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The Cosmic Stones as Art Objects
Basically stated the Cosmic Stones are painted stones. By painting them in my pointillistic technique described above, I attempt to visually portray the inner dimension of the stones which, in a symbolic manner, represents the atomic composition of all matter in the Universe. Everything, at least everything we know to be physical reality, is made up of minute particles of matter spinning and shooting around in energetic ways. The geomorphic forms that the stones have taken define their momentary and transitory reality as a physical object.
Like all material forms in the Universe, the Cosmic Stones are transitory. Some forms are more transitory than others. A raindrop has a very limited lifetime before it looses its form and becomes absorbed in the fundament of the environment. People, too, don't last very long on the cosmic scale of time. Organic forms are especially transitory through the constant inter-exchange of matter with the environment. Although the Cosmic Stones are very solid and durable objects of concentrated matter, eventually they will - at some point in time - become dust. All of my art concerns this cosmic and transient quality of nature.
One obvious characteristic of the Cosmic Stone is that stones are dense and heavy. This density of mass subjected to the pull of gravity which determines an object's weight - the gravitational constant . The weight is an indication of the energy that is embodied in a particular stone.
As such , the Cosmic Stones exist as art objects that combine qualities of painting with the aspects of form. While the Cosmic Stones are physical, three-dimensional objects they cannot be classified as sculptures as they are not man-made. Their forms have been determined by the effects of erosion encountered on their long journey as rocks separated from the mountains of their origin, subsequently having being been passed down the mountain streams to the Rhine river where they were deposited on banks of the river before being collected, painted by me and transformed into Cosmic Stones .
Archetypal Consciousness of Form
I believe the process of natural formation endows the Cosmic Stones with a particular spiritual quality that relates to an archetypal consciousness of form. Natural forms contain a sublime sense of numinosity - the mystical and spiritual power of the elemental forces of nature that are embodied in an object.
The art historian Herbert Read [7] has written about this numinous quality of such forms in his book Modern Sculpture (1964) when he discusses the work of the sculptor Henry Moore, The mystical and spiritual - mana- is a quality of animistic vitality that informs all natural forms, not only of organic beings, but all inorganic things in so far as a structure has been given to these by growth (e.g. crystals) or by natural forces (e.g. the erosion of rocks by wind or waves). The artist is someone who is often acutely aware of what Baudelaire called ' correspondences ' - that is to say, real but irrational associations between disparate objects. To the poet these correspondences may be of color, sound or rhythm, but to the sculptor they are always of shape .
Read supplies this quote from the sculptor Henry Moore:
"There are universal shapes to which everyone is sub-consciously conditioned and to which they can respond if their conscious control does not shut them off. ... I have always paid great attention to natural forms, such as bones, shells, and pebbles, etc. Sometimes for several years running I have been to the same part of the sea-shore - but each year a new shape of pebble has caught my eye, which the year before, though it was there in hundreds, I never saw. Out of the millions of pebbles passed in walking along the shore, I choose out to see with excitement only those which fit in with my existing for- interest at the time. A different thing happens if I sit down and examine a handful one by one. I may then extend my form-experience more, by giving my mind time to become conditioned to a new shape? " [8]
The Transformation of Form through Painting and Process
By isolating the stones from their natural environment and selecting them to become artworks, as an artist I have effectively, although momentarily, altered their destiny as normal stones. Through the application of my microcosmically inspired painting technique I have attempted to expose the inner, numinous aspects of these found and naturally formed objects. By pointing them into the direction of the cosmos by identifying and accessing launch possibilities that will take the stones into micro-gravity environments and beyond, I have added another cosmic dimension that makes them Cosmic Stones .
References
- Herbert Read, Modern Sculpture - A Concise History (London, Thames & Hudson, 1964, 1992) pp. 176-177
- Herbert Read, Modern Sculpture - A Concise History (London, Thames & Hudson, 1964, 1992) pp. 178
What are Cosmic Stones?
Origins of the Cosmic Stones in my Art
The Cosmic Stones as Art Objects
The Suitability of the Cosmic Stones in the Space Environment
Our Future: Will it be a "Space Age" or a "Stone Age"?
The Cosmic Stones Project as an Art Catalyst of the Space Age
Project Development and Implementation
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