Close to the stone ++

[Rick Rothrock <rothrock@xxxxxxxx>]

Clive,

     I have been following this thread with great interest and it seems that
you appreciate in the dissolving Nicola Pissano sculptures the irony  of this
wonderfull act of humanity returning to nature.  With the acid etching are you
trying to capture this image? Striving to create new realities is consistant
with the weastern traditions of democracy,innovation and hope for a better
tomorrow.

    As artists we can attemt to imagine the unimaginable and image a paradigm
of sustainable peace and balance with nature.  Perhaps a futureworld culture
can emerge that presents a progressive break with humanities treacherous past.
I recently heard Joseph Campbell say that future myths of the world needed to
be large and inclusive.  It is possible to create a  future vision of a world
in which interdependance and  individuality can co-exist.  An understanding
that through our differences and our similarities we define each other and our
place in a world.

    Specific conditions necessarily make even the most common of materials
unique. Every environment in which a stone is created has conditions unique to
that time and place.  Even  materials as common as slate, basalt, or siltstone,
all have individual properties unique to their own creation.

    In stone I am working on a metaphor that defines us individually,
spiritually and collectively.  It is less original than it is of the origin.
The stones manifest the fundamental division between us and nature.  Our need
to cut and alter the stones to fit our vision, to image our reality can be
tempered in a way that allows  the nature of the stone  to balance our ego and
cultural identity.

    Just as the soul is an invisable extension of the individual, I submit that
the spirit of nature and the physical universe can be understood and felt as an
extension of individual stones.  That this spirit cannot be seen does not mean
that it does not exist.
It does not look like us. (although I will conceed that it can be written about
and our relation to it can possibly be explored  figuratively.) Images of
peace, balance, tranquility, hope and reconciliation with the spirit of the
earth (nature) are almost necessarily the domain of the abstract.  Any
suggestion that abstraction is a historically irrelevant only confims the fact
that our differnces define the truth that lies between us.

    I respect and admire Maureens' commitment to her craft and her developed
technical skill.  I have seen profoundly important, moving and exsquisitly
carved figurative work .  I also continue to believe that the future has yet to
reveal wonderfull new levels of understanding and communication for us all.

Sincerely,
Rick Rothrock