Stone
So much weight
Permanence
Concealing lightness
Impermanence
Speak to us of your centuries
Show us the way home
This month I would like to share with you a visit to Plas Bodfa on Ynys Môn (Anglesey), and a few thoughts about stones, voids and some other things. I write this after spending some time with Julie Upmyer and Mari Rose Pritchard, learning about their project Void Fraction.
Void Fraction is “an ongoing exploration of limestone and limestone dust / powder / flour in its many forms” which began with researching the permeability (both physically and conceptually) of Caernarfon Castle’s limestone walls. Julie and Mari Rose visited a local Anglesey quarry, where they have sourced limestone in various states to experiment with.
On our very first visit, we encountered a by-product of the quarrying process: limestone powder an aqueous, semi-solid and almost rock-like state. Poured in a liquid state, it formed an opaque milky pool, piled high, it became towering white mountains. We were instantly transfixed by its other-worldliness.
www.julieupmeyer.com
When mixed with water, the limestone powder becomes viscous and slip-like, almost like liquid moonlight. Mari Rose and Julie have coated objects, painted metal sheets, and poured this liquid into transparent globes in their investigation of how it behaves. I too play with this curious white mud on my hands and in sketchbook pages. It is evasive; cracking and turning to dust as soon as it dries.
It was a privilege to join Mari Rose on a pilgrimage to the local beach, adding the weight of stones to her person. As part of their collaboration, the artists carry pieces of limestone in handmade wearable pockets.
Taking the waste product of limestone into a soft container, stones are carried womb-like in a slow, mindful way. This treatment of the material is very different to the unsustainable, mechanistic processing inherent in the use of limestone as a building material. We talk about a slower approach to things, walking with the weight rather than simply cutting through it with machines. I later realise that these ideas have a strong resonance with the field of Ecofemism. The photographs I take echo a gradual re-birthing process.
Creating new spaces and voids for this discarded material to fill. Honouring the voids within stone, within earth. New life, possibilities, nurture. In many indigenous spiritualities, a concern for equilibrium and exchange is integral to balance. According to some belief systems, we are connected to a powerful dark void at the centre of the earth, and to the blue-white energy of starlight. Our energy field encompasses the objects we encounter, decision making, the speed of our actions; all part of a living, breathing ecosystem.
The urge to make art with natural materials and pigments is primal. Having explored more of the ‘making paints’ route myself, spending time with Julie and Mari Rose helped open a few doors onto the materials lying dormant around us in everyday life. A pile of building rubble tells a story, commonplace stones are waiting to tell us theirs. I return to the familiar, stones upon a beach. Ynys Môn is a global geopark, spanning four eras and twelve geological periods.
I see pinks, corals, wine, emerald greens and blacks. Lines run through my handful of stones like poetry, asking me to know more. For today, these colours and the sound of the sea is enough. From tomorrow, a new layer of my awareness will be forever unearthed.