Tag Archives for Toronto

Keeping Cool in Hotlanta–Stonehenge Sculpture AND Fountain

photo by Simon Burrow, used with permission

One of our highly paid and intensively trained henge-spotters* was on duty in Atlanta Georgia recently and spotted this Stonehenge sculpture fountain, entitled Stonehenge 2000. Unfortunately we know very little else about it.

It was created by Blood, Sweat, and Steel sculpture shop, under the leadership of an Alex H. with the help of someone named either Chip or Dan, who now works at Etowah Iron Works. Who commissioned it and why the reference to Stonehenge is a mystery. If any readers know or find further information about it, please write to us or put it in the comments so we can add it to the post!

Stonehenge sculptures are not unusual. People who do large sculptures seem to use Stonehenge as a sort of fall-back idea. Stonehenge fountains are not so easy to find. Offhand we can think of the Notre Dame fountain, one of the sculptures at Caelum Moor in Texas, the one at Falling Water Designs in Monroe, Washington, and possibly the odd Stonehenge in Mountain View California, although we’ still don’t know about that one.

And then there’s that Waterfall fountain trilithon we posted that time–probably better forgotten. But why make a Stonehenge fountain at all, one might ask. Just one of those mysteries of the human mind, we suppose. Someone thinking, “Stonehenge is brilliant, but it would have been perfect if it were a water feature!” A surprising number of hengers feel deep down that they could do better than Stonehenge’s original builders.

Stonehenge 2000 has two curved and unusually shaped trilithons standing in water. It isn’t actually much like Stonehenge, is it? Score: 4½ druids. That extra half is for naming it after Stonehenge. (Please note: this is not a score judging it as a sculpture or as a piece of public art. We strongly approve of Stonehenge-related public sculpture! This score only judges its qualities as a Stonehenge replica. And let’s face it–not so much.)

Before we go, we’re going to throw in another Stonehenge-related sculpture that has been lurking on our backlog list for a long time: Toronto’s Gateway to Understanding. The text on a Flickr page showing a picture of it reads, “The Gateway to Understanding, Harbourfront, Toronto, ON. To commemorate the Earth Spirit Festival held in July 1991. Through dialogue and cultural exchange, tolerance and understanding awaken within us. This structure will stand tall and bold as a symbol of the earth spirit. By David Ruben Piqtoukun.” He is an Inuit artist and we get the sense he is using the trilithon form for its portal/gate qualities more than as a Stonehenge replica, but we thought it deserved a mention. And we like the idea of the rough stone trilithon as a symbol of the earth spirit. That may be what that grey original huddled on Salisbury Plain was all about, (even if it was longing for some water to be pumped through it!).

There are more Stonehenge sculptures and we may get to more of them over time. For now we will be pondering whether to add these two to the list of Large Permanent Replicas. Input is welcome, but we will probably at least add the Atlanta fountain one of these days when we’re feeling less lazy.

And, of course, in the meantime, friends, happy henging!

*Or– maybe it was friend of the blog Simon Burrow stumbling across it on an unrelated business trip…despite all the money we waste on those henge spotters!

The Guerilla Henging Craze (and the Land of the Frozen Maple Leaf )

photo from this article

Happy solstice to our reader(s)!

Listen. We need to have a talk about, yes, guerilla henging. Everybody’s used to guerilla theatre and, more recently, guerilla crochet. But for years a hidden epidemic of Stonehenge building or henging has been going on without fanfare and without triggering any alarm in the unsuspecting public. Wake up, people!

It took this throw-away article on street art involving city-abandoned planters in (not surprisingly) Toronto (Ontario again!) to stir our thinking. It involves only one guerilla henge, but we know this is just the tip of the iceberg! [Note to Canadians–we used that as a common figure of speech. It is not, we repeat, NOT a cheap Canada/snow and ice joke.] This is not just a few flaky hengers, drifting along at glacial speeds, but a blizzard of henge creation that is crystallising now and is unlikely to melt at any time in the foreseeable future. *wink wink* [blah, blah, blah, Mounties, white bears, ice floes…]

Anyway, after a lengthy hiatus, we have been doing a little searching around the internet for new henges and the results are startling. Everyone is building Stonehenge replicas! We don’t mean stone circles, as we have explained before. That is a completely different category of creation. We’re talking about structures with lintels, meant to mimic Stonehenge itself. They are appearing in unprecedented numbers, from pre-made kits and models to instructions for junior hengers, to the usual alcohol-inspired henges and foodhenges, plus the mysterious henges that appear on lawns and in public places like mushrooms springing into existence overnight.

What is going on with people? The human race has gone into a frenzy of Stonehenge reproduction–those little worms that entered their minds upon seeing pictures of Stonehenge, or the real thing, taking over their wills as if they were wombs, and forcing them to give birth to Stonehenge’s children! There should be a task force on this or something.

But for now there is only Clonehenge. We are the voice crying in the wilderness, warning everyone of the danger of Stonehenge replicas eventually taking over every vacant square inch on the earth’s surface. Alas! We cry out but no one hears us. Our valient warnings fall on deaf ears. Et cetera, et cetera.

What we’re actually saying here, for those who are incapable of reading subtext, is–Day-um, ma peeps, git your asses out there and put henges in all the oddest and most surprising places. This is our time! Flash mobs are going out and guerilla henging is IN! Clonehenge wants YOU.

So once again we wish you happy henging! But please, some of you, be careful on the ice! You know who you are, eh?

P.S.: We forgot that we meant to use the word frightening in this post. Feel free to insert it where you will.