TOUCHSTONE 2015
Touchstone
Art instituteFarmington,
PASeptember
2015
“I don’t know why, I guess I am just a perfectionist. I think you should break everything now so you
understand your material. Break down the
stone so you can really see its natural beauty.
So tomorrow, we are going to cut.
We will go out to the woods the first thing in the morning and we will
forge for things. Anything you see that
interested you. We’ll go over to the
blacksmith shop and see if anything interests you. And then we are going to cut. Cut everything until you break it down to
something different and then you are able to create”.
And so my long weekend of mosaic design begins. I am in the woods, not far from Pittsburg at
the Touchstone Art Institute. For the next four days we will forage, cut and
create mosaics.
First we cut stones, big rocks actually. We had to place the rock between something
called a hardi and a pointy hammer and tap with force until the thing broke in
half. I entered the task with interpretation
because I was afraid of hammering my fingers.
“Don’t hack at it”, Rachel tells me.
“But I am a hacker”, I aggressively respond.
“You can be more gentle,” she tells me, “You don’t need to
be that aggressive.” I want to tell her,
“NO, I can’t. That’s the story of my
life.” But I don’t. I just try tapping
at the damn rock until it finally breaks in half and then I break that it half
and then again and again and again and now I am not even worried about my
fingers. I just wait for that satisfying
moment when the stone splits into two and I am now left with nothing but large
pebbles.
Most of the other women in the class are artists by
trade. They are well established in the
art community and seem to know and respect each other’s work. There are a few potters. I am the only non-artist. But I tell everyone that I am thinking of
hacking off two sides of an old shed in my yard and making a mosaic sculpture
on the remaining walls. That arouses a
few comments of approval and I sit up just a bit taller, feeling just a bit
more connected to these artists.
