyard, seated beneath a viga and latilla porch, a coyote fence to my right and left reaching clear to a tan adobe wall at the back of the yard. Earlier I headed inside to pace (jumpstarts my brain!) and recount stories to a challenging audience: a kiva fireplace, crepe paper poppies, a collection of Native American pottery, an ancient wooden bowl.

There are siren calls aplenty: uninterrupted blue skies, sunlight that emanates from everywhere at once, the smell of roasting green chile, the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, artistic and culinary temptations in all directions. But the stillness fortifies me.

Each new work is unique, and its creation may well require different routines, different methods and habits and rhythms than previous creations. This will to adapt the creative process per the needs of each new creation is not only more realistic than the systematic, procrustean assembly line model, it’s more exciting. Each new creative experience should be an adventure. A journey. An exploration. This is what makes creating and telling a story so damned interesting! (“The Need for Flexibility)

Renovating Rosslyn was an adventure. Writing and editing Rosslyn Redux is an adventure. And Redacting Rosslyn is an interstitial adventure tucked into the folds of both, at once familiar and unfamiliar. And it demands new methods and rhythms, new risks, new exploration. In storytelling and writing, silence and white space are as important as voice and words.

Thank you for enduring the ellipsis while I found my way. I’ll be back. Soon. To continue my story…

April 1, 2012
Redacting Rosslyn v2.0

Boathouse & Sailboat, September 22, 2020 (Source: Geo Davis)

Thwumpf! That’s the sound of a decade being swallowed whole (like a tidy-but-tasty amuse-bouche) by Rosslyn. Or by entropy. Maybe both. Ten sprawling, glorious years after pushing a post entitled Redacting Rosslyn v1.0 out into the universe I’m back on track with Redacting Rosslyn v2.0.

Yes, that’s a fairly ridiculous incubation period. A half dozen years of enthusiastic belly button gazing followed by an ellipsis that lingered so long it almost vanished like an old sepia photograph too long exposed to sunshine. Only ghostly shadows and faint silhouettes remain on the curling yellow paper.

But this interstitial reprieve was fecund. An abundance of living and laughter, family and friends, dreams and memories germinated, blossomed, and fruited in Rosslyn’s nurturing embrace. So much life.

Evidently I needed this Rosslyn experience in its voluptuous complexity to begin to disentangle my story.

Interstitial Adventure

Renovating Rosslyn *was* an adventure. Writing and editing Rosslyn Redux *is* an adventure. And Redacting Rosslyn is an interstitial adventure tucked into the folds of both, at once familiar and unfamiliar. And it demands new methods and rhythms, new risks, new exploration. In storytelling and writing, silence and white space are as important as voice and words. (Source: Redacting Rosslyn v1.0)

That wordy bundle first wandered into the world in Redacting Rosslyn v1.0. Little did I understand at the time how clairvoyant those words would be. Nor these conclusions that I teased out of a hand-me-down from Irish writer Kieron Connolly via Avery Oslo.

Each new work is unique, and its creation may well require different routines, different methods and habits and rhythms than previous creations. This will to adapt the creative process per the needs of each new creation is not only more realistic than the systematic, procrustean assembly line model, it’s more exciting. Each new creative experience should be an adventure. A journey. An exploration. This is what makes creating and telling a story so damned interesting! (“The Need for Flexibility)

Connolly stressed the need for flexibility.

“There are many ways to get from start to finish.” — Kieron Connolly (Source: Kieron Connolly’s Newspaper Novel-Plotting Game)

In fact, that was one of the challenges for me. Relating Rosslyn’s rehabilitation story, intertwined with our own attempt at revitalization.

The key is to allow each project to be its own thing and deal with it in the way it ought to be dealt… (“The Need for Flexibility)

Sixteen years after plunging into renovating Rosslyn we are RE-renovating (house deck and the boathouse gangway and stairway) and finally tackling the looong postponed icehouse rehabilitation. Sweet sixteen. But that’s just the tip of the proverbial iceberg. Not because there’s a lot more building going on. But because there’s another significant transition in the offing, a transformation wrapped up inside this re-renovation and rehab. I’ll be opening up (hopefully with some thoughts from Susan) in the weeks and months ahead. It’s going to be a big year — no, potentially a few big years — for us. And Redacting Rosslyn v2.0 is in many respects possible because of (and inextricably tied to) our next new adventure. More on that anon, but for now allow me to say that it’s time for a fresh perspective, a new objective, and an urgency that didn’t exist in the early days of this adventure. And I’m confident that at long last I am moving forward again..

September 22, 2022