New Marlborough — When the busload of Japanese tourists entered Umpachene Falls Park here last Saturday, the marvel of balanced stones that enchanted the Berkshires this summer had already been taken down and put back under water.
PJ Birriel knew that an Edge article about his creations might spell their demise, but the Sheffield resident says he was ready to dismantle them.
“It had an expiration date from the beginning,” Birriel said of what he had called “The Watchers,” knowing that, when he let this reporter interview him for an article, the attention might stir a bit of trouble in some quarters.
All it took was a few grievances shot into New Marlborough Town Hall and the issue placed on the Conservation Commission’s Saturday agenda to prompt Birriel to dismantle his somewhat unintentional installation the day before the town could fuss over it. The raised and balanced stone sculptures, he said, were created in the act of finding solace and peace, and for the simple love of doing it. He said didn’t want town boards to have to meet over it or to have people fighting over it.
“It destroys the memory of what it was,” he said. “I don’t want to piss anybody off.”
The first sign of trouble for this entertainer, costume maker and Zumba teacher was the anonymous mailing about how lifting and moving the stones was destroying critter habitats. The mysterious sender had also put posters up at the Falls asserting that “Cairns Kill Wildlife,” including aquatic species. Birriel said people took the posters down just as soon as they had gone up.
Clik here to view.
PJ Birriel’s creation, “The Watchers,” enchanted the Berkshires and even beyond. Photo: Heather Bellow.
Up until then, he said, he had never had a single complaint about the stones from anyone including neighbors, though he had been balancing stones at the Falls for the last three years. “I was surprised that the stones were staying,” he says. “It got bigger than I envisioned.”
Birriel said there were signs of a battle brewing at Town Hall. By taking the stones down before Saturday’s Conservation Commission meeting, Birriel may have preempted warfare from coming to this quaint village.
New Marlborough Town Clerk Kathy Chretien said a town-wide email subscription group called Maggie’s List had been on fire “with many people for and against” allowing the stones to remain the way Birriel had assembled them.
“This was a thing going on around town,” Chretien added. “And most people were fine with it.” The sticky spots, she noted, were twofold: the town was concerned about liability at the town-owned park, and the Conservation Commission hadn’t given permission to do this sort of thing in a wetlands area.
Chretien says the whole issue has been dropped. “Now there’s awareness,” she said, “that you don’t do stuff without permits.”
Birriel said it took about two hours to dismantle it. He had help, too, from shocked and distraught neighbors and onlookers. “People started screaming, ‘what are you doing—stop!’ ” But then they started to help him and, as a last gesture to an arrangement that had touched so many hearts, the stones were moved into a circle under the water around the last Watcher.
“I cried when the last one came down,” Birriel said.
But there will be many more, he said. A Park neighbor who collects a new work every year commissioned him to make something permanent for their property on the Konkapot there.
And he will be busy with other things. Since the article about the stones was published, he said he’s been asked to teach Zumba at two more studios: Lifeworks in Great Barrington and the spa at Cranwell Resort in Lenox. He will also continue his work as an entertainer in New York where he hides behind a very naughty drag persona, Ashton Cruz.
“I have to push myself to quit something and start something new,” he said.
Indeed, Birriel has “another project that involves balancing,” but he won’t reveal anything yet.
“As long as I follow code and get permits, I’m safe. But I’m not done. The Berkshires is my canvas. This is just the beginning.”