Four and a half billion years in the making

(give or take 50 million years)
I launched this site with the above title as a marketing campaign headline.  Although it feels like this site has had a long gestation period, the headline refers to the rocks not the site.  In fact, 4.5 billion refers to the age of our planet. 50 million years is supposed to be the margin of error, but who’s counting? I have arbitrarily set this date as the start of the journey these rocks have taken to arrive within my orbit.  When the matter that makes up our planet coalesced and began to cool on the surface, our first rocks started to form. Many early ones where resubmersed into the magma but slowly a crust formed, and with it a land mass and early rocks.

One stone on this site, a glacial erratic originating from the north of Scotland, is composed of a formation called Gneiss. This is thought to be 3.5 billion years old. I like these time frames. They give a completely different perspective on humanity. This epic time scale and the size of the planet make the all organic nature appear akin to the fuzz on a mouldy orange and humans’ amount to complicated jellies that bumble around for an average of 1000 months before they break down. There is a comfort in knowing that the planet will survive our meddling; we may ruin the planet for ourselves and other biological entities, but the planet will slowly creep toward its inevitable end, regardless the culture of its rind.

Of course, I could have gone back to the Big Bang some 13 billion years ago but then I get all Buddhist and think you cannot put a beginning or an end to anything, there is only flow, only now.

Making A Mark

Most of my sculptures are carved with my mark; this was developed during idle time when I worked as a Letter carver. It is a reverse R using the upright of the letter T which is counterbalanced with a C. These are my full initials, my middle name being Trevor. 

Although not a masons mark as such I have always signed important pieces with it; sometimes the signature becomes a prominent part of the artwork.

A piece of green Borrowdale series slate has a large mark carved into it rather than leaving an open gilded facet.

In one large concrete sculpture I have taken the whole of the forward aspect and carved my mark deep into the concrete which had the result of creating a face or huge head.

Gilt edge

Gilding in my sculpture is not as in letter carving, a rich and lasting colouring of letters,  but rather a form of reverence and celebration. I use gold leaf on the exposed and untouched surfaces that originate from often violent events, such as one rock smashing against another. The point of contact can often be seen where a large flake is broken away from the stone or the stone broken in two entirely. These events in a stone’s journey are celebrated as a moment in time, and a major event in the shaping and forming of these erratics.

I used gold leaf as a letter cutter as gold does not oxidise or deteriorate as quickly as paint.It was seen as a long lasting material that also came from a tradition of show and ceremony. Divinity was depicted with gilded halos and gold often stood in for sunlight.

This is a celebration of imperfection: the crack and the break form part of the beauty in contrast to the polished perfection.

Antropocene erratics

Antropocene erratic (explanation)

Nonglacial erratics 
In geology an erratic is any material which is not native to the immediate locale but has been transported from elsewhere. The most common examples of erratics are associated with glacial transport, either by direct glacier-borne transport or by ice rafting. However, some erratics have been identified as the result of kelp holdfasts, which have been documented to transport rocks up to 40 centimetres (16 in) in diameter. Others are rocks entangled in the roots of drifting logs, and some are transported having been accumulated in the stomachs of seals during foraging.

Anthropocene Erratics
adjective: Anthropocene

1. relating to or denoting the current geological age, viewed as the period during which human activity has been the dominant influence on climate and the environment.

As well as the Glacial and non-glacial erratics, I would add erratics of the anthropocene. Having been in and around the stone industry I have seen the rising globalisation of the movement of stone. Precious stones and stone artifacts have always been moved around by humans: a jewel or good stone tool would be moved along with nomadic tribes. Jadeite ceremonial axes are found all around Europe. There was trade in rocks containing metal ores, the location of these stones would create new trade routes and a rise in status of the people with knowledge about the stone’s location and extraction.

Then there was the moving of larger stones for ceremonial purposes. The time and effort put into the moving of the pillars for Stonehenge would have been

extraordinary. As time marched on and society made steady progress, certain minerals were put to new uses. The prohibitive cost and logistics of moving heavy weights around meant that only economically and industrially precious stone was moved long distances. Building stone was nearly always locally sourced and exotic imports of decorative stone would be kept to a minimum unless great show of wealth was required, for example in Cathedrals and Palaces. The rise of industrial revolution saw the first mass movement of stone. The use of stone as ballast in shipping saw the moving of stone around the planet in ever greater quantities. Unlike glacial and natural erratics, anthropocene erratics are selective.

When I started in the memorial trade at the beginning of the 1980’s, local stone was still used where possible as imports were still classed as expensive. The two main sources of import were Italy for white marble and India for black granite. Until that point Swedish Bonaccord black granite was the most expensive and finest quality black granite, closely followed by first quality Indian and at times South African black granite. Apart from the European sources the stones were empire imports. 35 years on there is a choice of decorative stones from all around the world and it is available in abundance thanks to modern extraction techniques, tooling and transportation. In my workshop I have stone from all corners of the British Isles plus specimens from Brazil, China, Venezuela, India, Africa, Afghanistan, North America, Russia, Norway Italy, France and Spain.

These anthropocene erratics have mingled with the glacial erratics I have collected. By selecting glacial erratics and relocating them from my studio I transform them into anthropocene erratics.

Gneiss Eratic glacial boulder (3.5 billion years old)

Polishing stones and Yugen

Polishing produces a lens into the stone; it gives us an otherwise unseen glimpse into the rock’s history written in a physical language of minerals. By polishing the surface we can define individual grains and crystals, see the depth and range of tone and read the makeup of the stone.

There are infinite varieties of colour and pattern caused by random chance, but these can only be viewed by polishing the surface of the stone. These polished boulders are snapshots of an ongoing process. They bear witness to a violent and chaotic birth, the unleashing of immense energy and the crushing pressure of gravity and time. Many are igneous volcanic rocks with fine crystals that tell of rapid cooling. Others have large crystal formations from slow cooling at the centre of lava flows or pools. Differing minerals form a vast range of colour and contrast. The process and heaving and shifting produces cross banding and fracturing that become infilled with mineral veins. Some of the rocks I have carved and polished are thee and a half billion years old.

Others are sedimentary and can include signs of life such as fossils of shells, plants or corrals.

However long we choose to gaze at these polished stones, it is a still a brief glimpse of the object on its endless journey of atrophy or transformation on a timescale beyond humanity. When I select, polish and present a stone to an audience, I am only temporarily removing it from that journey. That we look at them for seconds or minutes and can comprehend this is what the Japanese call Yugen

Yūgen suggests that which is beyond what can be said, but it is not an allusion to another world.[11]It is about this world, this experience.