ARTEFACTS RQ I-IV

or With love’s pang that blooming blush; when love to beauty’s pain does rush; and still upon that ancient hill; a stone glows rose with the blood they spill.

Made from hand-crushed rose quartz, sepiolite, kaolin, mica, modelling paste, acrylic, epoxy resin, oil, pigment, uv archival spray on wood panel.

I am fascinated by the intersection of geology and human culture--and almost no stone has a human history so long as quartz. The Lomekwian material complex saw the creation of some of the first known knapped quartzite tools 3.3 million years ago--before homo sapiens had even emerged as a species. I wanted this piece to contain that sense of ancient history, constantly repurposed and rewritten to the needs of subsequent generations. I began first by hand-crushing pounds of rose quartz, then building labyrinthine architectural shapes and symbols with it. These I would repeatedly build up, then decay with erosion and physical abrasion to simulate the passage of deep time. Dozens of formulas of rose-quartz paint were created, to create a layered and imperfectly adhered surface. I then replicated the crystalline allure of an unrboken quartz crystal by using mica, and manipulated the minerals sepiolite and kaolinite to create a crackling, rock-like finish on the final layers. The ancient Greeks had a myth about the origin of rose quartz: the blood of Aphrodite and Adonis mingled in a mortal embrace, staining the ground beneath them. A stone of healing, love, and deep mystery.

2 x 2' x 2'
Available.