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Ascending, by Julie Brook

The Land and Tidal Art of Julie Brook

Part 2: Ascending

Prose, Photography, and Landscape Art
by Julie Brook

 
Quarries hold a fascination for me. They are vast sculpted spaces that still connect with the natural structures of their origins.

I visited Kanagaso Quarry on my first trip to Japan in 2016 while being shown around various quarries by Komatsu’s city council. Komatsu, a small city located in southern Ishikawa Prefecture in Japan’s Hokuriku region, had just received special National Heritage status for its varieties of stone and stonework. I was immediately struck by the yellow ochre of the stone in the quarry and by the vast human-made cliff carved over generations that towered above the quarry’s carved-out space.

Three years later the quarry’s owner finally agreed to allow me to work in the quarry. I started drawing and within half an hour knew exactly what I wanted to make (my subconscious must have been working away while I waited all that time for permission). I could not compete with the huge cliff, but I wanted to celebrate it by taking a simple eyeline up to it—a straight line made through the quarry’s spoil heaps. Because much of the spoil was made of thrown-away blocks of stone, I thought: what if I made steps from those blocks so people can easily walk up into the higher part of the quarry? The sculptural work would be an invitation.

Quarry sketch
Initial sketch in my notebook to show the quarry owner what I wanted to make.
Watercolor and pencil on paper, 10.24 x 8.3 in.

Journal Excerpts on the Making of Ascending
(September-October 2019)

Julie Brook in quarry

Suddenly I am all by myself in this massive space. It is incredible. The quarry is filled with an orchestra of insect and bird song. I peg out the points to get a sense of the line. It is very hot. After leveling the ground for the first stone I find a good cast-off slab 3.5 feet long and use a hand barrow for transporting it to the site. It is easy to lose control as the momentum of the weight makes the barrow go fast downhill. I can pivot, lever, and walk the big stones but not lift them. At the bottom of the steep upper spoil heap, having dug the earth out and leveled it, I get the first stone in situ just before dark. A beginning!

Julie Brook with slab of stone

I get to the quarry at 6:30 a.m. and barrow another big slab from the spoil heap. I try to stand it upright on the first step, but it falls and breaks another slab waiting. It is too heavy for me to even lift one end: I can only do it by levering with a big iron bar. I love this aspect of moving these stones, working out how to lift them without hurting myself. Every now and then I have to rush into the shade to pour water over my head and drink masses of it. I lay the heavy slab flat on the second step and have to lever it wedge by wedge until I can slide it onto the next step.

Julie Brook chiseling in stone

It is exciting to be connecting with the physicality of the quarry itself. The integration of the work to the place. I am at my best when I manage this balance.

Hands at stone's edge

A 5 a.m. start to arrive at the quarry early. It is much cooler in shadow, and I manage to complete two steps before lunchtime. Sometimes it takes hours just to create a strong foundation for a single next step.

Grinding stone

I have that full-tilt “anything is possible” energy and focus. Working in a different language, so much of this energy is unspoken, like the contained energy in a bow string waiting for the arrow to fly. I have not spoken about this work to anyone so far, to allow me to sustain this energy and discover the resonance of the work.

Wild deer in quarry

The quarry’s owner had warned me at the outset to be careful of the wild boar. And once, on my way home in the dark, I saw a black bear scuttling into the woodland next to the road. In the early mornings Kamoshka forage on the leaves in the quarry. They are a deer but look more like a wild goat and are gradually getting used to me being here.

Julie Brook and another worker move stone

After three and a half weeks of working alone, Tsujimoto-san, a local farmer and the village custodian of the stone, comes to give me a hand when he can. The rice harvest is nearly all in. He breaks up stone for packing and it makes a big difference lifting the huge slabs together. He has no English and I have no Japanese, but we get on well. He watches what I am doing and always seems to know what is needed next. Tsujimoto-san tells me he is 73. He is so fit and agile.

Looking down the steps
Looking down from the top step, with spaces for the work track.

The work track allows for machinery to take waste stone into the upper part of the quarry where they are not cutting new stone. This separates the steps into three flights, but from below you see one simple continuous line rising.

Close-up view of stone slabs

Tsujimoto-san finely sieves a load of earth that is good for leveling, followed by the satisfying tamping down of the slab with a piece of wood along its length. I need to use the spirit level on every step and keep checking my side lines. It takes me all day to make the platform for the slabs at the top, about 12 feet from the vertical quarry wall.

Julie Brook's Ascending in quarry

Ascending
Ascending.
Pastel and pencil on paper, 10 1/4 feet high x 3.97 feet wide (2022).

Steps
Our first steps
We all speak in terms of the next step.

Komatsu City staff at opening

The official opening is at 4 p.m., October 15. People arrive and immediately begin walking up the steps. So simple! The smart Komatsu City council staff, the high school pupils and teachers, local villagers. It gives them a new perspective from which to take in the quarry and surrounding landscape.

Hashimoto-san, the quarry’s owner, is interviewed by the local press. He says, “She has built the ‘hanamichi’ to my quarry’s stage.” Hanamichi means “flower path”, the long path in Kabuki theatre through which performers enter and leave the stage, onto which the audience throws flowers in appreciation.

Ascending: 58 steps in Kanagaso Quarry, Komatsu, Japan
Ascending, Kanagaso Quarry, Komatsu, Japan.
Rhyolitic tuff stone, 58 steps, about 3.5 feet wide x 115 feet long.

When you look from afar the steps completely disappear into a simple realignment with the existing material. And then that delight in discovering you can actually go up them.

 
View The Land and Tidal Art of Julie Brook—Part 1: Firestack.


About the Artist

Julie Brook working with stone

Julie Brook is a British landscape artist based in Northwest Scotland who makes large-scale sculptural works that respond to the environments she has explored. These include the deserts of Libya and Northwest Namibia; the Orkney island of Hoy and the isle of Mingulay in the Outer Hebrides, Scotland; and the West coast of Jura, Scotland. In the last decade she has been making works in stone and marble quarries in Japan and in Carrara, Italy. In 2023/2024, she had major solo exhibitions at Abbot Hall, Kendal; Komatsu City Museum, Japan; and Pangolin, King’s Place, London.

Lund Humphries recently published What Is It That Will Last?, which features Brook’s land and tidal art along with essays by Robert Macfarlane and Alexandra Harris. She is currently making a new sculptural commission on the Fife coastline in Scotland and developing new sculptural and performative projects in Italy and Japan.

Find more of Julie Brook’s work at www.juliebrook.com.


All images by Julie Brook.