I met Joe Murphy while he was doing masonry work on a friend’s building that stood on Louisville, Kentucky’s downtown Chestnut Street. As it turned out, Joe had worked for my uncle’s Brick Laying Company and had many stories about those days and the characters who strode through the lives of the Dillman Brothers.
Joe could have been a star performer in a “How To Video” on YouTube. He had a dramatic way of mixing his tub of mortar all the while talking about the hod carriers and their sense of humor or the fellow whose car broke down on the way to a job. I watched Joe scrape out old mortar from between the bricks, spritz water on an area, and with a flourish force new mortar into a space using thin troweling knives.
It all started when Ray Schumann purchased the old Ursuline Academy that stood on Chestnut Street. He named it “The Cloister” and his vision of retail shops, with a “Chapel” Restaurant and beautiful courtyard, caught the attention of area artists. I had a fondness for the area since my mother had attended Ursuline Academy as a young girl. Because Ray offered free space for a Community Art Gallery on the second floor, artists and craftsmen were drawn to the area.
Along with a potter and a sculptor, I purchased a brick building around the Chestnut Street hub. As I was Director of the Community Art Gallery, I saw the building sitting across from “The Cloister” as an opportune place to have my own studio and conduct art classes connected with the Gallery.
So Joe Murphy filled the role of teacher and I soon found myself with a black mortar tub and a red brick shotgun cottage that needed total interior tuc pointing.
Tuc pointing would become my middle name for months. To this day I can still recall the smell of old horsehair mortar and the newly mixed blend of sand and mortar that replaced it. If I could ice a cake, I could surely tuc point a wall. And I did.
Watching restoration in the Cloister building is where I first learned that construction is like sewing, only you use a saw, a hammer, and nails instead of needle and thread.
I became ambitious and began making a set of shelves that I found could be turned into a fine closet by putting a louvered door across the front.
From then on I would become acquainted with 2 x 4’s, 1 x 2’s, and many louvered doors.
I am thankful for that experience. You never know when you will meet a brick wall or find a space that has no shel