’53 stones & counting’

These stones are not real. They are neither copies nor drawings of stones. They are a response to thoughts about stones. Stones or rocks I have seen or held or collected. They recall materials seen in factories or old doorways, bits of terrazzo or mosaic floors, rubble in a skip, brick pebbles on a beach somewhere or stones in a ploughed field. I live in chalk and flint country, by the sea in Ramsgate. Abstract and strangely shaped flint or chalk pebbles with more holes than pebble under my feet. 

I often find fossils, mostly sea urchins. Their symmetry and pattern catch my eye. An intake of breath, a moment’s elation. A gift of time. I pick up some plastic in return. Unsure it is a fair exchange. These urchins could be 80million years old. A reminder that time is immense. Nothing stays the same. A reminder that stones were once other things; mountains, living things, a riverbed, a cliff-face, a man-made tool, the houses we live in, the glazed pottery we drink from. 

My home is dotted with stones. My garden full of them. Most have a story to tell, I owe them that at least. They are a catalyst to my past and a portal to my imagination.