Bone-Stones: Relics of Our Wreckage
2020-2021
Salvaged bones of chickens, wood, modeling paste & acrylic binder
30” X 20”
This series of five “stones” are made from bones of animals that I salvaged from the sidewalk around my neighborhood. The work is meant to be coupled with a poem describing the process with which these stones were made. Below is a segment of the poem, which was published by The Center for Humans and Nature in the fall 2023
It is no coincidence: the rhyme of bone & stone.
———
Walking sidewalks & parking lots
my eyes strain to discern
sticks, from straw, from cigarettes, from styrofoam, from
bones.
But I find them
in the margins
like small secrets kept forever
in the mouth.
———
When I pick up your thin, hollow bones from the concrete
my own bones
stir in recognition.
———
These bone-stones were exhumed,
not from a quarry,
but from the cemetery
of our sidewalks.
———
In my studio, I hold your bones
one by one in the nest of my palms
as if they were ancient relics.
Because they are.
I bring your bones close to see
their micro-landscape deserted
as if a small bomb went off
& only the shells of cells remain.
I stroke your bones’ smooth surfaces,
bleached-coral white,
as if I could soothe you
too late.
———
All artists know how material— clay, charcoal, ink
— has wants & tendencies.
But your bones
had the strongest of wills.
Your ashes knew the new form
they desired to take.
Wetted with water,
they settle & dry on the wood’s frame.
I rub & rub the rough surface with sandpaper,
until it is as smooth as skin.
Friction heats my fingertips & your bones
feel warmth again.
I am the elements— heat, pressure, compression
— that weather & erode.
You are the body
turning to stone.