You will find something more in woods than in books. Trees and stones will teach you that which you can never learn from masters.
~ St. Bernard
With the right clothing, freezing temps are not that bad to work with… In my opinion they are intriguing.. Some places are frozen over completely. Others have exposed water flow. The interesting areas for me are where frozen meets flow. Here the ice formation is the most interesting as it dances with the freezing water… This is also where unfrozen rocks can be found (under water), as well as those half frozen.. The temperatures have been so cold that the ice stays extremely hard, which is perfect when it needs the strength of bracing multiple rocks into one large stable piece.
A fascination I’ve always had since I began balancing is observing the entropy of gardens or specific balances. When I left the spot yesterday, I left my favorite and final balance of the day to see how it would interact with overnight freezing temps. As I’d hoped and slightly expected, the balance endured the freezing night and stood silent in brilliant morning sunlight. Any unfrozen moisture usually collects around balance points… And the overnight deep freeze effectively braced the precarious balance with ice…
Here are some photos from this morning..
The “top rock” was a 2-rock ice hybrid (as i like to call them)… At first, I didn’t have any hybrid chunks in mind. I just began breaking small sections of thinner ice and various chunks broke free. a couple happened to be rock hybrids..once I saw one, I continued to be conscious of more.. I love this new ice element. The application of found ice/rock hybrids puts a delicate twist on traditional stone balancing. Many balances are left by people to see how long they last. But with the ice hybrids, the temporal aspect of the balance ultimately depends on temperature. It is like programming a self destruct timer into the stone balance… :)
The air temperature yesterday was about 15 degrees Fahrenheit or -10 degrees Celsius. This morning it was colder… Along with the balancing, I must pay close attention to my own threshold of cold. Frozen everything transforms a well known place into a slightly alien landscape… networks of ice formations filling a variety of levels and spaces throughout the creek.. With everything frozen, I am forced to surrender to the elements. If I’m too cold, I stop for awhile and get warm again. I’ve said before that rock selection is not as forgiving in freezing water. I can be somewhat selective of materials but ultimately the weather dictates what I have to work with. In these temps, the ice is simply immune to any destructive endeavor I can attempt on it.
Mark these words……art lovers of the future will be combing these streams to find and locate the original pickle stones. A signed original, and maybe four or five stones in a starter kit. Guarantee them to balance…we’ll pre balance all the stones so we know they work, send ’em out parcel post,the mail men will hate us but not to worry, …….remember pet rocks?
I love it ….I give the piece a name that I can relate to…..that way if I ever happen to run into that particular pebble , say in some secluded backwater stream, I’ ll recognize it by its previous job as a stand up type of pickle ……so to speak!
Eddie Harrington, the “leaning pickle” is a rock frozen solid into the same chunk of ice with the top rock.. :) the 2 rocks, and ice are essentially one solid piece.
I’m having a difficult time with the leaning pickle…..you know the one I’m lookin’ at. How can it be? This is not possible !
It’s cold out there, Michael!
Wow! It’s like you are using a double medium – rocks and ice! :)
superb!!
So very beautiful,
Today you are bringing balance to my very wobbly life. Thank you.
Amazing talent and gift you have! I enjoy it for sure!
i was skeptical of the strength of ice at first… to be able to brace rocks under the added stress of gravity at funky angles…but the ice is DAMN STRONG in the freezing temperatures.. :)
without the ice, this balance is impossible to make naturally. the melting ice will lead to certain collapse. in this photo, the two top rocks are frozen solid to one another, as one can see with that block of ice hanging off the side…. it is better to conceptualize the 2 upper rocks and attached ice as ONE unit. :)
Yeah it doesnt even look possible, dont get how that tilted skinny one in the middle even works..
clearly defies gravity
May I just add its been no higher than 20 degrees for the past week. So that quote must have more meaning to you then most on this day ;) drink coffee (and baileys)!!!!
ha totally … :D
It must be a right brain, left brain thing. Lol.
all the book knowledge of physics is unnecessary to practice or get an understanding of this art… perhaps we both fail to see eachother’s point. :/ experience exists without masters and books. NOT vice versa… i think BOTH are valuable learning tools. but experiencing nature first hand is infinitely out of the grasp of book knowledge..
You miss my point. Intuition, a ‘natural’ feeling is wonderful. It inspires you and creates a zest for what you are doing. But that goes only so far. You may create intuitive things frequently, but after a while you will seek more knowledge and understanding of what you are creating. It is then that you will seek out books and masters, and learn from what they have to offer…what has gone before. Something as simple as center of gravity.. you may instinctively ‘know’ how to stack something, but you don’t know why it works one time and not another, balance, friction, weight ratios,etc. all that.
.. And surely masters became masters through the wisdom of their experiences- should we die without doing just because someone has told is how it could/ should be done- to do is to learn?!
Keeland, books and masters can be miss leading as you need to be able to understand them. Many humans dont understand there masters and books, religion is a good example. Reattach to Nature by observing it could by helpful for many souls ;)
Very tricky, Mr. Glue!
Keeland, I’m simply pointing out a truth in my own experience… of course I learn from books and “masters”… but i’m also saying there are dimensions to experience that words cannot grasp. books and masters present mainly through language. some things are immune to language, and limited by such..
Sweet.
That dog should stick to hauling kegs to stranded travellers. I love the works of art done and love the fact that inspiration comes from observation, but comprehension of that knowledge does require books and masters. It’s certainly ‘nice’ to do things intuitively, but it’s even better to have the knowledge of why it does what it does consistently.
This one is remarkable, I really appreciate this gift… you share.
love the quote and of course your art
Trees and stones are my masters ;) … beautiful words as well as your work…