(This is the first in a four part series on the String Course. These stones were prepared by the Sawyer, the Planer and the Cutter before being handed off to the Carver. The co-author of Divine Stone, Robert F. Rodriguez will take us around St. Paul’s Tower viewing these unique carvings. – RM)
From street level, it is extremely difficult to see the decorative band of carvings that comprise the string course on St. Paul’s tower at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine. This is especially true on the north side where a bundle of internet wires hangs off that side of the tower and the cathedral’s roof partially obstructs the array of humorous grotesque carvings, forest creatures and other intricately carved blocks of limestone. The north facade also lacks the architectural and decorative details such as columns, capitols and quatrefoils that the other sides have.
Work on the string course, the first level of the “C” zone of St. Paul’s tower, began in the summer of 1988. Master Mason Stephen Boyle, the tower’s construction foreman, had a large group of assistants to set the blocks. Besides the regular Stoneyard crew, he was joined by students from the Cathedral’s Summer Architectural program.
When the course of stones was all set, this horizontal line of carvings represented the most comprehensive look at the carvers’ skills and creativity. About two years prior, they designed and carved some 50 figures for the string course, sometimes referred to as the cornice course.
Master Carver Nicholas Fairplay explains the process: “I had the carvings on the string course alternate — every third boss carving is foliage and in between a face boss carving and then a figure or animal boss carving. I did this to train the students (apprentice stone cutters) to be more versatile as carvers. The students had only masonry skills, none of them had done any carving so I needed to find a way to train them quickly.”
Nicholas adds, “When a carving was completed, it had to be taken off the bench and stacked outside and a new stone brought in and placed on their bench. Some of the stones were quite large and there had to be no chips or damage in moving them.”
The finished stones’ temporary location on the ground provided a fleeting closeup look at the variety of carvings where one could count every gnarly tooth on a smiling demon, see the graceful flowing beards of mythological beasts and admire the deeply textured flowers and petals on many foliage carvings.
On each tower face, there are 11 carved blocks in a row, nestled between the tower buttresses on each corner. From there, a double-sided cornice stone wraps around the corner so that a total of 13 carvings face each side of the tower.
While it is almost impossible to identify each carver for all of the foliage blocks, most of the uniquely designed carvings can be matched to an individual carver. On the north face Nicholas Fairplay is responsible for four of the carvings, with two each done by D’Ellis “Jeep” Kincannon and Ruben Gibson and one each by Amy Brier and Gabriele Hitl-Cohen.
In Gothic cathedral architecture, forest creatures were a common theme, with nymphs and other arboreal characters often seen lurking among foliage. Nicholas Fairplay created a forest creature with a broad nose surrounded by a border of leaves, its face blending into the leaves. Another of Nicholas’ grotesques depicts a wide-eyed demon with the face of a lion and an elegant beard.
Nicholas’ most unusual carving for the north face was the head of John the Baptist on a platter, which sits in the middle of the carved gallery. According to Bible passages, Salome danced before King Herod on his birthday. Her dancing so pleased Herod that in his drunkenness he promised to give her anything she desired, up to half of his kingdom. Salome asked for the head of John the Baptist on a platter. Although Herod was appalled by the request, he reluctantly agreed and had John executed by beheading.
While most of the limestone blocks for the cornice stones were about three-feet wide and weighed over 800 lbs., the stone for the John the Baptist block is extremely narrow, giving the carver a tight space to work on. This stone is a centerpiece, whose positioning allows all the carvings to be evenly spaced on the tower, according to Stephen Boyle.
For his two carvings, D’Ellis “Jeep” Kincannon produced a snarly-toothed lion with a gorgeous flowing mane, mustache and puffy cheeks, and a shy dragon, possibly napping, with its head tucked next to its wing. “Jeep” worked with either a clay model or a number of refined sketches as his templates while he carved these pieces.
In many of his works, Ruben Gibson liked to carve demons and other eerie grotesques. On a corner cornice block, Ruben created a wavy-haired grotesque with a downturned mouth, and on another block he created a flabby cheeked demon with a narrow mouth and a high crest above its eyebrows.
Faces of female figures appear in two of the carvings on the north side by Amy Brier and Gabriele Hitl-Cohen.
Gabriele remembers that with this block she learned how to carve the flowing and wavy lines of the figure’s hair emerging from underneath a delicately carved veil to give the work a Gothic look.
Amy Brier notes “I was interested in adding a female to the string course, making a mark for gender equality perhaps, but I probably didn’t think it all the way through at that young age.” Recalling her carving over 30 years later, she remarks, “I look back and am unhappy with what I see as a terrible job! I am a lot better now!”
Amy has come a long way since she left the Cathedral program and has continued working in stone. Besides teaching at Ivy Tech Community College in Bloomington, IN, Amy has numerous public carvings in Bloomington, IN, Layfayette IN, and Hamilton OH. She is especially proud of her work on the new Fall Creek Pavilion and the Indiana State Fair.
Carvings across the north façade string course, left to right:
- NE corner, wavy-haired grotesque with downturned mouth by Ruben Gibson
- High-browed grotesque by Ruben Gibson
- Snarly Lion by D’Ellis “Jeep” Kincannon
- Woman’s faces by Amy Brier
- Forest creature by Nicholas Fairplay
- Foliage
- Head of St. John the Baptist on a platter by Nicholas Fairplay
- Foliage
- Foliage
- Woman wearing a veil by Gabriele Hitl-Cohen
- Shy dragon by D’Ellis “Jeep” Kincannon
- Green Man grotesque by Nicholas Fairplay
- NW Corner, foliage by Nicholas Fairplay
■
- All images in this post are by Photojournalist Robert F. Rodriguez