"I got a rock," I said as I got in the car. In my hand was a rock with a hole in it that was at my feet as I finished the stone arch.
I often use that line from Peanuts' "The Great Pumpkin" cartoon wherein Charlie Brown gets a rock at every house when they are Trick-or-treating. He sounds so disappointed, but I love rocks. I can spend hours in a creek playing with rocks, looking at rocks, collecting rocks, skipping rocks.
Today was just such a day. Exploring a tiny little state park in Northern Kentucky that wad gifted by a couple who had enjoyed the beautiful serenity of this patch of peace, I found myself at the shore of the Licking River about 50 miles from its joining the Ohio River.
The dearth of rainfall left many rocks exposed, including a lot of thin large rocks that are ideal for so many fun activities, as mentioned above. So I got a rock to stand on edge, stacked rocks into an arch a la Andy Goldsworthy http://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/10013111.html, and as much fun as I can have with a pile of rocks.
The arch was the first one that I had built, ever, and I was so excited to see it still standing after removing all the supporting stones. The arch defied gravity, weight, and assumptions about its construction.
Though Andy always records his work on "film", I was sans digital imagers. On the way to the park we had driven through a downpour, so I left the cell phone in the car.
One of Andy's hallmark is that some of his work is intentionally temporary, which emphasizes the process rather than the product. So leaving the arch and the large standing rocks in the center of the river bed would ensure that their tenacious balance would be quickly eroded by rising waters. The only witness to my creative energy and process would be a few neurons in our brains that would capture a fading image of stone constructs.
Then again, perhaps the image will become more vivid and fantastic with time. My choice....
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See the next blog for the metaphysical meaning....
2 comments:
Our lives are centered around rocks at the moment. Chris and I spend hours gathering rocks from the woods. We are rocking one side of our house right now, but we always seem to have some kind of rock project going on. I guess we are just drawn to rocks.
Chris and I are definitely drawn to rocks. We seem to always have some rock project going on, and we spend hours in the woods collecting rocks. Presently we are rocking one side of our house.
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