Wilkesboro Quilt Dial
[photo Courtesy of the Wilkes Journal-Patriot]Some sundial artisans and their work are instantly recognizable. Back in 2010 on the wall of the Yancey Times Journal building in Burnsville, North Carolina, astronomer Bob Hampton and artist Martin Weaver created the Quilt Block Sundial, an 8x8 foot vertical dial colorfully painted by volunteers from the Quilt Trails of North Carolina.
Now in Wilkesboro is another wonderful sundial created by the Hampton-Weaver team. The new sundial, done as another block-quilt montage (this time in cerulean blues and mountain greens) was dedicated on 19 December 2012 at a ceremony at the south wall of the Wilkesboro Police Department building where the 8x8 foot vertical dial was unveiled.
The new dial is sponsored by the Cultural Arts Council of Wilkes County to promote and increase art awareness of literary, performing and visual arts. Mrs. McKenzie of the Arts Council said “I had heard about the about the new dial in Burnsville, so I asked my husband, Reid, if we could make a side trip on the way home [to see the Quilt Block Sundial]…the rest is history.” Read more about how this dial inspired the Wilkesboro dial and the importance of this new sundial for Wilkes County. This is made possible through the partnership of the Cultural Arts Council and the Wilkes County Quilt Guild. You never know where a good quilt will lead you. Read more: Wilkesboro Sundial in the Wilkes Journal-Patriot
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Sundials of Downton Abbey
photo courtesy of John FoadMany have been following the Prime time Emmy Award winning series Downton Abbey on PBS. This British World War I period drama was filmed on location at Highclere Castle in Hampshire, which represents the fictional Downton Abbey. Many outdoor scenes were filmed in the village of Bampton, Oxfordshire. (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Downton_Abbey )
As you follow the lives of aristocrats and servants in this acclaimed series, keep an eye out for sundials. Attached is a photo noticed by NASS member John Foad. Want to search for yourself? Look for the dial in front of the hospital. The complete set of the series can be found on Amazon and Shop PBS.
And while you're at it, look for sundials in Foyle's War, Midsomer Murders, and Father Brown. You'll be surprise how many sundials you will find.
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Granite Sundial at Penn State
[Photos courtesy of: StateCollege.com ]On September 22, 2011 Penn State University dedicated a massive granite sundial donated by trustee and alumnus Joel Myers. Designed and sculptured by artist Mark Mennin, it is installed in the university's arboretum. At the dedication Myers said, "We wanted to create something unique...The sundial is to be a destination". Though still lacking a few final touches, such as a bit of polishing, the large granite dial is functional and tells time to the nearest minute.
[Photos courtesy of: StateCollege.com ]
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Heliodome
[photo credit: Vincent Kessler]A three dimensional sundial house? You can find it at 10 rue du Diebach, Cosswiller near Strasbourg in the countryside of Alsace in France. Eric Wasser has created the "Heliodome", a tilted circular building aligned with the earth's polar axis that is a far cry from the old Buckminister Fuller "Bucky Domes".
The house has a glassed southern exposure to allow sunlight during the winter, but from the equatorial belt forward the house has a nearly conventional roof providing shade during the summer. As Wasser explains on his website, "The passive solar house is an architectural volume, a Heliodome, determined by the diurnal and annual trajectory of the sun." Read more about the details at http://www.heliodome.com/equipe.html.
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Sundial Glass
[photo courtesy of Jackie Jones]All right mate, have a pint of golden sun. You can pick up a sundial beer glass designed by Jackie Jones for 51o North at The Greys Pub in Southover Street Brighton, or if you're out of the country, the dial will work in Banff, Canada, the European cities of Calais, Brussels, and Dresden, and in Kazahstan or other points of equal latitude,
The sundial glass motto? “Campaigning for real time”. The sundial glass is a sun altitude type of dial using a frosted ring on one side of the glass to cast a spot of light onto the far side of the glass, calibrated with hour lines for the date of year. Not a bad way to contemplate the time while having a sip. You can get your own sundial glass at http://sundialglass.wordpress.com/
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It Looks Like a Sundial - But Is It?
photo by Andy RobertsonRecent examination of our Sundial Registry revealed dials that no longer exist and have been replaced with something else that might resemble a sundial, but isn't. Consider the brief entry of Dial 56 that may have once existed in Albuquerque, New Mexico on 9 Mimosa Road:
"5.5 ft style, hour lines marked by 1/2' wire rope on grade. Total area is about 1000 square feet. Analemmatic Dial" The description comes from a typed letter explaining that the dial was "built for research and marketing purposes".
This sounds impressive. One could image a 20 x 60 foot analemmatic dial carefully laid with stone markers and a large five and one half foot vertical staff stile casting shadows to the ground. Andy Robertson, a dial enthusiast in Albuquerque took camera in hand and on June 2011 visited the dial location.
This is not an analemmatic dial. It's not a dial at all, but a lovely, modernistic sculpture. If one of those angular bars had pointed to the north celestial pole and the Archimedes spiral was flattened to be in the plane of the celestial equator, this could have been a very impressive sundial. Alas, it is just a work of art. And the Albuquerque dials #55 through #58 have been removed. Dials that once might have existed, but certainly no more.
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