The Rock Shelter
A pilgrimage pays homage to a sacred place. While a short tromp across a snow-covered field doesn’t exactly qualify as a journey, a recent visit to a former haunt had me feeling a bit reverential toward something I built fourteen years ago.
Rock Shelter is an environmental artwork that pays tribute to the materials it’s made from and the place it resides. The sculpture stands unpretentiously on the verge of a Vermont hayfield; a solitary figure with its back to the wind and face lifted to the low winter sun. The only perceivable change in the work since its creation is the mottled patina that’s grown over it.
The piece appeared content to just be. That was my take-away from circling the work. Its sacredness, if it can be called that, resides in the silence its presence engendered in me. A touch of its own contentment rose from the place and settled over me for a while.
A description of Rock Shelter didn’t make it into a blog post at the time of its creation, so, here’s an excerpt from Listening to Stone from around that time.
ROCK SHELTER (excerpt from Listening to Stone, Artisan, 2008)
While scratching around in Harvey Traison’s meadow prospecting for stone to build the “Walking Wall” I unearthed a great slab of loose rock. It turned out to be more than I bargained for. I couldn’t move it much, but I could tip it up on edge, so I planted it with its broad sides facing north and south. The stone stood erect through the seasons, bathed in moonlight, covered in snow, until I thought it was time to build a shelter for it.
Just inside the woods that border the field was a large pile of stones collected by a pioneering homesteader. Stones, turned up by the plow, were picked up and cast off the cultivated land. Tons of stone accumulated over the years. The farmer’s bane became my bounty. I gathered it up and built the shelter walls and roof with it. The second resource within shouting distance of the rock was the woods themselves. Young trees grew thickly there, tall, and limbless for half their height.
With the addition of some steel fasteners and a roll of waterproof sheeting, peeled timber poles and loose field-stone combine to embrace the standing stone, sheltering it from the elements. Not coincidentally, the slab helps to hold up the roof frame and roof stone. And the roof stone holds down the rubberized sheeting that protects the timbers from rain and rot.
From a distance The Rock Shelter looks like it could be a camper’s lean-to. On closer inspection it becomes clear that there's really no room for people inside. The interior is filled with a rock slab. The only camper under the lean-to is its permanent resident. Although we don't have to care for things that are indestructible, when we do give them special consideration they become something different in our eyes. With that changed perspective our view of ourselves is cast in a fresh light as well.
ROCK SHELTER, field-stone and timbers from property, waterproof membrane, 20’x13’x9’, environmental art installation, private collection, Newfane, VT, 2006.