What is Artch?
A little history:
Artch was founded in September of 2013 by myself and Paul Cartwright, a designer and builder living in Camden, Maine. (older). It grew out of a combination of my desire to sell something in the Youth Enterprise Zone at the Common Ground Fair, not knowing what to sell, and a fascination with an interesting tool that Paul was demonstrating at the September 2013 Midcoast Mini Maker Fair at the Camden Public Library when I first met him. This tool was a traditional Roman centering. And it really got me! I asked what it did, and Paul replied, “You build arches with it; it’s called a centering (learn more).” What? Really? I had never really thought of building arches, but I was instantly hooked, and I knew that this thing was what I wanted to sell. I spent the rest of that day building arches, helping Paul explain what a centering is, and assisting people trying to build an arch.
At the end of the day, I asked Paul if I could copy his idea so that I could sell them at the Youth Enterprise Zone (YEZ). Paul said sure, and that I could use his shop to build them. I was ecstatic! Now I just had to apply for YEZ the coming week. However, when I went to fill out an application later that evening, I learned that you have to register by March 20, earlier that year, to be excepted. Bummer! So, I would just apply for next year’s fair, right?
Later that week I bicycled over to Paul’s house to start working. Paul greeted me with a hello, but instantly jumped into business. He said he had been thinking (always a dangerous past time) and had come up with an improved centering that he thought would be good for me to sell. I was impressed, and we spent the next couple of days refining, designing, and experimenting with various centering designs.
We finally settled on a design that seemed to have lots of potential. Its key features are that it is modular, meaning that you can connect an infinite number of centering “units” together to make any size of centering. Each unit can also rotate away from the neighboring units, creating rotational adjustment, opening up a whole new realm of centering options. Plus, it can collapse, allowing the user to remove it from under the completed arch for reuse. Overall, this unique new centering was a huge improvement over the rigid, non-collapsable one-time centerings of the Roman era. And, as they say, the rest is history. Now look where we are.
But what is Artch?
I love to build things. Artch was originally started as a creative outlet for myself; a way to make money on something I had created with my own hands. As the business expanded, it evolved a new meaning. Our mission is to “Encourage outdoor play, facilitate reconnection with nature, promote local economy and community, and inspire positive environmental change through temporary, placed-based art.” Our centerings are handmade in Maine using all Maine materials, so they don’t support foreign manufacturers. Because they are made and sold exclusively in Maine, they also don’t support the environmentally harmful shipping industry. Plus, all the wood is sustainably harvested, supporting smart forestry practices.
Even all the way down to the consumer’s end our centerings are supporting the environment and human health, too. By building arches outside, using found materials, the builder has a deeper connection to nature than if they were just walking by. When you get “your hands in the dirt,” looking for stones, you accurately get to experience nature. And it’s not the same kind of experience when you camp, hike, ski, bike, you’re experiencing nature as a fellow artist. I believe that that’s an important connection. For me, the first step in understanding why oil spills, plane flights, or coal burning is bad for the environment is to first understand what the environment is. It’s hard for everyone to visualize what impact these things have on the environment when we can’t look out our window and see them. That’s the beauty of arch building. You can creatively express what you're feeling by balancing stones so they appear to defy gravity and at the same time feed you body and soul on the beauty of nature.
Arches are also great for many other things, too. They are a fantastic tool for teaching beginning physics or geometry, for example. And bridge building classes! There’s nothing stronger than an arch, otherwise the Romans (and hundreds of other civilizations) wouldn’t have trusted them so much. Did you know that there is a bridge, in Rome, Italy, that was built in 62 BC (a technological innovation of its time) that is still used today? It consisted of two stone arches meeting on a pier in the middle of the Tiber River.
The other cool thing about arches is that you can virtually make them out of any material. Stone, snow, ice, clay, bone, glass, cardboard boxes, wood, crates, computer monitors, clementines… (check out our website gallery for pictures: www.artchcenterings.com/gallery). You can even do some cool shapes! Like a half arch, multiple half arches coming together at a common apex (ask me for more details), multiple half arches starting at a common point and bending outward, domes, etc. The options are limitless!
Our centering can even be used for building functional art, too. Cob ovens, jewelry trees, bedside table lamps, mailboxes. It really is a cool thing. What are you waiting for? Go get one for yourself! I hope you
enjoy it as much as I do. e.s.
What is a Centering?
A centering is a framework of wood or steel built to support a masonry arch or vault during it’s construction. In Roman times, centerings were giant one-time non-adjustable wooden frames that could not collapse. We’ve improved drastically upon this simple design. Our centerings are 100% adjustable (up to the degree), and can collapse, making for easy removal and reuse. And of course, they can become very small, allowing them to be the perfect size for easy portability.