Let's Get Stoned!
By Solo
5 Mar 2008
Indiana is flat. But beneath that surface is a vast array of stone. This story is about what's below the surface.
My love affair with stone began when a friend took me to an antiques dealer an hour south.
Delmar sells everything, including the sandstone he digs from a cliff on his property. A lifelong gardener, I instantly recognized the possibilities.
I have learned to build dry stone walls and am taking a workshop with the Dry Stone Conservancy in Lexington, Kentucky.
The walls are the most solid and genuine aspects of my garden and bridge the gap between nature and art.
Delmar sold me the four foundation stones from the home he grew up in. These stones held his house above floods. You can still see the marks of the mason's chisel. Today, the stones are silent sentinels in my bonsai garden.
A granite slab serves as a table in my garden. I feel lucky to have caught the still life of stones on the stone on a warm late winter day. The stones have seen thousands of warm late winter days.
Stones are sculpture, without help. But they balance well. It's an art form unto itself and I am an amatuer, at best, but always trying.
I often find fossils in the sandstone. I suspect this was a sea plant when the midwest was under water.
The Japanese revere some stones as art, "Suiseki," or "viewing stones."
Stones are piled on my property waiting for me to put them together. I feel blessed to work with these stones while I can.
