Page 62 - Demo

Figure 8; Grand Duchess Northern shore of Georgian Bay, Lake Huron, Ontario, Canada
Tony Ankowicz Collection
23 x 5 x 4 inches (58.4 x 12.7 x 10.2 cm)
Figure 11; Tom has found a stone that interests him.
I can’t resist giving a bit more of a preview to whet the appetite. Figure 8, Grand Duchess, depicts a stone collected from the northern shore of Georgian Bay on Lake Huron by Tony Ankowicz. He also created the
wonderfully simple and complementary display. His work was recently featured in BCI Bonsai and Stone Appreciation Magazine and is characterized by an understated harmony between stone and display. His displays, in their simplicity and reverence for wood, magnify the impact of the stones they hold. His work brought to mind the aesthetic that informed the work of the famous designer of wooden furniture, George Nakashima. In a manner reflective of the “adopt and adapt” theme articulated earlier, the desert stone presented in Figure 9 captures the sculpting power of windswept sand. The impression created by this stone is enhanced by the understated elegance of Cliff Johnson’s display. The power of Water Poem (Figure 10) is palpable. It was carved by the flow of the Cache la Poudre River in Colorado. The elegantly simple ma- hogany base enables the stone’s magnificence to shine.
In closing, I would like to return to the twofold in- vitation to discover and to discover. Viewing Stones of North America provides all that the reader needs to discover in the first sense. It presents an art form that shares a historical foundation with Asian for- bearers but is transformative rather than derivative. It provides expert background to allow the collector proceed with informed confidence and a personal sense of the earth and its history. The second sense of discovery falls to the reader although stones do their part. This message is universal—it applies to all en- vironments and cultures where stones are collected and create meaning in the lives of those who cherish them. Larry Ragle writing in Awakening the Soul tells us: “Rocks, it would seem have a voice. They speak to us. They beg us to pick them up. On occasion they convince us to take them home.” He goes on to quote Richard Ota: a stone “should evoke memories of the day you found it, the difficulty of the search, the heat, or the cold, even the mood you possessed at the time.” This quota- tion is very much in the spirit of the invitation to col- lect that is implicit in Viewing Stones of North America. It sits happily with the view of collecting described in conversation by Ray Furse and is charmingly evi- dent in the face of the author, Tom Elias, in Figure 11. Tom has found a stone that interests him. Alive in the stone is much more than its aesthetic appeal. It holds the company of Ken McLeod, the beauty of the day and the location, the sound of the river, and the smell of the surrounding forest. Discovery of stones allows one to know everything about the origin of the stone. Discovery also allows the opportunity for the aesthetic and personal to fuse seamlessly in giving great mean- ing to the stone. Let the hunt begin.
Notes:
1. The phrase “Awaken the soul” derives from the title, Awakening the Soul, a work produced by the National Bonsai Foundation in 2000.
All figures and figure captions derive from Viewing Stones of North America with the exception of the two personal pictures supplied by Dr. Elias.
60 | BCI | October/November/December 2014