Rock Steady
In their pursuits of inner peace, two
By Shawn Holiday
It’s a meditation in gravity, balance, form and patience. Silence is critical, as simple, natural objects – rocks—are transformed into something impossibly unnatural. In an instant, all of them can return to their former state, and become a pile of stones lying on the ground. Until next time.
Just the existence and whimsy of these rock-balancing exercises challenge the viewer on many levels. How do hey do that? Is it art or a performance? Is it glued? The audience itself plays an integral part in these performance pieces, which require no sound or light and rely on very little movement. They have found that each rock balances on three points that change with each sculpture as they try to “unlock” new combinations.
Under the moniker “Living Rocks,” the pair calls manyof their creations “
The sculptures can run from knee-high to six feet or more, and may endure for hours or years. The artists sell photographic prints of their sculptures, work with clients to create custom
Visitors to events such as Art Royal at Lee County Alliance of the Arts, Edison Celebration of Art street festival in
They noticed from the earliest days that, when people come across one of their sculptures, the temptation to knock it over is powerful. During their performances, they establish some kind o barrier because many onlookers are fascinated by tumbling rocks. But large pieces levitating high of the ground can be dangerous. Everything has its own center of balance and even the slightest event can upset that delicate balance. A heavy thud on the ground confirms their art’s essence.
The rest of this article is coming soon…
Richwood’s sculpture garden finally has a sculpture. The creation is courtesy of two members of the Rainbow Family who wanted to repay the town for its hospitality during the group’s gathering on a nearby mountaintop.
The 5-foot-tall piece made of flat stone and shaped kind of like an acorn, now occupies the place of honor in the sculpture garden, which wasn’t exactly earning its name, said Mayor Bob Henry Baber. “It had a mural and a fish pond and some other stuff, but it didn’t have any sculptures,” he said.
Crafted by Len and Elizabeth, two Rainbow Family members, who identify themselves only by their first names, the sculpture has an “awesome, meditative, Zen-like quality,” the mayor explained. The main street plot named after famous Richwood wood carver and sculptor Sterling Spencer has existed for seven years. Baber, the Mountain Party’s lone elected official, said he had been too busy since he took office last year to devote much time to the garden.
Then the Rainbow Family came to town. Baber, a poet and teacher quick to describe himself as an old hippie, felt a kindred spirit with the legions of nature-communing folk who traveled through his town earlier this summer. He even hung a banner above the road into the town, welcoming the family. The move proved smart. As the 10,000 folks made their way to
The mayor himself spread the word and attended the gathering one night. He handed out volumes of his poetry and pamphlets describing the town. Working the crowd, checking out the music, and eating the campfire-cooked food reminded Baber of another time in his life. “It was like a little slice of 1968,” he said of the gathering, the family’s first in West Virginia since two of it‘s members were killed here in 1980. The feeling was apparently mutual, and some of the family members spent a few days in Richwood after the party ended. They stayed around, earned some money doing a few odd jobs and, according to Baber, enjoyed the hospitality of a town most famous for ramp dinners and lumberjacks.
To thank the townspeople for their kindness, Len and Elizabeth agreed to make a rock sculpture. They searched the town for proper rocks, and when they couldn’t find any, the city bought $700 worth of stone from Muddy Creek Mountain Stone in Alderson. Baber said residents stopped by to watch the process, and some were so moved they even left little tokens, including tapes, charms and a book. Now the sculpture stands in the garden for all to see and provides a welcome, meditative respite, Baber said. “It was a wonderful gift,” he said. Vikki Mayse, the executive secretary for the Richwood Chamber of Commerce, said townsfolk are talking about the new sculpture, and she expects the conversation to liven up as people come back this week for the Cherry River Festival. “I think it’s pretty,” Mayse said. “It’s different and it’s nice to have a sculpture in the sculpture garden.”
"Earth Day Comes Down to Balance and Belief"
The Daily Courier Prescott, Arizona March 28, 2002
I don't know who did this thing, this impossible thing and maybe its better that way. Dakota and I were out walking the other morning, trying to figure out what Earth Day was all about. At least I was; she was looking for something to chase.
As an occasion, Earth Day hovers somewhere between National Secretaries' Week and Arbor Day. In the former, we take the person who opens our mail to lunch; on the latter, we all love trees. On Earth Day, we give our Mother a cookie, water the flowers and ponder, for a moment at least the difference between domination and stweradship. So we were looking for more, Dakota and I.
Is it about doing the best with what you can afford? Balancing the costs of the new windows or the new insulation against the savings in heating and cooling bills? Is it about dressing out of another age and walking around on stilts? Performing New Age music? Changing your name to Tragic Peregrine Forrest and going on television to talk about how a tree is not a paper towel?
We were walking through Granite Creek Park, and I thought maybe I could bust the local Earth Day crowd by finding garbage left over from Saturday's celebration in the vibrant green grass there. Not a chance. Dakota could hardly even find any patchouli to smell, much less a trace of food wrapper, silk scarves or any other paraphernalia of the arcane.
Then, walking out on the trail by Miller Creek, we found it. Someone, or a bunch of someones, had done the impossible. Not only had they brought rocks to life, they had, intentionaly or not, opened my mind up to a new thought.
There by the creek, across the trail from a heart-shaped ring of little rocks, were the most extraordinary sculptures. Rocks ranging from pebble-size to sleek 50-pounders stood on end, on edge and balanced every which way on other rocks and on each other. Little minature Stonehenge structures stood amidst Goldbergian arrangements evocative of Sothwestern, skyscraping fantasies.
A tiny sign said: "Living Rocks - A Prayer of Peace." Like peace the way the rocks sat on on one another seemed impossible.
After several minutes of observation, my cynicism got the better of me, and I became certain that the sculptures were somehow fastened or stuck. Nice-looking, sure, but there's no such thing as magic and, after all, the ability to glue rocks together is what seperates us from monkeys.
I had to touch one and, to my embarrassment, I did. I lifted the smallest piece - a 3-inch hunk of quartz that stood imposibly on its pointed end, from its perch as part of a larger formation. Of course there wasn't any glue, and of course, after several minutes of trying, I couldn't get that tiny rock to stand back up.
I don't know who did this thing, this impossible thing, but whoever you are, I owe you an apology - and my thanks, for showing me what Earth Day is all about. It's about balance, and it's about believing in things that are true, even if we can't figure out exactly why.
"Life is a Balancing Act, Just Like Couples Stones."
The Daily Courier Prescott, Arizona February 24, 2003
Driving to the meeting on Friday, I wondered whether it's a good thing to plumbs the secrets of a mystery. Almost a year ago, while wandering near Granite Creek Park and contemplating the meaning of Earth Day, my dog, Dakota, and I came across a small graden of impossibly balanced rock sculptures near a small, hand-lettered sign reading "Living Rocks - A Prayer of Peace." The round and oblong stones stood atop one another, reaching out of their normally dirt bound state in defiance of logic and normalcy.
Balanced as they were, the rocks in the sculptures were transient works of art, able to remain in place only until a muscular gust of wind, roaming canine, of insensitive passerby knocked them over, and yet the idea that the marvelouly unlikely can and does happen is of lasting comfort.
After I shared the results of my discovery in this space, I hoped for a call, or an e-mail, or perhaps a gentle blast of cosmic telepathy from the artist, but none arrived until just a couple days ago. Len and Elizabeth, who were passing through town, invited me to coffee. In the mid-afternoon emptiness of a downtown bistro, we talked for an hour or so, and they told me how "Living Rocks" has evolved from a lazy afternoon pastime on riverbanks to an artistic enterprise.
These two Oregonians made a concious decision a coule of years back to get rid of all their possesions and walk. "To where?" was the question and answer all at once. Len, a former entrepreneur who used to run a house-painting business, finds it amuing that he and Elizabeth now balance rocks for a living, traveling the arts and crafts circuit and accepting donations from the awed crowds that watch them work.
According to Elizabeth, the unusual art form dosen't really have anything to do with the rocks. "It's the stillness," she said, the willingness to slow down thoughts and distractions to a quiet enough level that the almost imperceptible "click" of the balance point registers on her senses. Having tried it myself, it's easy to understand her answer to the inevitable question, "How long does it take?" to get an oblong rock to balance on end on top of another, on a windy day, in front of an audience. "One intense moment," is the answer.
They're still roaming, these two, although their means have expanded somewhat. Now, they drive a van, and of course that van is full of the tools of their trade - about 2,000 pounds of rocks. They compile a portfolio of photos from the shows they've done, and many of the rocks have become as familiar as old friends. Some have names: "Pac-Man" and "the Ghost" ride along with the couple in their travels. They're on their way to California's Napa Valley, and they plan to add a tipi to their short list of possesions sometime this year.
Our lives impossibly different but somehow connected, turn out to share what we all share, the truth that life is about balancing the impossible. Success, in whatever form we persue, requires dedication, stillness, patience, and the ability to see something that doesn't yet exist.
Passing through as they were they said they didn't think they'd have time to set up a show in Prescot this time around. On a Sunday morning brake from weekend chores, Dakota and I walked down by the creek and passed the spot where we'd found "Living Rocks" last spring. There, in an earthen triangle between converging paths, stood one balanced stone, rising like an exclamation point on the answer to my question about mysteries. Sometimes it's good to know.