Rock head

“I would put rocks everywhere if I had my way,” he said, laughing.

So when the International Falls native decided he wanted a job where he could work outside, he found that a passion for rocks led to a creative and business opportunity.

Some painters, sculptors, fashion designers, musicians and other artists find a muse — something that inspires them. For Taylor, that inspiration for his creative work with stone comes in the form of a rock native to the International Falls area.

He found one particular type of rock from a local quarry that has sparked his interest — and the interest of his local and statewide customers.

“It’s a beautiful stone, why are you guys crushing it? Why are you crushing it into road base?” Taylor, half joking, half serious, asked Bowman Construction staff last year in regards to a basaltic schist rock available naturally in the quarry near Ranier off Highway 11 East.

In a way, Taylor, nicknamed “Rock Head,” feels like he is saving some of the best candidates from the shiny, multi-colored pile left from blasts into the quarry before they are pulverized into varying consistencies.

Bowman blasts and crushes the rock into a variety of sizes and textures, from larger rocks down to a thinner sand for road base and other applications. Last year, Taylor started paying Bowman Construction per ton to get his pick of the best rocks for landscaping and other stonework projects.

Taylor, owner of Midwest Stonescapes, joined with Carl and Deborah Bowman of Bowman Construction this year to form a joint company, Northern Minnesota Natural Stone, which he said will help grow the business.

The International Falls stone is being trucked to and sold in the Twin Cities area, where he says it is being sold by the pallet load. It can also be purchased through Bowman Construction, and Taylor said he is working to have pieces sold at local shops.

“I’m very enthusiastic when I’m selling it,” he said. His innate enthusiasm for rocks radiates as he talks about his job and the rocks themselves.

He also makes items such as benches for purchase — when they are available. Quick sales of the rudimentary benches have proven that the seats do not last long in the stores, and he is finding it hard to keep up with demand.

“The places in the Cities that are carrying it now are selling a lot of it,” he said.

A local boulder adorning the area outside the new Target Field in Minneapolis will hopefully bring some more exposure to the Falls area, to the stone and to Taylor’s work.

Taylor also uses the stone for many applications, including retaining walls, stairways, water features, decorative boulders, patios and walkways.

“I feel very fortunate to be able to do what I’m doing,” he said. And he can’t seem to get enough rocks.

He said that every winter he goes to Washington state to work with rocks with his sister and brother-in-law, Todd and Kari Jo Harris, after freezing temperatures settle in Borderland.

“At the airport I had to take rocks out of my suitcase,” he said. “I have a whole set of clothes out there so every time I go out there I bring rocks. And then when I come back the same thing goes. In my free time out there I’m always looking for rocks.”

Taylor said he spends much of his time collecting rocks wherever he goes.

“I’ve got a lot of rocks,” he admits. “I leave a rock trail wherever I go. My girlfriend gets where she’s like ‘No more rocks in the house, no more rocks in the house.’”

His passion for rocks encompasses many varieties of stone, but he has a specific interest in the rock from the local quarry, which he said has properties that make it special.

Becoming a rock head

Taylor said he became interested in rocks while apprenticing for a company owned by his sister and brother-in-law in Washington state.

He worked for the Minnesota Conservation Corps out of high school, doing projects for the state and county. He then moved to the Twin Cities, where he worked in a bank. He found that working indoors was not right for him.

“I had to get back outside,” he said. He asked himself what he would enjoy, and found that working with stones was a good fit. After working with his West Coast family, Taylor returned to Minnesota and started Midwest Stonescapes.

The rocker learned some old-school skills to go along with his new stone.

“The way that we build walls is dry stacking with no mortar, like the way the Romans used to do stuff as far as how they built walls,” Taylor said.

Constructing in this way allows him to build walls that stand up well in the extreme Minnesota climate. While some walls may have seasonal movement due to temperature change, the dry-stacked walls won’t budge, he said.

“I never really knew before that I’d be lifting rocks for a living but once I started doing stone work I ended up being pretty good at it,” he said. “I could build walls fast and strong. As far as patios and that stuff, I just fell into it once I started doing it and for some reason that’s one of those things ‘This is what I should be doing.’”

However, the job isn’t for everyone, Taylor said.

“It’s a real hard job picking rocks and setting rocks. You gotta really like what you’re doing, have a respect for what you’re working with in order to keep lifting rocks every day.”

He expects to have a crew working with him this summer picking rock for the pallets as the business continues to grow.

A unique product

“There are a lot of beautiful things that come from our area, and the stone is definitely one of the most (beautiful), I think,” Taylor opined.

“The stone around here, it’s part of an old ancient mountain range, the internal base of a mountain range and so the stone that comes up is a basaltic schist ... there’s not a whole lot of places that have this unique character,” he explained.

In fact, Taylor said that New York and Montana are two of the only places where similar stone can be found. And those stones do not have the exact same properties, especially the shine. The stone is unique because it breaks easily into sheets, has a high amount of sheen and comes in a variety of colors in various shades of blue, red, purple, gold, and silver.

“That’s part of the main character of it, once you get a pallet of it, you get so much color in a pallet,” he said. In fact, he said, they often blend the stones from areas in the quarry so that buyers will get a unified cross-section of product between pallets if they purchase rock at different times.

The rock that Taylor works with is called a schist. The word schist is derived from the Greek word meaning "to split.” Schist rocks can be split along the plane in which a thin plate of minerals lie. This creates easily workable pieces with a high amount of shine. As it is blasted from the quarry, pieces of the rock break along these natural, flat lines and create slabs that are easy to stack, such as ledge stones.

“I’ve worked with a lot of different kinds of stone and what really brought me to this stone is when I saw it I was like ‘Wow.’ There’s not a lot of stone out there that is this workable as far as the way that it cuts, the way that it polishes, and just the natural sheen to it.”

Taylor explained that the quarry has rocks with a lot of quartz included. “You can’t get boulders with that high quartz content anywhere else.”

Local boulders are currently being slabbed to test their ability to be made into countertops. Taylor seems confident that the schist will make a good candidate, and already has several projects lined up for the first slabs.

“I love stone and when I found this stuff, it’s icing on the cake for me, too ... all this stone that we’ve been paying as contractors $500 per ton for is just lying here everywhere. I can’t pick it up fast enough. I want to get in there and I want to use it all.”