Brick Arches

Here I am building the three interior brick arches using reclaimed brick from a demolished Phoenix building. The black-charred brick were saved from a torn down chimney. I dyed each batch of mortar black and raked-out the brick joints. I was a dirty mess at the and of each 13-hour day. I had the framers build me a radiused arch out of wood to use as temporary support for each brick arch. The walk-through brick arches are over 2-feet wide. The most distance arch, leading down the east-wing hallway, is finished and ready for framers to complete the framing up to the arch. Then, dry wallers can come in and make everything look nice — sort of. I was lucky the chimney masons left some 8" block for me to use for scaffolding. My 4' bricklayer's level is hanging vertically on a nail between the two nearest arches. This brickwork was slow going because I had no laborer helping me, and I was constantly jumping up and down from the scaffold, not to mention that I had to make sure the brick around the arch fit perfectly so the top and last brick laid (the "key" at 12-o'clock high) was perfectly centered.

35mm film print scanned to digital