Long Thin Stone



November 12, 2005

I was recently given a stone of the most extraordinary proportions. It is 14 times as long as it is wide. It is 13.6 x 0.9cm Long thin stone, 13.6 x 0.9 cm. It is beautiful, fine, smooth and slender with a quality of weight and shape that is suggestive of an ancient tool with which to write or for modelling clay. And yet it is perfectly natural ‐ just as the sea chucked it onto the shore. The beach it is from is a stone beach. This stone will have been rumbled, rolled ‐ tossed, turned ‐ pounded and shoved relentlessly in and out on every tide, every day for years until it has been worn into this exquisite shape. Just how did it survive? And I wonder, is there an even longer and thinner one out there?


Waves, South Devon - Click to enlarge. Beach rock, South Devon - Click to enlarge. Beach rock, South Devon - Click to enlarge. Found stones on board - Click to enlarge. Sketchbook page - Click to enlarge. From the series 'One Beach, Fourteen Drawings', 2004- Click to enlarge.


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