Introduction

What is stone, that it is so compelling? What is the history of humans and stone? Who among us has particularly informed our understanding of the material I have chosen to spend my life with? The reflections that follow are the results of my own musings and perusings; they are a bit like the separate blocks of a sculpture that together make up a whole. They are accounts and insights that have resulted from my dialogues with stone.

My reflections begin with four ways of stating our relationship to materials.

Firstly, we might say that all the information of our world is known to us and defined by us. We understand this information and can draw conclusions about the world from it. We can, for example, understand its area and scope. We know that if something is “600 miles deep,” it is beyond our reach. We can say that, “The earth is a ball of rock 7927 miles in diameter, weighing about 6.6 trillion tons. It is composed of a dense core as heavy as iron and several massive rock layers denser near the core and lighter towards the surface.The continents themselves are islands of granite rock floating on the denser, darker rocks which underlie the ocean basins and go down perhaps 600 miles” (Zim, 7).

In the second instance, the information of our world can be dissected. As with the first, we can establish an overall view. We can now take a particle, analyze it, and locate and name components that are within our own human bodies. “The specific gravity of calcite (CaCO3) is 2.7, whereas the specific gravity of dolomite is 2.9, so that the dolomite varieties are naturally slightly heavier” (Rich, 224).

In the third way, we approach the relationship between our self and the material world in an attempt to understand that relationship as a whole, rather than any of the material’s individual elements: "Stone comes from the ME Ston. Earlier Stan from OE stara: of OFris and OS sten, OHS-MHG-G stein, GO steins, MD stein, stein, MD-D stein, ON pebble; IE r. *stat-. varr**stei-. *sti - a stone; perhult akin to *sta - to stand” (Partride, 670).

Finally, the fourth way is an endeavor to discover the psychological self by way of materials. “Go to a lonely place and rub a stone in a circle on a rock for hours and days on end” (Freuchen, 158).

In all four relational approaches, there is the self and there is the object. In each way, however, we perceive objects differently. The first three ways are very accessible to us. They are the ways in which we are taught. Materials are known; therefore we can analyze and exploit. We can use them. We can define and take. But we cannot approach and let be. We can bring nature into our world, but we can't enter the world of nature.

The fourth way is one we have lost: namely, the understanding that matter is sacred and can give us knowledge of ourselves. But it is this approach that leads to discovery. We don’t know what a stone truly is, or what rubbing a circle on a stone will cause—but we do know that such an action will give birth to something new.

We've defined materials in relationship to ourselves; how would materials define us in relationship to them? How would stone define humans in relationship to itself? Would stone see us as a disturber? Or would stone see us as an extension of itself as we cut, grind, and stack it in our artificial mountains?

We cannot go into the world of stone to answer these questions, and so I will concentrate on stone in our world, and on the four ways of relating to it that I have just described. All four are similar in that each is conceived from a human point of view and perception. All four are mysterious: I have a vision of myself on the surface of a rock hurtling through space, and I wonder why I am not blown off, as I have seen particles of earth fly off a rock I have thrown.

Who is going to say which side of earth is down so that we can set the scale underneath that will tell us the whole weighs 6.6 trillion tons? What in the world is CaCO3, and why does it define calcite? It is like entering into the magic squares of Durer’s Melancholia; even if I thought I understood CaCO3, in time it would still prove to be a mystery. Perhaps a linguistic scholar understands *sti - a stone; perhult akin to *sta, but to me it is in the realm of the unknown. The fourth approach, however, is mysterious in a different way. It goes beyond what I do not know into a possibility that something new will be born. Rubbing a stone on a rock for days on end is something I know about. I have polished a piece of stone sculpture. The material is put into motion as part of my body, and I become part of the motion of a still larger stone, which in turn makes the same motions as it travels through the universe. I become a link in the movement of the universe as it circles through space, and thus become a part of a mystery. I am within and participating in that mystery, not outside it, where it can only be regarded and defined.

This mystery is sacred, and it is by way of this sacred mystery that I explore the mythology of stone. It is sacred because it has the quality or power to reveal the place of humanity in the universe. I am in dialogue with that mystery every time I touch stone; it is perhaps the reason for my choice of stone as a sculptor. I am not alone in this dialogue. The sacred as expressed in stone has been present across the whole history of humankind. By going into some of that history, I will perhaps discover my own connections with the universe. Perhaps I won’t. In any case, I will be faithful to the dialogue with my material.

Taking the Side of Things

The French writer Francis Ponge takes the side of things. Having felt that he couldn't grasp absolute truths in ideas, he opted for to search for truth in objects. The physical forms of materials that we interact with every day could be trusted, he felt, whereas those truths found in ideas could be invalidated by contradictory ideas. Because there is no acquired capital, no solid ground to step on or over, ideas remain in a state of flux like the sea, and in Ponge they provoked feelings of nausea. “However, ideas, opinions, strike me as determined in each of us by something quite different from free will or judgment. I don't know anything more subjective. I really don't understand how one can be proud of them, and what I find intolerable is that one tries to impose them on others” (Ponge 81).

In his essay "My Creative Method,” Ponge explains his mistrust of ideas, and then goes on to explain why he has devoted himself to cataloging and defining objects in the external world. He asks himself, “How is it then that there is more than one dictionary in the same language during the same period, and yet their definitions of the same objects are not identical? How is it that what one finds there seems to be more a definition of words than of things? Why is there this difference between the definition of a word and the description of the thing designated by the word? Why is it that dictionary definitions seem to be so lacking in concreteness and descriptions so incomplete, so arbitrary, so capricious? Couldn't one imagine some kind of writing which, placing itself more or less between the two (definition and description), would borrow from the former its infallibility; and from the latter its respect for the sensory aspect of things” (Ponge, 83)?

In his book Taking The Side of Things, Ponge chooses objects, and in writing about them he lets his writing fall between definition and description. There is thus a delight in his writings, a certain joy discovered, as he lives and works in this physical world of wonderful objects, objects which exist in themselves and therefore do not ask for human approval of their being. What Ponge is trying to define is important, because he is exploring a major crisis facing our civilization: how we relate to our material world. We have lost touch with objects themselves. “What is completely spontaneous in man as he touches the earth is an immediate feeling of familiarity, sympathy, or even veneration of matter: Is anything more fitting for the spirit? Whereas spirit venerating spirit . . . Can you see that? One sees only too much of it” (Ponge, 152). Our product-oriented society has become interested only in the ends to be gained from products. We exploit the raw materials given to us from the earth, and we don’t know where to dump the trash we leave behind. Ponge points out that a look at how objects are defined in any dictionary will confirm that the ideas about objects have become more important than the objects themselves; the abstraction is the important thing. We are drowning in our own creations. William Carlos Williams captures this fact in his poem “To Elsie” when he writes, “The pure products of America / go crazy—” and “as if the earth under our feet / were / an excrement of some sky."

How can we change this direction? It will happen only if we develop a love for this place called earth. We must change our viewpoint that heaven is someplace else and see it instead as part of this world, this earth, this place. We must understand our coexistence with the matter we share space with.

Ponge devotes a long section in Taking the Side of Things to the pebble. He begins by describing the pebble as a form or state of stone somewhere between rock and gravel. He goes back to the very beginning of time, sees stone as the earth, and follows it as it wears away through natural processes to rock, pebble, gravel, and finally, sand. He understands the history of the earth as continual perpetual disintegration. Larger fragments—slabs of stone—nuke the global skeleton, and on them nature germinates, invades, and fractures. It is a natural process of living and dying. Plants linger, fade, and die away; they leave seeds which germinate and continue their attack on stone. In this process Ponge finds a paradox: life pretends to envy the indestructibility of its setting, but it contributes to the continued disintegration of that setting. In this duality, “it mistakenly believes its foundation may one day fail it, while believing itself to be eternally renewable. To die and live again, plants, animals, gasses, and liquids move, more or less rapidly. The great wheel of stone seems to us, practically, and even theoretically immobile; we can only imagine a portion of its slowly disintegrating phase. So contrary to popular opinion which makes stone in man’s eyes a symbol of durability and impassiveness, one might say that stone, which does not regenerate, is in fact the only thing in nature that constantly dies” (Ponge, 73).

Ponge made an important discovery: all forms of stone, in all their stages, exist simultaneously in the world. No generations, no past, not any one person can touch the full potentials of the world as fully as stone can. In the world of stone, there are no conceptions; everything exists.

Ponge ends his contemplations by describing water and stone. Water is the element which has the strongest effect on stone, and it is the most opposite in character ton stone. It is liquid; it cannot hold its own form but is a dive to gravity. (We can shape it to our own desires, even lead it through pipes.) It is water that shapes the pebble; but try as it might to penetrate the pebble, water can only wear it away. The pebble may come out smaller as a result of its interaction with water, but it will be intact. However, it does away with the water entirely and with no effort. Once the pebble is removed from the water, the water dries immediately and disappears. “So that when vanquished, it finally becomes sand. [But] water can still not penetrate it. Keeping all traces except those of liquid, which limits itself to trying to erase all other traces, it lets the whole sea filter through, which disappears into its depth without in any way being able to make mud of it" (Ponge, 76).

All of this happens and exists without our having anything to do with it. But we do not seem happy with simply understanding and observing the phenomena. We try to enter into them, to bring them into our own realm. We force stones, plants, and animals into our conceptual chaos in order to seek to satisfy our own human pleasures. We do not often wonder about the civilization of the stone until someone like Ponge shares his sensibilities with us and invites us to consider ourselves as part of the greater world: “Such is the globe's appearance today. The severed cadaver of the being that was once the world’s grandeur now serves merely as a background for the life of millions of beings infinitely smaller and more ephemeral. In places, their crowding is so dense it completely hides the sacred skeleton that was once their sole support” (Ponge, 8).

Omphalos and Lapis Manalis

There is a stone that links us with the earth and the heavens. It is shaped like a dome and found all over the earth. It is the navel stone, the omphalos. Its name is derived from the stone found at the Temple of Apollo at Delphi, Greece. “It is the identification of The Great Earth Mother with stone (Neumann 260).”

The Great Mother is the identification in the psyche of the feminine. It has often taken on symbolic form in the material of stone: in mountains, pillars, rocks. The identification of stone with the navel also has symbolic manifestations; it reminds us of our own connection with the cosmos. The uterus, the mother-body, the navel-cord—all are symbols of dependency and existence outside of the individual. The navel remains part of the individual as the sole mark of this original physical connection and ongoing psychological relationship. The navel has also been regarded as the seat of the soul, given its proximity to vital organs.

The omphalos signifies a change in human understanding of the relationship between humans and the earth. It characterizes a shift from a celestial geography to a terrestrial one, and became a symbol for the peopling of the land (Rank, 192). The omphalos was first seen as the navel of a particular group's homeland: it individualized one's relationship to the earth Later it became abstracted to symbolize the whole earth. As a sacred symbols that brought the heavens down to the earth, the omphalos was located at sites of mountain peaks (Rank, 192). The highest points of land elevation became the sacred spots.

In contrast to the omphalos, the peak-navel, which led to the erection of religious buildings on mountaintops, there is the lapis manalis—the soul stone. In early urban design, the city was built around a center called the mundus, which contained a comb-like, circular pit called a fossa, the lower part of which was considered sacred, offering access to the spirits of the dead and the gods of the underworld. The pit was closed with a flat round stone called the lapis manalis (Rank, 192).

We can perhaps interpret the building of towns on the low land as a profane activity; the temple, symbolizing heavenly spiritualism, was erected on the sacred highlands. Maybe we can also understand the myth of the building of the Tower of Babel in light of the sacred/profane duality. Out of the center of commerce, an insolent skyscraper was built to reach into the heavens, the most sacred of places, the omphalos.

What does an omphalos look like? The marble omphaloi from Delphi are cone shaped, rounded, and not pointed. They are cut from larger blocks and the remaining mass becomes the base, an anchor. They have an erratic snake-like form in relief covering the stone (a navel cord?). They may be considered phallic in shape, resembling the lingam in Tantric art; the snake-like projections are seen as similar to the flashes on lingams, the female-separating energy. Or they may be thought of as closer in form to the egg; there are, in fact, egg-shaped lingams portrayed with the snake kundalini coiled about them.

Twentieth-century sculptor Louise Bourgeois makes sculptures based on the same form as the omphalos: “sometimes I am totally concerned with the female shapes—cluster of breasts like clouds —but often I merge the imagery—phallic breasts, male and female, active and passive. We are all vulnerable in some way. And we are all male-female” (Bourgeois, 56). The omphalos combines heaven and earth; it also combines the physical and natural worlds.

The omphalos is stone.

Creation

Tunkan—the stone God—is the oldest spirit, we think, because he is the hardest. He stands for creation, you know, like the male part. Hard, upright, piercing like the lance and arrow heads fashioned from it in the old days.

—Lame Deer

The future doesn't exist, or if it does exist, it is the obsolete in reverse.The future is always going backwards. Our future tends to be prehistoric.

—Robert Smithson

Lame Deer explains the role stone plays in the creation of the world. It was there, as it is here today, because it is the most permanent material in nature. Robert Smithson observes that how we began seems to be of the utmost importance to us; we yearn our way back to beginnings. His work seems to be a reflection of this yearning. And although his statement on the future tends, on first reading, to sound negative, it is in fact a positive repositioning of man within the realm of nature's process. “The world was created by God the ruler; he who was hidden within the stone, hidden within the night, was born, where there was neither heaven nor earth. Then he came out of the stone and fell into the second stone. Then it was he declared his divinity” (Roys, 111). Thus begins the creation of the world, as described in The Book of Chilam Balam of Chumayel. Although this book was completed in 1782, long after the end of the Mayan civilization, it contains very little European material and is based upon prophecies and history as recounted by Balam, the last and greatest prophet of the Mayan people. Balam lived during the last decades of the fifteenth century, and probably into the beginnings of the sixteenth century. He came into prominence by foretelling the coming of strangers from the East who would establish a new religion. The books were written in the Mayan language, but in European script. They contain chronicles, fragmentary historical narratives, rituals, prophecies, native catechisms, mythological accounts of the creation of the world, almanacs, and medical treatises.

I like Balam’s account of the beginning of the world. It begins with God falling between a series of stones. Then, “he loosened himself from his stone and declared his divinity” (Roys, 111). Why is he created out of a stone? Lame Deer points out that stone is the hardest and most durable of materials. This North American Indian called the stone god Tunkan, a name that has its beginnings with the Mayans. The Mayan word for a precious stone is tun; the word for an ordinary stone is tunich. Tun is also a term used in the measuring of time; it equaled 365 days. Balam tells us that God was hidden within the stone "where there was neither time nor space” (Roys). The key word here is "where"; "when" is not spoken of. Thus the creation is placed beyond time. For the Mayans, the "first time" was outside material creation, so that God had to 35 descend to the "second time” before he could declare his divinity. Is the reference to stone (tun), to tGod continued creating the heavens and earth from stones. Hebones, the only son of God, was born upon the stone of his father; man was born of stone when moisture fell upon it. It is interesting that God, at the first heaven, has a stone in one hand and in the other his kabal, the Mayan potter's wheel. On the potter’s wheel were “hung the four changing winds," and the stone was used to create the planets, "which he held in his grasp when he created them” (Roys, 111).”

England

England and stone—I’ve always thought of them together. Perhaps one reason for this association is that the British Isles themselves are stones rising out of water. To be in England is to feel the stones beneath one's feet and to be aware of the water not far off. is that the British Isles themselves are stones rising out of water. To be in England is to feel the stones beneath one's feet and to be aware of the water not far off.

England and stone—the relationship here is a healthy one. Whatever has been done with stone has been inquisitive, and has grown out of a spiritual connection with the earth and the earth’s larger home, the universe. In England, there was no impulse to alter stone into a human image, no need to box physical bodies in pyramids as the Egyptians did, no cutting of stones into narcissistic images to grace temples as the Greeks did. In England stone was left freestanding in nature's elements; it conveyed the extending of forms into space beyond human dimensions and imagery. There is in England no St. Peter's Basilica with its round of stone popes, no giant statues of pharaohs long lost in the sand; there is only and always simple undressed stone. Even in Westminster Abbey, the coronation stone was meant to confer wisdom on kings, but was never used by kings as an emblem of their power. The king was nothing compared to the stone.

Earthworks, standing stones and circles of prehistory, archaic carvings, ancient buildings and other stone structures, hill figures, mazes, trackways and leys—all of these are found in England. And yet, according to a psychometrist in the presence of stone, “the stone is quite impersonal. I can get no history from it. It has no power to absorb earth radiations . . . is in a constant state of transmission of cosmic energy” (Bord, 31). The earthworks are huge mounds of earth constructed to alter or enhance the currents of natural energies that flow through the body of the earth, according to one theory. The largest mound in Europe is in England. Called Silbury Hill, it is 130 feet high and covers 5 1/4 acres. Its purpose remains a mystery, but a recent investigation has found that it contains small groups of up to four stones each. by kings as an emblem of their power. The king was nothing compared to the stone.

The most impressive standing stones and circles are Stonehenge and Avebury. Both are thought to be solar and moon temples whose design was predicated on the movements of the heavenly bodies. Many individual standing stones exist, and some are situated within a complex of earthworks. Some were carried to a sacred location and others were left where nature had brought them. All of them have been given some unique shape by nature.The crosses differ from standing stones in that humans gave them their form, although some were left close to their natural shape. Many individual standing stones were covered with petroglyphs. The earliest chippings on the surface show only symbols; later, letters and words appear. Nothing is known of the meanings of the early "cup and ring" symbols, though they have been associated with stars due Ancient stone buildings can still be found in England that were either underground chambers called weems, or round towers called brochs. The underground chambers are thought to be rooms where the earth’s energies were focused, benefiting the occupants. Less is known about the round towers, but it may be that they, too, acted as magnifiers of the earth’s energy.to their nebula formations and the optical impressions they thereby create.

The hill figures found on slopes in England were cut into the soft stone chalk. Some were regulars cleaned over the years, while others were allowed to become overgrown.The Uffington White Horse, one of the most well-known, measures 360 feet wide, and is best viewed from above. The purpose of this and other hill figures is still a mystery. Perhaps they were simply land markings; perhaps they were related to worship of the sun.

At one point, mazes were found all over Britain, but most have now disappeared, having been plowed over. But one maze, constructed of small stones, still exists. It is named Camperdizil Point, which can be translated at “sunrise motion," and which may denote a connection with sun worship.

One of the strangest uses of stones has been as markers for what are called leys. If you take any survey map of Britain and circle sacred locations such as standing stones, earthworks, churches, and other sacred sites, you will find you can run straight lines through the circles; they will align. ThesOne of the strangest uses of stones has been as markers for what are called leys. If you take any survey map of Britain and circle sacred locations such as standing stones, earthworks, churches, and other sacred sites, you will find you can run straight lines through the circles; they will align. These alignments are thought by some to be a notation of the earth's energy moving across the land.e alignments are thought by some to be a notation of the earth's energy moving across the landThese various uses of stone have been well described and detailed in books such as Mysterious Britain. What I wonder as I contemplate the stone uses and sites relates to the overall fabric: what purposes did all of these stone arrangements serve? I don’t know, and I marvel at their existence and wonder at their uses. I feel that they connote peacefulness and a respect for the earth and her materials..

Why are these various uses of stone so numerous in and seemingly unique to the British Isles? Perhaps it is only that they are better preserved there. England, unlike most other countries, has suffered little from invading forces. If Egypt hadn’t been centered on the crossroads of Asia and Africa, would more of its relationship to stone been preserved? If the Incas had not been destroyed by the Spanish, would more stone works have been found there? There are no answers to those questions. What is known is that in England, many sites attest to the human connection felt with stones. The mysteries of the connections challenge our thoughtfulness, but not our fears. They seem to speak to our spirit.

Stones of Camus

Innocence needs sand and stones. And man has forgotten how to live with them.

—Albert Camus

In Albert Camus’s essay "The Minotaur,” the stone is king. Set under the strong, baking action of the North African sun, where nature refuses to let things grow, the essay is about the human fight to survive, to exist. The battle is waged against stones. In Camus’s North Africa, the world does indeed seem to be “a large ball of rock,” an unchanging and unnatural home for people.

Oran is a city poised on the edge of land; in one direction is the sea, and in the other are the stones of the desert. Both sea and sand are capable of smothering a human. “It is impossible to know what stone is without coming to Oran. In that dustiest of cities, the pebble is king” (Camus, 120). Pebbles are everywhere, bought in with the dust of the desert. Whatever is living is soon almost petrified by a layer of dust, and objects are seen through a dusty film that creates a dense and impassable universe. The dust and stones destroy the past and the present cannot be seen.

The minotaur of the essay’s title enters the city as boredom. The capital of boredom, Oran, is surrounded by an army in which every stone is a soldier. In the city, and at certain hours, however, what a temptation to go over to the enemy! What a temptation to identify oneself with those stones, to melt into that burning and impassive universe that defies history and its ferments.This is doubtless futile—but there is in every man a profound instinct which is neither that of destruction nor that of creation. It is merely a matter of resembling nothing (Camus, 121).

Boredom has entered as the stone, as the unfeeling, mute stone that will not undergo any change. Man loses a sense of his own existence, and inactivity sets in. This inactivity of nothingness must be understood, and after that awareness can come into being. The sun will someday crack the stone; a seed blown by the wind will be caught in the crack; life will begin again. Life will cause changes, and for Camus the answer is to accept both states as one: to know both sleep and wakefulness as parts of the same whole. "If stone can do no more for us than the human heart, it can do just as much” (Camus, 132).

For the people of Oran, this awareness takes the form of a frontal attack on the stone. They create a stone jetty that pushes its way out into the sea. The people attack the mountains with dynamite, and they transport the loosened rubble to the sea and dump it there. And all the while, the wind is continuing to dump its own piles of stones and pebbles on the city. “Destroying stone is not possible. It is merely moved from one place to another” (Camus, 129).” While the people of the city move stone from one location to a different one, nature moves stone into the void that they have created: "the whole city has solidified in a stone matrix” (Camus, 121). In this activity, humans will never triumph, and their actions will soon cease to have any meaning; when tomorrow comes they will start all over again, even as nature, in the form of wind, deposits more stone on the land and, in the form of the sea, wears down the stones on the jetty. Caught in these hopeless rounds of activity, each person must make a choice: one can continue, or one can stop. For Camus, the important thing is to find meaning in the desire to persevere.

Camus writes harshly about the stones that define this activity, but he also writes about the beauty to be found in nature. He finds that beauty in the stones of a beach near Oran and in the stones found in the solitude of deserts far from Oran. Living with both the beauty and the struggle is part of the innocence that Camus knows we need. But, he recognizes that we too often only interpret stone in the context of our own point of view, in relationship to the struggle. Stones would do very well without us, but could we survive without stone? If we had no stones, would we have to invent them to define our own activities? We have a choice. We can lose ourselves in the harshness of this world, or in the beauty of this world—or we can embrace that harsh beauty and work with it. “It is noon; the very day is being weighed in the balance. His rite accomplished, the traveler receives the reward of his liberation: the little stone, dry and smooth as an asphodel, that he picks up on the cliff. For the initiate the world is no heavier to bear than this stone. Atlas’s task is easy; it is sufficient to choose one’s hour. Then one realizes that for an hour, a month, a year, these shores can indulge in freedom" (Camus, 133).

A face that toils so close to stone is already stone itself.

—Albert Camus

Camus’s imagery based on stone is nowhere more profound than in his description of Sisyphus, a character with whom I identify greatly. Working each day with stone, I wonder where all this labor is taking me. I finish one piece, turn, and begin the next, hoping that this will be the time I will state all that I have to say about sculpture. Camus is interested in that moment of turning, as he describes Sisyphus's pause on the descent of the hill " before he returns again to his labors. There is the moment of awareness, of tragedy and joy, of happiness and the absurd. To understand this moment, you must also know its opposite, for it is out of their intersection and the struggle to embrace them both that you find freedom.

“When the images of earth cling too tightly to memory, when the call of happiness becomes too insistent, it happens that melancholy rises in man’s heart; this is the rock's victory, that is the rock itself. The boundless grief is too heavy to bear. But crushing truths perish from being acknowledged” (Camus, 90).

Twentieth-Century Stone Sculpture

A few blocks of stone really carved are very nearly sufficient base for a new civilization. The garbage of three empires collapsed over Gaudier’s marble.

—Eza Pound

Thus Ezra Pound described his friend, the sculptor Henri Gaudier-Brzeska. Despite having died in the First World War at the age of twenty-three, Gaudier built the concept of modern sculpture with his stones. How was he able to do this? He freed the stone from its chains to the imagery of humankind and returned it to its own self-imagery. He was, in fact, groping his way back to Stonehenge. He wrote about his formation of the sculpture called Vortex: “The fair Greek saw himself only. He petrified his own semblance. His sculpture was derivative, his feeling for form secondary. The absence of direct energy lasted for a thousand years . . . [But] we have crystallized the sphere into the cube, we have made a combination of all possible shaped masses concentrating in them our abstract thoughts” (Pound, 24).

I have chosen stone for the same reasons Gaudier did. It has the paradox of being both old and new at the same time. I'm doing the same work that has been done for thousands of years, but which has been lost for the past five hundred years. Pound described what I believe: “[Form is) an arrangement of masses in relation. It is not an empty copy of empty Roman allegories that are themselves copies of copies. It is not a mimicry of external life It is the energy cut into stones, making the stone expressive in its fit and particular manner. It has regard to the stone” (Pound, 110).

“Stone is hard and concentrated and should not be falsified to look like flesh—it should not be forced beyond its constructive build to a point of weakness, it should keep its hard tense stoniness" (James, 69).

These ideas about ‘‘truth to materials" were familiar concepts to the sculptor Henry Moore. Around 1928, Moore began to make a habit of examining and collecting pebbles. In 1932, he used a pebble, one with a hole through it, as a beginning for a sculpture. In 1934, he made small biomorphic sculptures, like forms found in nature, by working on found pebbles. He did not do much more than modify the pebble’s shape; it is impossible to judge from the finished sculpture what of the form was found and what was imposed. He carved a hole through a pebble in one 44 case, but the hole might equally well have been present in the pebble when he found it. “Pebbles and rocks show nature's way of working stone. Smooth, sea-worn pebbles show the wearing away, rubbed treatment of stone and principles of asymmetry” (James, 112).

After 1934, Moore's stone carvings still generally reflect the study of "smooth, sea-worn pebbles,’’ but they begin to differ from those which actually began as pebbles, by having a sharp edge somewhere to contrast with the smoothly modulated curves that might have been shaped by the sea. From 1936, the sharp edges multiplied; the carving became more angular than curvilinear. “Rocks show the hacked, hewn treatment of stone and have a jagged, nervous block rhythm (James, 37). At that time, Moore made only one small piece with this “jagged, nervous block rhythm," but from 1959 onwards, in his series of two-piece reclining figures, he made much of the idea of imitating rocks.

Clearly Moore’s starting point with stone was the same as Gaudier’s: both went back to the early human concept of the sacred in stone. Sculpture can be either a sacred object or a mere knickknack. The primitive belief that material objects are inhabited by spirits is implicit in the doctrine of being true to the essence of the material. “One of the first principles of art so clearly seen in primitive work is truth to material; the artist shows an instinctive understanding of his material, its right use and possibilities” (James, 74).

Nevertheless, Moore also affirmed the artistic sensibilities necessary to shape the materials: "otherwise a snowman nude by a child would have to be praised at the expense of a Rodin or a Bernini” (James, 74). And, when Moore did choose to make his "rock-like sculpture,” he chose not stone but a more tractable material, plaster—a soft, molding material he wanted to render as hard!

Moore’s work fluctuated between abstractionism and representation. He often stated that abstraction was a flight from reality; maybe he wanted to reassure himself that his work wasn't an escape, and that is why he became preoccupied with natural objects. He wanted his sculpture to look organic and hard. He wanted it to evoke an image other than itself. He wanted the shapes that his sculptures were derived from to maintain their mysterious ambiguity. Perhaps Moore’s convictions about the value of natural objects were enhanced by an equally strong belief that his abstract forms were obeying some authority beyond that of his own creativity, and that they were therefore not arbitrary, not products of mere personal taste or fantasy; rather, he saw them as sanctioned by nature, and not simply as representations of his own preferences, his own decisions, his own way of working stone.

These abstract carvings have not really satisfied me because I have not had the same hold over them that I have as soon as a thing takes on a kind of organic idea. I think of it as having a head, body, limbs; as the piece of stone I carved evolves from the first rounding-out stages, it begins to take on a definite human personality and character" (James, 78).

Henry Moore’s musings make me question why I, too, work in stone. I think it has a lot to do with ability and ease. The technique of stone carving came easily to me from the first stroke of the hammer on a chisel; I felt satisfaction from the sound that the stone made upon being struck. I felt as if I had always done such things, as if I had been born with hammer and point in hand. I knew the technique and path my mind took—a path often dictated by the feel of the stone. I love the activity of cutting.

I have worked on all varieties of stone and responded to the differences each stone asked for in the way of treatment. But now I no longer work in all stone; rather, I have chosen to express myself in limestone. Its natural gray color does not interfere with the forms. Often a pretty stone such as marble covers up bad form because people don’t really look at the form; instead, they respond to the veining of the crystals in the stone. Limestone, a rough, ragged stone, bears traces of the sea: in fact, small sea animals are locked into and within the crystal structure. Limestone is American. The hills I was born in are made of this material, and it gives me pleasure to work in Texas limestone. It's friendly, and it reminds me of my roots. Limestone has good tensile strength, allowing thin slab forms to be cut. It has the strength as well to withstand the noxious air of a city.

The dead weight of stone allows a sculptor to do incredible balancing acts. If the center of a balanced piece of stone is found, the stone can be suspended in the air; the straight drop of dead weight allows this. And if a stone is put out of balance, it will not slip and fall sideways, because the weight can’t fall in a sideways direction.

My ideas on stone have moved toward concerns with structure. I have great freedom in working with this material. I begin the construction in full three-dimensional forms; I allow multiple curves on each individual form; I then group them into a more complex arrangement. Sidney Geist, in his book on Brancusi—one of the finest books ever written on sculpture—sums up in a beautiful way the personal experience of working with stone: “Sculpture should declare its difference from other objects, and offset the possibility of mistake as to its identity. It should recall the possibility of being used in some fashion or of being grasped like an object of use. It should demand and deserve special attention. . . . And it should be made as to maintain itself in the world and its pristine state. In respect to this last condition, it is helpful for sculpture not to have large horizontal surfaces or such concavities as will invite or accept other objects or hold snow, rain, or dust. To the extent that sculpture is deformed or invaded by nature, it belongs to nature. Brancusian form is freed from nature. It is form seen by the light of human intelligence” (Geist, 157).

I am searching constantly for my own direction. Understanding Brancusi’s freedom from nature, and Moore and Smithson's re-sinking into nature , are ways to reflect on my own ongoing dialogue with stone.

Richardson’s Original Monster Rock Band

So you think that rock music is something new under the sun? Well, the title of this section is from a public handbill printed in 1840. The Richardson family built a rock xylophone; after thirteen years of cutting and fitting together, they had an incredible instrument that covered seven octaves. The materials came from Skiddaw, a mountain in England’s Lake District. The stones were rendered musical because of a freak of nature: an active volcano in Skiddaw overflowed and the lava, unable to flow out evenly all around because of other close mountains, became compressed in a very small area. A second instrument was made in 1881. It toured the United States and is now housed in the Museum of Orange, New Jersey. Today these stones are rare, particularly those with deep tones, so it is improbable that another xylophone could be cut.

Stones have been important in other musical traditions as well. There is a Chinese tradition which claims that about two thousand years ago, a complete stone chime was found in a pool. This discovery became a model for future instruments. Another legend dates stone chimes back even further, to about 2300 BCE. From that time we have a chant that refers to a musical stone: "When I smite my musical stone / be it gently or strong / Then do the fiercest hearts leap for joy / And the chiefs do agree among themselves / When ye make to resound the stone melodious / When ye touch the lyre that is called Ch’in / Then do the ghosts of the ancestors come to hear” (Blades, 91).

In Confucian music, the stone was struck to end a verse and to transmit the tone to the next verse. The materials of the instruments in a Chinese orchestra were believed to express the changes and permutations taking place in the universe. The sonorous stone was charted thusly:

---

Lithophones have been found elsewhere in the world: Ethiopia, Nigeria, Venezuela, and in Europe on the islands of Chios and Sardinia. In southern India there are musical stone pillars; there are the Ye stones of the Central Highlands of West New Guinea. In West Polynesia, there is a rite used to prepare the intoxicating drink kava for religious purposes: maidens perform the solemn ceremony of sitting on the ground and pulverizing the roots of a pepper plant on flat sonorous stones; these stones are insulated with small pieces of coconut and tuned to definite pitches. Laura Bolton, in her book The Music Hunter, describes two lithophones found in 1950 in what is now central Vietnam. Made by the Bacsonians, a tropical race of Stone Age people that thus perhaps date the instruments as far back as nine thousand years, they may turn out to be the oldest known musical instruments in the world.

The Rolling Stones have been with us a long time!

Robert Smithson

“My work is impure; it is digged with matter. I'm for a weighty ponderous art. There is no escape from the matter. There is no escape from the physical nor is there any escape from the mind. The two are in a constant collision course. You might say that my work is like an artistic disaster. It is a quiet catastrophe of mind and matter” (Robert Smithson quoted in Lippard, 89).

By the mid-1960s, the antiwar movement had begun to be felt throughout all facets of American society. It affected the artist as well. But, artists’ statements didn’t become politicized in the same way the muralists’ did during the Mexican Revolution. Rather, American artists questioned social roles and the way artists handled their work in a consuming society. They questioned art objects for sale in a market equipped with distributors, magazines, dealers, museums, collectors, critics, and historians. They questioned three thousand years of the art object, and how it was put to use by kings, popes, burghers, social causes, problems, greeting cards, governments—and now that new power, the corporation. The result of this questioning was an art that had very little to do with the aesthetics that art history and criticism studied.

There was, suddenly, art that didn’t look like art. It had its roots in the end of World War I, the Dada movement and Marcel DuChamp, but it felt like a brand-new phenomenon. This new art was called minimalism. Its intention was reflected in its name; the form was reduced until it reached a point where it just didn’t look like sculpture or painting. As interest in the art object lessened, there developed new interest in the process of making, in the artist’s perceptions and plans, and even the artist himself. Gone was interest in the art object—which had, indeed, ceased to be an "object.” As usual, however, everyone underestimated the flexibility of the art market and its long tradition; our society seems very able to incorporate any protest. Minimalism became an art movement and attached itself with ease to the three thousand years of Occidental art.

One of those artists who questioned and continued to pursue new directions was Robert Smithson. He was seen to be working in new ways, but actually his earthworks seem to predate all our concepts of Western art. Rather than abstracting concepts and materials, his work was done in natural environments and was involved with geological changes. Smithson embraced his own destiny; he embodied all the contradictions and confusions of our society; he created a body of work that expressed innocence.

“Actually, it is the mistakes we make that result in something. There is no point in trying to come up with the right answer because it is inevitably wrong. An art against itself is a good possibility, an art that always returns to essential contradictions. I’m sick of positivists, ontological hopes, and that sort of thing, even ontological despairs. Both are impossible” (Smithson quoted in Lippard, 89).

Robert Smithson’s long walk began in 1966 with a piece called Tar Pool and Gravel Pit. It made reference to the tar pits of California, where skeletal remains of dinosaurs were found. In this work, geological processes were the subject: what happens when tar cools and flattens into a sticky deposit? The Tar Pool was shown in a gallery, isolated from real geological processes. Out of it grew the concept of "non-sites," given the neutral environment of the gallery. That quality of neutrality was explored in a variety of ways. Sometimes the insertion of mirrors resulted in material that became pure illusion. Another aspect of non-site work used maps as a substitution for materials.They were cut up, repositioned, and overlapped; they became his most ’‘finished” works. If you have a love of maps as I do, finding magic in them, you can’t help but be awakened to new ways of reviewing a map by the way Smithson made perspectives push, recede, and blend into each other.

In 1966, Smithson was a consultant for an architectural-engineering firm that was competing for the design of the Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport. The project would have allowed Smithson to realize his work outside of the art world. It did not materialize, but it was a catalyst for Smithson to begin to explore other possibilities, including the concept of “site work”--work that would have its place in its natural setting. Smithson listed some variables between "site" and “non-site” work:

• SITE                                NON-SITE

• 1. Open Limits                   closed limits
• 2. series of points               an array of matter
• 3. outer coordinates            addition
• 4. subtraction                     inner coordinates
• 5. indeterminate certainty  determinate certainty
• 6. scattered information     contained information
• 7. reflection                        mirror
• 8. edge                                center
• 9. someplace (physical)      no place (abstraction)
• 10. many                            one

(Schum, np)

Smithson chose the Yucatan for his first site work, and he brought to it an element from his nonsite work: the placement of mirrors. “Reflections fall into mirrors without logic and in so doing invalidate every rational assertion” (Smithson, Incidents, 30). This was the only time Smithson used mirrors in site work, although he continued to use them in non-site work. That same year, 1969, Smithson worked on his first earthwork free of artificial qualities.The Asphalt Rundown involved the flow and displacement of material: asphalt was poured from a truck and allowed to run down an incline. Judging from the color photos, the resulting color combinations were exceptional. Perhaps Smithson had in mind an observation he had made in I966: “Instead of using a paintbrush to make his art, Robert Morris would like to use a bulldozer (Smithson, Towards, 38).” The dump truck had become the paintbrush, and the pigment cascaded down the “canvas." It was a very painterly earthwork.

Partially Buried Woodshed, from 1970, continued his interest in the flowing principle. It was a work pure in intent. There were no mirrors and no aesthetics, nothing but the force of nature. Earth was allowed to accumulate around and on top of a woodshed until the roof beam broke. At that point, the work ended. "The slow flowage makes one conscious of the turbidity of thinking. Slump, debris slides, avalanches, all take place within the cracking limits of the brain" (Lippard, 56).

The Spiral Jetty that Smithson built in 1970 in the Great Salt Lake is his best known work. Composed of a spiral starting on the edge of the lake and spiraling out counterclockwise into the lake, it exists on many levels, both visual and psychological; it remains open to all interpretations.The lake was chosen because of its physical properties, notably a high density of salt that gives it a reddish color and which crystallizes on its border, and thus on the work itself. The color of the water changes as it moves into the spiral, and the rocks composing the spiral change colors as well. It might also have been chosen because of legends that claim the Salt Lake was once part of an ocean and contained whirlpools. The spiral form itself is a mystery containing no past, present, or future; it escapes all systems of thought, aesthetics, history, and philosophy.

A pair of earthworks in Holland stand as a unit. Broken Circle / Spiral Hill, from 1971, involves opposites. The broken circle is connected to earth and water, while the spiral hill equals earth and air. The broken circle lies flat on the horizon ,while the spiral is on an incline.

Smithson did not live to see the completion of his last work, Amarillo Ramp. He died in a plane crash while mapping the work from the air. The work was completed by his wife, Nancy Holt, and his close friends Richard Serra and Tony Shafrazi. People have questioned whether or not it can rightfully be called Smithson’s work. But all three who completed it had been involved with Smithton during the planning stages; they understood his work and what he wanted to achieve. The fact that Smithson also liked to allow chance to play a part in his work, and that he was always open to suggestions and changes, argue for inclusion of the Amarillo Ramp in his oeuvre. The ramp is sited on a private ranch in the panhandle region of Texas, and it is composed of rocks which stand in sharp contrast to the lake and surrounding desert. The lake it sits upon is manmade for the purposes of irrigation; consequently the water level changes and affects the slant of the ramp as it cuts across the low, flat horizon.

“As long as art is thought of as creation it will be the same old study. Here we go again, creating objects, creating systems, building a better tomorrow. I posit that there is no tomorrow, nothing but a gap, a yawning gap. That seems sort of tragic, but what immediately relieves it is irony. It is that cosmic sense of humor that makes it all tolerable. Everything just vanishes.The sites are receding into non-sites, and the non-sites are receding back to the sites, it is always back and forth, to and fro. Discovering places for the first time, then not knowing them” (Lippard, 90).

Why is Robert Smithson so important? I can only answer for myself. Stones, contradictions, and an ability to maintain humor through it all are the essentials of his work. He had a love of stones in all their multi-textures, colors, and forms. He knew them well, how they change and how minerals can work on them. I share that love, but I'm also a robber of stones—cutting, banging, stacking, pushing them to their breaking point. I put them in unnatural settings. Smithson allowed them to continue the natural process of change; I try to arrest them, to fix them down, and at the same time to free them from their environment.

Smithson lived the social and artistic contradictions we are all faced with. All his works are open; none are based on any closed system of thought. His minimal work—in contrast to other minimalists—was based on geometric forms that could either expand or contract.When he 56 resorted to mirrors, it was to enhance that openness. He maintained this vision in the earthworks, and it was a vision that communicated to others. The operator of the front-end loader at the Amarillo Ramp, a man who had worked his whole life doing construction jobs, said that this project "was like going into outer space. You’re going up all the time and just come to an end there, where you don’t know where you go from there” (Holt, 20).

Smithson also faced the contradictions inherent in his acceptance of both site and non-site situations. He could abstract material neutral environments, and even the most artificial rooms that do not ordinarily partake of life: museums and galleries. Later he substituted the photographic image for materials—all the while admitting that photographs steal away the spirit of the work. He created the most public art, and yet it is the least accessible to the public because of its locations.

Smithson also faced the contradictions inherent in his acceptance of both site and non-site situations. He could abstract material neutral environments, and even the most artificial rooms that do not ordinarily partake of life: museums and galleries. Later he substituted the photographic image for materials—all the while admitting that photographs steal away the spirit of the work. He created the most public art, and yet it is the least accessible to the public because of its locations.

All those guide books are of no use.

You must travel at random, like the first Mayans. You risk getting lost in the thickets.

But that is the only way to make art.

—Robert Smithson

The Moon Gets its Rocks Off on Earth

Aldrin: "Neal, didn't I say we might find some purple rocks?” Aldrin was now about to move the television camera. “Find the purple rocks.” (Ryan, 125)

The moon rocks picked up by the astronauts and brought back to earth in 1969 have shed little light on the origin of the moon. One, called the Genesis Rock, turned out to be 4.1 billion years old—roughly half a billion years older than any rock found on earth. A result of the study of the rocks has been that scientists have gone back to an early hypothesis about the origin of the solar system, one that held that all planets were first molten bodies of rock. Analysis of the moon rocks has shown that their chemistry is different, proving that the moon did not come from the earth. But the analysis doesn’t suggest any alternatives.

And the man in the moon ain't talking!

“In Praise Of Limestone”

If it form the one landscape that we, the inconstant ones, Are consistently homesick for, this is chiefly

Because it dissolves in water. Mark these rounded slopes With their surface fragrance of thyme and, beneath,

A secret system of caves and conduits; hear the springs That spurt out everywhere with a chuckle,

Each filling a private pool for its fish and carving Its own little ravine whose cliffs entertain The butterfly and the lizard; examine this region Of short distances and definite places: What could be more like Mother or a fitter background For her son, the flirtatious male who lounges

Against a rock in the sunlight, never doubting

That for all his faults he is loved; whose works are but Extensions of his power to charm? From weathered outcrop To hill-top temple, from appearing waters to

Conspicuous fountains, from a wild to a formal vineyard, Are ingenious but short steps that a child's wish

To receive more attention than his brothers, whether By pleasing or teasing, can easily take. Watch, then, the band of rivals as they climb up and down Their steep stone gennels in twos and threes, at times

Arm in arm, but never, thank God, in step; or engaged On the shady side of a square at midday in Voluble discourse, knowing each other too well to think There are any important secrets, unable To conceive a god whose temper-tantrums are moral And not to be pacified by a clever line Or a good lay: for accustomed to a stone that responds, They have never had to veil their faces in awe

Of a crater whose blazing fury could not be fixed; Adjusted to the local needs of valleys Where everything can be touched or reached by walking, Their eyes have never looked into infinite space

Through the lattice-work of a nomad's comb; born lucky, Their legs have never encountered the fungi

And insects of the jungle, the monstrous forms and lives

With which we have nothing, we like to hope, in common.

So, when one of them goes to the bad, the way his mind works Remains incomprehensible: to become a pimp

Or deal in fake jewellery or ruin a fine tenor voice

For effects that bring down the house, could happen to all But the best and the worst of us... That is why, I suppose,

The best and worst never stayed here long but sought Immoderate soils where the beauty was not so external, The light less public and the meaning of life

Something more than a mad camp. 'Come!' cried the granite wastes, "How evasive is your humour, how accidental

Your kindest kiss, how permanent is death." (Saints-to-be Slipped away sighing.) "Come!" purred the clays and gravels, "On our plains there is room for armies to drill; rivers Wait to be tamed and slaves to construct you a tomb

In the grand manner: soft as the earth is mankind and both Need to be altered." (Intendant Caesars rose and

Left, slamming the door.) But the really reckless were fetched By an older colder voice, the oceanic whisper:

"I am the solitude that asks and promises nothing; That is how I shall set you free. There is no love; There are only the various envies, all of them sad."

They were right, my dear, all those voices were right

And still are; this land is not the sweet home that it looks, Nor its peace the historical calm of a site

Where something was settled once and for all: A backward And dilapidated province, connected To the big busy world by a tunnel, with a certain Seedy appeal, is that all it is now? Not quite: It has a worldy duty which in spite of itself It does not neglect, but calls into question All the Great Powers assume; it disturbs our rights. The poet, Admired for his earnest habit of calling

The sun the sun, his mind Puzzle, is made uneasy By these marble statues which so obviously doubt His antimythological myth; and these gamins, Pursuing the scientist down the tiled colonnade

With such lively offers, rebuke his concern for Nature's

Remotest aspects: I, too, am reproached, for what

And how much you know. Not to lose time, not to get caught, Not to be left behind, not, please! to resemble

The beasts who repeat themselves, or a thing like water Or stone whose conduct can be predicted, these

Are our common prayer, whose greatest comfort is music Which can be made anywhere, is invisible,

And does not smell. In so far as we have to look forward To death as a fact, no doubt we are right: But if

Sins can be forgiven, if bodies rise from the dead, These modifications of matter into Innocent athletes and gesticulating fountains, Made solely for pleasure, make a further point: The blessed will not care what angle they are regarded from, Having nothing to hide. Dear, I know nothing of

Either, but when I try to imagine a faultless love Or the life to come, what I hear is the murmur Of underground streams, what I see is a limestone landscape.

—W. H. Auden, May 1948

Bibliography

• Blades.
• Bolton, Laura. The Music Hunter.
• Bord.
• Bourgeois, Louise.
• Camus, Albert. “The Minotaur.”
• Freuchen.
• Geist, Sind
• Holt, Nancy.
• James.
• Lippard.
• Neumann.
• Partride.
• Ponge. “My Creative Method.”
• Ponge. “Taking the Side of Things.”
• Coca Cola
• Rank, Otto.
• Rich.
• Roys.
• Ryan.
• Schum.
• Smithson, Incidents.
• Smithson, Towards.
• Zim.