There is a long lineage of artists and writers who have paid homage to stones and rocks, making them the centerpiece of work in all manner of media. Knowing their rich expression has expanded my pleasure in the rocks I’ve collected over years… attracted first by their visual beauty and the memory they would spark of the place I discovered them. Once home, I found myself pulling them into practical use to discover that as I use them, I find rock poetry, rock art…
Weighing down a stack of papers…
…I remember John Cage in Where the Heart Beats: John Cage, Zen Buddhism, and the Inner Life of Artists:
[Cage:] My most recent interest is in stones.
[Q:] Stones?
[Cage:] Yes, I collect them for my garden from all over the world. Some of them are quite big. I ride along the road and I stop and I look at stones. I have a very large stone waiting for me now in a van in North Carolina.
There are so many faces to this particular rock that it’s like an exhibition of several works of art.
Cage made several series of etchings, paintings and drawings by using stones he collected, in league with chance, an ongoing theme in this visual work.
…
Using a rock to weight down pot lids and spatchcocked chickens
…an Emily Dickinson poem comes to mind…
How happy is the little Stone
That rambles in the Road alone,
And doesn’t care about Careers
And Exigencies never fears—
Whose Coat of elemental Brown
A passing Universe put on,
And independent as the Sun
Associates or glows alone,
Fulfilling absolute Decree
In casual simplicity—
…
…I remember artist Andy Goldsworthy, who has a whole book devoted to his gorgeous stone works..
…
Lay down these wordsBefore your mind like rocks.placed solid, by handsIn choice of place, setBefore the body of the mindin space and time:Solidity of bark, leaf, or wallriprap of things:Cobble of milky way,straying planets,These poems, people,lost ponies withDragging saddles—and rocky sure-foot trails.The worlds like an endlessfour-dimensionalGame of Go.ants and pebblesIn the thin loam, each rock a worda creek-washed stoneGranite: ingrainedwith torment of fire and weightCrystal and sediment linked hotall change, in thoughts,As well as things.
*from Riprap and Cold Mountain Poems
Posts about stones and rocks:
https://rosemarywashington.wordpress.com/2012/04/17/a-stone-is-a-riddle/
https://rosemarywashington.wordpress.com/2016/09/18/the-work-of-a-rock-is-to-ponder/
https://rosemarywashington.wordpress.com/2013/09/05/water-and-stone/
https://rosemarywashington.wordpress.com/2012/10/29/pebbles-and-friendship/
Post about stone reflexology path:
https://rosemarywashington.wordpress.com/2009/06/19/barefoot-days-of-summer/
Posts about Andy Goldsworthy stone works (I am a Goldsworthy junkie and seek his works on my travels:
https://rosemarywashington.wordpress.com/2014/01/24/searching-for-andy-goldsworthy-art-in-the-bay-area/
https://rosemarywashington.wordpress.com/2013/12/04/nyc-vignettes-andy-goldsworthy-at-storm-king/
https://rosemarywashington.wordpress.com/2013/05/26/hiking-in-france-on-the-trail-of-andy-goldsworthy/
https://rosemarywashington.wordpress.com/2013/05/27/hiking-in-france-2-andy-goldsworthy-sentinels/
https://rosemarywashington.wordpress.com/2013/05/28/hiking-in-france-3-goldsworthy-refuges-dart/
And more famous rocks from Georgia O’Keeffe rock paintings (and she collected rocks and stones)
https://prints.okeeffemuseum.org/detail/463102/okeeffe-black-rock-on-red-1971