From Amazon
Few elements are as ubiquitous or as essential as water, or as appealing for the soothing sights and sounds with which it enhances our environment. Fountains are the ideal way to incorporate water's magic into our homes and gardens, and the fountain maker becomes something of an illusionist, striving emulate nature and to conceal the mechanics that make the perpetual flow of water possible.
Dorcas Adkins is certainly a magician when it comes to fountain design. Her wizardry encompasses bamboo, wood, ceramic, concrete, stone, and metal creations, from small tabletop delights to full-sized garden waterfalls. Her extremely thorough and well-diagrammed instructions make even the most complex projects approachable--and some of them are indeed fairly complex, involving woodworking skills, plaster and concrete casting, ceramic modeling, soldering, or rigging an existing sculpture. But the results are well worth the effort, yielding Zen-like arrangements in which water trickles over a miniature bonsai garden, through bamboo piping, or into a rustic stone trough filled with water lilies; or more traditional Western constructions such as a ewer-toting cherub, a shell-and-stone-and-tile mosaic, or various spouting faces.
Beginners or those seeking smaller-scale productions are best off starting with a more basic approach, like Dawn Cusick's Tabletop Fountains. But for the more adventurous fountaineers, it's hard to beat Adkins's presentation, which also helpfully includes a list of mail-order suppliers and a useful at-a-glance guide to finding general materials, from antique tubs to pond liners to wooden barrels. --Amy Handy
Review
A wonderful reference book on fountains includes 20 projects ranging from simple dish fountains to large landscape fountains and goes into great detail about pumps, filters, and designs. The photographs alone will inspire you to get building. Sacramento Bee full of ideas on what to use and how to do it, provides directions for a full range of fountains from simple to complex. Elizabeth McDonald in Atlanta Homes and Lifestyles Magazine
Book Description
Everything readers need to know to create elegant, soothing water fountains. Easy-to-follow instructions explain choosing and installing pumps and constructing fountains.
From the Publisher
Recipient of the 2000 Benjamin Franklin Award for Crafts/Hobbies/How-To.
From the Inside Flap
Nothing smoothes the furrowed brow like the soft lap of wavelets on a lakeshore, the rythym of surf on a barrier island, or the silvery tinkle of a stream falling through the spring forest. At home-in the house or in the garden-the gentle, melodic patter of water spilling from a fountain offers the same tranquility. Dorcas Adkins, a fountain designer and manufacturer, brings this soothing relaxation to your home using readily available materials, simple crafting techniques, and her own step-by-step instructions. She explains everything you need to know about fountain materials, supplies, and assembly, whether you choose to work with wood, stone, ceramic, or other materials and whether or not you have any building experience. Throughout Simple Fountains for Indoors & Outdoors, Adkins's can-do attitude will give you the confidence to experiment and have fun: Relax, she urges, and let your creative talents take over.
From the Back Cover
Bring home the soothing sounds of water The endless murmur and flow of a bubbling fountain adds a touch of elegance to both homes and gardens. Now, fountain designer and manufacturer Dorcas Adkins reveals her trade secrets for making 20 creative fountains-from a small, tabletop fountain put together without a single tool to a dramatic outdoor spouting wall fountain or a full-sized waterfall-and at far less cost than for those found in upscale catalogs. Step by step, Simple Fountains for Indoors & Outdoors explains everything you need to know. Projects include: --Tabletop fountains made from shells and stones --Lava rock bonsai garden fountain --Cedar water garden with bamboo flute --Birdshower fountain --Small mosaic fountain --Concrete and ceramic spouting wall fountains --Shishi Odoshi(or Japanese Deer-Scare Fountain)
About the Author
Dorcas Adkins lives in Washington, D.C., with Pat Munoz and their two cats, Harrie and Sushi. They share a large garden boasting a pond and five fountains with innumerable tadpoles, dragonflies, and hummingbirds. With her partner, Steve Meyer, Dorcas can usually be found running Adams & Adkins, Inc. of Alexandria, Virginia, making fountains and other garden ornaments for sale to catalogs, retail stores, and individuals.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Introduction Of all nature's elements, water is perhaps the most essential to life, health, and happiness. For many species of plants and animals, falling water provides increased oxygen. This all-important ingredient combines with carbon, enabling waste from these organisms to decompose quickly. For aquatic animals such as fish, snails, and crayfish, adequate dissolved oxygen in the water is required for life itself. Since the earliest times, we humans have acknowledged the vital importance of water in our lives. Our bodies are made up mostly of water, and without sufficient water to drink or to humidify the air around us, we quickly become uncomfortable. When water is in motion, it humidifies the surrounding air more readily. It also produces sounds that relax us. Nothing smoothes the furrowed brow like the soft lap of wavelets on a lake-shore, the thunder of surf on a barrier island, or the silvery tinkle of a stream falling through the spring forest. The Sound of Moving Water Modern life is very busy. Technological advances have resulted in a world where sensory overload is common. Many of us recognize that the only antidote is frequent communion with natural forces, yet too often we cannot spare the time to go into the wild to find the peace and relaxation we need. Instead, we create increasingly elaborate garden refuges for this purpose. For many reasons, not the least of which is that the splash of falling water can be used to mask traffic sounds, fountains enhance these gardens, both indoors and out. The indoor fountain can provide the melodic sound of falling water in the workplace. By setting this piece of the outdoors beside your computer, you can add humidity to air often dried by heaters and monitor fans. The release of negative ions that takes place in falling water is thought by many to soothe the human spirit as well. In the outdoor garden nothing could be more natural than the inclusion of a water feature. Even the most formal fountain - one in which the water decorates an elaborate sculpture and falls into a pool scoured clean of life forms - contributes cooling humidity to the garden environment while masking the noise of the street. A more natural fountain bubbling into a pond full of fish, frogs, snails, and water lilies quickly becomes a successful and sustainable ecosystem. The lessons we all can learn in such a classroom are invaluable as we face the challenges of sustaining our own planet's environment into a complex and crowded future. Modern Fountain Design The convenience of the electric pump, recently developed in tiny yet reliable models, allows all of us to easily create small fountains for our own gardens. The style we choose for a water feature can range from a formal pool, soothingly geometric in form, to a natural mountain cataract. Or a spare and simple Zen garden, complete with koi pond and bridge, can appear in what was once an unused alley. And the same small pumps allow us to bring our l
