Once
upon a time . . . there was a man (that's me) and a woman (that's my wife
Evelyn) returning to their home in the Ticino in southern Switzerland.
During this journey in September 1993 we took a break on a high (8130 ft.
/ 2478 m) mountain road called the "Nufenen Pass". It was crackling cold
with fresh snow from the previous night. The wide view overlooking the
valley was overpowering, the mountain peaks looked as if they were covered
with powdered sugar.
Besides the two of us there
was nothing but stones and boulders split from the towering cliffs. "These
stones are so interesting in shape and so brightly glittering in the sunbeams,
I would like to have them in our garden ..." |
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Evelyn who started to collect some. I would like flowers or tomatoes instead
in the garden but I also like when I can fulfill one of Evelyn's wishes,
and so the stones were loaded in the car. "I want to turn those stones,
which you like so much, into a sculpture", I said to Evelyn and added,
"those rocks should fly". Evelyn was not surprised but curious, "How do
you want to do that? What kind of sculpture do you have in mind?" To the
best of my ability, with my hands on the steering wheel and my eyes on
the road, I sketched out a model in my head and explained how I imagined
the realization of this sculpture. "The rocks were to be connected with
each other with steel pegs, |
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suspended
on elastic steel wire, the stones should move around freely, almost fly."
"I see", said Evelyn . .
. " "If you were to hit against the steel pegs with a little stick, you
would hear a resonance," I went on to explain. "I see," Evelyn said once
more, and "It will sound like a Stone Harp!" That was in September 1993
. . .
January 1994, four months
after the words "Stone Harp", I knew how to arrange and install the stones
from Nufenen. I installed the Nufenen-stones by using rebars (concrete
iron ) and modeled them into a shape reminiscent of a harp. I installed
strings, a harp has strings, doesn't it? I also installed a small microphone
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