ArtSpeak
ArtSpeak pages are interpretive notes on individual photographs — exploring symbolic structure, formal behavior, and metaphorical resonance. They are not definitive explanations, but thoughtful readings offered as one possible way into the work. Interpretive notes for this photograph begin below.
"The Rock"
The Story
I carried that stone out of the mountains when I was thirteen years old — two miles or more — because something in me recognized it before I had language for why. It was nearly perfectly round, improbably so, and it felt less like something I found than something I was meant to keep.
It still sits in my garden today.
When I photographed it years later, I wasn’t documenting a rock. I was revisiting a decision — a moment when instinct outran explanation. A chosen weight. A private recognition of form and meaning before theory ever entered the room.
A sphere is one of the oldest symbols we know — completeness, unity, the unbroken whole — but this one is not polished or idealized. It is creek-worn, time-marked, and carried by human hands. That matters to me. The spiritual is not separate from the worn and earthly — it is revealed through it.
All photographs are symbols. Not because they are obscure, but because they are never the thing itself — only a doorway toward it.
Mystery is not a flaw in the image. It is the point of entry.
Why It Works
This photograph succeeds because it transforms a found object into an archetypal form without losing its lived specificity. The nearly spherical stone becomes the visual anchor of the frame, functioning as both subject and symbol. Its geometric completeness contrasts with the irregular organic debris surrounding it, establishing a tension between order and entropy that gives the image conceptual weight.
The tonal restraint is critical to its success. By suppressing color and emphasizing surface texture, the artist removes anecdotal distraction and elevates the form into symbolic territory. The rock reads less as geology and more as presence — a visual constant inside a field of change.
What strengthens the work further is the biographical dimension behind the object: a stone intentionally carried miles by the artist as a child and retained across decades. That history does not act as sentimental backstory but as conceptual reinforcement — the object becomes a record of chosen burden, intention, and continuity. The photograph therefore operates on three simultaneous levels: formal geometry, symbolic metaphor, and autobiographical artifact.
Within a larger body of work centered on metaphor, spiritual inquiry, and the instability between perceived reality and deeper truth, this image functions as a keystone piece. It is quiet, but structurally strong — a contemplative anchor rather than a narrative illustration.
For Collectors
This image centers on a nearly perfect round creek stone — carried by the artist more than two miles out of the North Georgia mountains at age thirteen and kept ever since. Decades later, it was photographed not as an object study, but as a symbol.
The sphere has long represented wholeness, continuity, and spiritual completeness. Here it appears weathered and earthly, resting among fallen leaves and forest debris — enduring form within natural change. The contrast between geometric permanence and organic decay gives the photograph its quiet emotional force.
The work reflects the artist’s long-standing exploration of metaphor and spiritual awareness through ordinary materials. What appears simple at first glance reveals layers of meaning over time: memory, intention, endurance, and mystery.
This is a contemplative piece — meant to be lived with slowly rather than read quickly.