Story and photos by Katie Meyer
Reporting for West Seattle Blog
Over the past few days, a corner of the West Seattle Junction has been transformed by the skills and charms of renowned contractor Joseph Peter Douglas (“call me Scotty Joe“). He’s applying Irish stonework by hand to the exterior walls at the northeast corner of California SW and SW Edmunds, where A Terrible Beauty Irish Pub and Restaurant expects to open next month, as reported here 3 weeks ago.
Stopping by to ask about his art, we discovered quite a story behind it.
Born and raised in Scotland, with two brothers who were stone masons, part of Scotty’s apprentice work after his training involved helping to rebuild castles in Scotland, he says, and working on stone walls originally built by Roman soldiers. “All the construction trades in Scotland – they teach you all the tricks of the trade, you know? That’s the kind of stuff you don’t mess around with. It’s not like a piece of wood you can take on and off. They just built to interlock, so that the wind could blow through them. They built dikes and big walls – we took them all apart and rebuilt them back, stone by stone. I lived and worked in a Scottish castle for a year as part of my training.”
Working and traveling through countries such as Norway, England, Germany, France, among others, Scotty landed in the U.S., first in New York, then on to the San Francisco, helping do stage lighting and construction for big-name musical acts. The “weather and the green” in the Pacific Northwest remind him a bit of his native Scotland.
During the five years he helped remodel and repair parts of the stonework in the Pike Place Market (including building the big stone fireplace at Kells Irish Pub), Scotty made the acquaintance of the venerable Seattle Times columnist Emmett Watson. In a 1987 column written about the world-traveling worker, artist and raconteur, Watson appreciated Scotty’s humor and talent, describing Scotty as “an all-purpose craftsman, the kind you find in what we used to call the Old Country, but very seldom is found here.”
The other day in West Seattle, as Scotty deftly applied carefully-selected stones to the surface that he’d prepared the day before, he was generous in sharing his stories with me – while singing, cracking jokes, teasing his “boss,” and patiently explaining his craft to passersby pausing to watch. In Scotty’s opinion, “Americans have got to start building with stronger materials! It’s more labor intensive, and might take a wee bit longer, but the effects will last for hundreds of years. Hundreds of years.”
(Scotty poses with West Seattleite “Jen” as she proudly points to a stone he helped her fasten to the wall)
So just how can one connect the Berlin Wall, actor Danny DeVito, and a thank-you-note from the Queen of Denmark? Lead an adventurous life, combined with creativity and an open nature: While in Germany, Scotty says, he was at the Berlin Wall as it came down, and met DeVito among the celebrants. On the spur of the moment, Scotty painted a big 50th birthday greeting to the Queen of Denmark amidst all the artwork on the wall. It caught the eye of a photographer, and Scotty’s work was carefully chiseled from the pieces of the downed wall and sent to Danish Queen Margrethe II – who sent him a thank-you note and an invitation to visit.
“I just started really painting in the last couple years, too. I’m teaching myself – it’s so much fun, it’s unbelievable!” Practicing and learning by creating his own versions of works by Picasso, Dali, Monet, Van Gogh, et al, Scotty said, “I didn’t realize how divine it was, to do that kind of artwork.”
Precisely trimming mortar around another stone, Scotty smiles, raises an eyebrow and starts to sing The Pretenders‘ “Back on the Chain Gang.”
(Scotty Joe’s Irish stonework in progress)
Oh, and his singing? He plays piano as well: “I’ve been playing Irish pubs, me and my band, we were called Celtic Renaissance, played all over the Northwest for more than 20 years. I’ve always sang, since I was five years old. I sing every Irish song in the book. All the great Scottish and Irish folk songs.”
Scotty said that he’ll be one of the featured artists performing live at A Terrible Beauty-West Seattle when it opens, and with a twinkling grin, declared that “I’m one of the funniest entertainers in the Pacific Northwest. I do a lot of comedy and a lot of fun.”
(We checked with A Terrible Beauty’s owners, by the way, and they’re still planning to be open next month.)
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