Portfolio > Spirit Stones

This composition was inspired by the rocky shores of New York’s Finger Lakes. Streams swollen by spring snowmelt carve their way down the hillsides, carrying rocks over the edges of sheer cliffs and constantly changing shorelines.

In this scene, driftwood (gathered from the shore of Seneca Lake) depicts a great oak, long since toppled from the cliff into the water. The oak’s trunk now shelters a young shrub overhanging the water. A pair of sandhill cranes, a rare sight in the Finger Lakes, wade along the shore.

The base was fabricated of reclaimed Corian countertop material and shaped to the shoreline's contours, in the style of bases created for Chinese “viewing stones”.