Scope and Contents

This is a proposal for a straight and level path of 78 clay bricks stamped with names of Virgil in place of the maker's name. The path is to be built indoors, on a level floor, or out-of-doors on any grass-covered level ground without shade. Finlay s walk upon but for the mind to follow. It leads from Carl Andre's brick compositions to an elegiac classicism. -- Source of annotation: Marvin or Ruth Sackner.

Scope and Contents In Nov 1972, Finlay writes to Vincent Butler, who built the aircraft carrier sculpture for Stonypath, expressing his displeasure with the quality of the drawing for the Wild Stone project. Finlay indicates that unless Butler can produce a better drawing, their collaboration should cease. No reply from Butler is contained within this Archive and letters from Finlay to Peter Lyle, Michael Harvey, and George Thorpe are sent requesting their assistance with the project along with those of Butler. Finlay writes that the poems to be inscribed upon the Six Wild Stones are one word poems analogous to Japanese Haiku where art is a matter of brevity and suggestion and wild (native) stones in a formal area is equivalent to a Japanese rock Garden. Examples include the poem Curfew "Curlew." Curlew is a bird heard mostly on still, misty days or in the evening with a long, sad cry. Finlay includes a plan on graphite tracing paper, ...a large area mown grass ...stone paving slats...stone poems...

Scope and Contents From Jan 1971-Jan 1972, Basil Greenhill, Director National Maritime Museum, writes 3 letters to Finlay regarding a commission for a sundial. In April 1972, Finlay writes 2 letters to Michael Harvey dealing with aspects of this sundial. Harvey responds in May 1972 with concerns about images on the cube shape making up the sundial particularly leaving the top blank - "as if whatever should be there had been pinched" and placing the poem on the dial which might interrupt the flow of the poem. Finlay replies to Harvey about his concern about the blank top of the sundial by pointing out that this may be a matter of scale; he feels that the blank top will not compromise the work in an 8" or 10" version but agrees that the sundial will do best at the top. He also accepts Harvey's suggestions for words at the top of the panels but rejects Harvey's idea for using Arabic rather than Roman numerals. Finlay notes the pun on the image of a fleet of ships (fleet=swift, fleet=of hours). In July...

Scope and Contents In May 1973, Finlay writes to Harvey that L. MacDermid suggested to the Kelso City Council that a permanent work of Finlay's be installed at the opening of the Kelso arts festival in Sep 1973. Finlay is unsure of the scale, price and type of work desired but proposes three sundials and considers A Solemnity of Sundials (from Sailor's Calendar) most appropriate because Kelso is on the Tweed river (a salmon river) & Solemnity depicts sundials, swallows & fish. He wants Harvey to provide sketches. Within 2 weeks Harvey does the sketches, preferring A Solemnity of Sundials to the other suggestion, Dividing the Light (from Poetry Review). A sketch of Solemnity is included in this archive. In June 1973, Finlay writes to L. MacDermid with his ordered preferences for a vertical sundial, Dividing...,A Solemnity...& A Garden of Sea-Stones with rationale for each in the city of Kelso. He also praises Harvey for his quick dispatch. Finlay writes MacDermid about the final plans in...

Scope and Contents In July 1972, Mr. Greenhill, Director of the National Maritime Museum, sends Finlay a letter thanking him for donated prints and catalogues and mentions the validity of depicting "Little Secret" on stone as an average topsail schooner. The next letter from Finlay to George Thomson dated Dec 1973 discusses the significance of a printer's sign (meaning reverse order of letters) and the drawing of the image for "Little Secret." Finlay also sends a letter to James Allen requesting red sandstone for this project. In June 1974, Thomson sends a letter to Finlay in a exceptional calligraphic script indicating that illness has prevented him from completing "Numbered Sails" (aka Little Secret). Finlay sends further details to Allen about the stone for the sculpture. Finlay writes Thomson in June with corrections to his drawing and indicates that Allen will do the stone carving. Thompson replies in July with an outstanding calligraphic script agreeing to these corrections which Finlay...

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In Sep 1973, Finlay writes to Michael Harvey requesting that Harvey and Goodricke make a ceramic-concrete maquette, based upon a Ron Costley sketch, for the Stuttgart Max Plank project. Finlay provides detailed instructions on the lettering for the work. A month later, he comments on the Harvey efforts indicating that he wants a "Matisse'y" effect which depends upon a flat surface as opposed to a kinetic effect that looses the balance between the visual and the word part. -- Source of annotation: Marvin or Ruth Sackner.

Scope and Contents In March 1973, Finlay writes to Stephen Bann to compliment him on an account of a Tarasque weekend and to discuss a poem in French by Claudel, from "100 Phrases for Fans," that had been translated and sent to him by Edward Lucie-Smith. He encloses a copy of this poem which he retyped with his own modifications as well as a letter from Smith. Finlay requests Bann's opinion as to the appropriateness for him to interpret the poem's layout as a sundial inscription and of Finlay's rendition. Still in March 1973, Finlay writes to Edward Lucie-Smith for clarification of Claudel's poem that he had sent to Finlay previously. The poem reads Fan (opposite page), Poems written upon the breath. Finlay asks Smith as to why "Fan" is on the opposite page and why the words have been split. Finlay wonders whether the disjointed words equate to a fan-picture when the fan is closed and if the phrase in the poem, "written upon a breath" signifies that the fan makes a little breathing. Bann responds to...

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The drawings consist of architectural sketches for a Student Refectory that was unrealized by the Wild Hawthorn Press. One of the Lyle letters also includes an ink sketch for "Sea Stones" also an unrealozed project. -- Source of annotation: Marvin or Ruth Sackner.

Scope and Contents In Sept 1972, Finlay enters into correspondence with Jurgen Brenner, a German architect, about a commission for an installation within a garden at the Max Planck Institute in Stuttgart. He selects Costley as the calligrapher and artist for the preparatory drawings. He writes Brenner that he wants "free-drawn letters...as opposed to rigid typographic letters. I consider it essential that poems that people are going to see every day, are verbal/visual/decorative, rather than (as it were) merely literary." In Nov-Dec 1972, Finlay sends instructions to Costley about execution of the sculpture for the installation. The poems in English & German include tile murals, Wave/Rock, Wave, Star/Steer, Sails/Waves, and, sundials, Sea/Land. He follows this up with suggestions for Latin & French versions. Finlay's 2nd list of poems include Schiff, Ark/Arc, Homage to Seurat, Cloud, Gourd (together with Nuclear Sail & Fountain/Sphinx), Set of Wild Stones, and The Colours of the Vowels....

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In Oct 1973, Harvey writes to Finlay with descriptions of proposals for the Portsmith City Art Project, viz., Water's & Sky's Hours and Numbered Sails. He also sends Finlay drawings which are cataloged separately in the Sackner Archive. Finlay replied within a week with minor modifications prior to their submission into the competition. He adds a note of encouragement to Harvey, "So the question is, who will get the Third Prize (As we have won the First and Second)." -- Source of annotation: Marvin or Ruth Sackner.

Scope and Contents In an Oct 1973 letter to John Andrew, Finlay begins by clearing up details on the gnomon in the Dividing the Light Sundial project. He then describes Torso Aircraft Carrier & refers to photographs of a wooden torso carrier which had been made in collabora with John Thorpe. He proposes two projects to Andrew, one made in stone as essentially a variation on the wooden version and a sequel titled the Archaic Carrier by using material of rough, crumbled or pitted stone, an Archaic fragment. In Oct 1973, Finlay acknowledges receipt of drawings for the bronze medals from Andrew but is dissatisfied with them, drops this project, and indicates that he wants to restrict his collaboration to the Aircraft Carrier Torso project. He mentions that he intends to site the piece in his front garden beside the Aircraft Carrier Bird-Bath and requests that a light-colored stone be utilized for its fabrication. He states that he will send Andrew a drawing, model airplanes and references (none of...

Scope and Contents

The words, Beautiful Kydippe, incised into a tree-bark by Callimachus (270 B.C.) are transcribed into a stone plaque (print image) shaped to the trunk of a tree. -- Source of annotation: Marvin or Ruth Sackner.

Scope and Contents Amazon.com: "An explosion of little architectural magazines in the 1960s and 1970s instigated a radical transformation in architectural culture, as the magazines acted as a site of innovation and debate. Clip/Stamp/Fold takes stock of seventy little magazines from this period. The book brings together a remarkable range of documents and original research which the project has produced during its continuous travels over the last four years starting with the exhibition at the Storefront in November 2006. The book features transcripts from the "Small Talks" events in which editors and designers were invited to discuss their magazines; a stocktaking of over 100 significant issues that tracks the changing density and progression of the little magazine phenomenon; transcripts of more than forty interviews with magazine editors and designers from all over the world; a selection of magazine facsimiles; and a fold out poster that offers a mosaic image of more than 1,200 covers examined...

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This work is based upon a design by the Elizabethan architect, Inago Jones. -- Source of annotation: Marvin or Ruth Sackner.

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This card mentions the names of individuals who were critically antagonistic to Finlay's Temple Garden, viz., Headley and Meulenkamp, authors of "Follies, A National Trust Guide" and Januszczack, the Guardian art critic. -- Source of annotation: Marvin or Ruth Sackner.

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Two versions of a landscape by Johann Christian Reinhart are altered by the words Xaipe and W ave inscribed into stones in the foreground. The former means hail or farewell in Greek and ave in the latter picture means the same in Latin. The addition of w creating the word wave relates to the flowing spring. There is a stone in Finlay's garden inscribed WAVE/ave. Printed by the Stellar Press. -- Source of annotation: Marvin or Ruth Sackner.

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Provides Finlay's descriptions of architectural elements, e.g., column is a consonancy of drums and flutes, volute is a form subsisting in the tree-bark, etc. -- Source of annotation: Marvin or Ruth Sackner.

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Finlay proposes to inscribe each word of the title onto a guillotine blade to be set into three deeply recessed windows of the gallery. The proposal documents his reasons and depicts line drawings. -- Source of annotation: Marvin or Ruth Sackner.