Quartzite Quasi-Runic Rock




As brother Waring left the mountain, with a piece of quartzite lap-strapped in the back seat of his Toyota with a piece of plywood and a 2x6 to increase the restraint, he asked me if quartzite was good to carve. The answer is "Its hard." Like granite however, it does submit to diamond technology.

This piece was brought to Long Island from Vermont last fall and was waiting for inspiration to hit. Thursday morning, while writing morning pages (Julia Cameron: "The Artist's Way".....recommended) the runic semblance of the incision on the the Big Stone in Vermont hit me. I like the sense of the nonsense of non-letters from an archaic non-language. Evocative, but without discernible meaning. The margin of the morning pages book recorded this design, and by the end of the work day the design had superimposed itself in the mind's eye on the piece of quartzite. Got home from work, and discovered that the union of vision and material was better than I could have prayed for. Under quartz halogen light (how appropriate) I cut the piece that night. Trimmed the bottom and cleaned up the edges a bit Friday after work in the dwindling daylight.

Louise and I agreed that the piece was complete as is.....well, it does need a broader base for support, but it didn't seem to qualify for mosaic treatment. Vermont Big Stone (Mountain Graffiti) will most likely also remain without mosaic embellishment. I post this under mosaics on the "Mosaics" blog on the website, for lack of a better place. I could create a new blog I suppose. Any suggestions? except of course to keep working....or not. But the sculpture Gods reward vision executed with more vision. Deposit that in the World Vision Bank ....BSB