Rocks of Ages


A little boy stands atop a tiny floating orb, hurtling through the cosmos with his only companions being a few volcanoes, and some impetuous flowers by his side. How these flowers grow on this seemingly inhospitable planet is a question for the nagging logic of Grown-ups; for the rest of us: dreamers, romantics, Lotus-Eaters and friends, we understand perfectly well. As the narrator in Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's The Little Prince opined, "Grown-ups never understand anything by themselves, and it is exhausting for children to provide explanations over and over again." It is slightly less exhausting for the Writer as well, to explain what is plain to see, especially when the Artist has given us so much to enjoy.

What we witness here is a menagerie of fops and princes, maidens and babes, all astride these tiny crystal islands. Meandering in a dreamy reverie, they gaze over their fancy collars, their eyes focused ahead, clear-eyed, without guile. What are they looking at? Surely not us, walking through our white cubes looking at them; no, they look out at adventure. Plucked from paintings throughout the annals of history, they take to these brave new worlds with aplomb. They are the softest things in the most jagged lands. They become hunters and huntresses, on the chase for six-headed lions, with only their trusted pal (be it dog or falcon, sister or steed) by their side. Wee explorers in search of beautiful trees filled with massive flowers that grow straight from giant ingots of gold. They waltz like polar bears through fields of extraordinary rocks of brilliant hues and dynamic shards. They climb mountaintops with their hobbyhorses, and gaze out on lands of promise below. They are trailblazers on a quest that usually ends around dinnertime.

We do not need to be petrologists to understand these crystalline vessels they trod. They are there to help us wonder: by making these tiny lands everywhere and nowhere; by compressing time from the Precambrian to one of the many Ages Golden; by giving these characters a stage to strut their stuff, to show off their fancy duds and brazen ways. The thing about these kids is not what is seen - the lone figure in a rocky landscape - but what an amazing place these tiny dreamers are seeing. When the Little Prince visited Earth, he noted, "What a peculiar planet! It's all dry and sharp and hard. And people here have no imagination." He would be wise to visit the Artist and his creations, whose arid and firm grounds would be familiar, but are filled with an imagination at work, or better put, at play. As adventure always begins in the mind's eye, children wander around their homes creating new worlds in their heads, from plain cardboard boxes, behind hedges, in the spaces no one uses, with the things no one wants. They thankfully, like the Artist, see this planet, not unlike a gem: fractured and fantastic, radiant with colors, and beautiful from every angle.

Jeffery Ryan
Los Angeles
2008