I am not the only human that likes to make things with impermanent stone. Indeed, I believe that it is an art form that is almost intrinsic or fundamental to human nature. Rocks are around. Why not put them together into interesting shapes and combinations? As I wander.about the forests, fields, hills and mountains of Upstate New York, I occasionally come across an artfully stacked combination of stones that impresses me. The joy I experience upon seeing such creations is multiplied because I feel a kind of kinship or fellowship with the creator. I, too, am a stacker of stones. I understand and appreciate the passion that went into the process. 

Frequently, there are piles of stones called cairns to mark trails through forests. But most cairns are more rock pile than artistic creation. Thrown together by repentants doing community service to indicate the proper direction on the path. Only sometimes, once in a while, a cairn will be something special. Not tossed together in a pile but organized into an interesting combination in order to express something. At what point, does a pile of rocks become a work of Art? That is the truth I’m searching for in this exhibit.

This exhibit will contain photos of impermanent stonework not created by me. I came across these first few beauties on hikes in the Adirondacks.

On the Southern Pacific coast of Mexico, somewhere in the vicinity of the town of Mazunte there is a rather incredible all natural swimming hole that the locals call “the jacuzzi.” A small opening between boulders allows ocean waves to wash into the pool and swirl the water into circles. I was there recently, sitting upon the rocks, waiting for a wave to swirl the water into a circle when I saw something that made me smile. There, up above the pool, on a pointy little peak behind the pool, there was a stack of stones. Just a couple big stones balanced on top of each other, but the location of the stack alone made me aware that the creator of the stack was a fellow believer in the art of impermanent stonework. There, can you see it too? Look closely.

After I went for my swim in the swirling waters, I was inspired by the stone stack up above to create my own little stone stack down below on the shoreline. Then, after one little stone stack came out very nicely, I decided to build another. I thought the two little stacks together might work to frame the picture of the swirling waters in the swimming hole.

As part of my grand plan to inspire an impermanent stonework art movement, I like to leave behind little creations in semi-public places where they will be encountered by others. In most cases, my stone stacks are at least 13 stones tall and will stay standing indefinitely unless they are subjected to external shocks but the locations where they are created will indeed subject them to lots of external shocks (wind, waves, people, dogs). How long will they stay standing? That right there is the existential question for all impermanent stonework. No doubt some people will be offended by them or just feel aggressive and want to knock them over. But maybe other people will be inspired by them and want to build their own little stone stacks. These particular stacks were built on March 9, 2024. Perhaps the rocky shores around ‘the jacuzzi’ in Mazunte will evolve into a whole community of stone stackers. Or maybe the stacks will fall and be forgotten in the next really high tide. I don’t know. I did go back on the last morning before we left town and my little stone stacks were still standing. So at least they lasted a couple of days. But I probably won’t return there again for many many years.

Really though, the swimming hole that the locals call the “jacuzzi” is like an all natural work of landscape art even without any stone stacks. My little stone creations did not improve upon it because it was already perfect. But, by adding my stone stacks, I interacted with the jacuzzi in my own Pat Ryan way, made something totally new and thereby had a profound psychological experience. Check this out. My two stone stacks combine with the stone stack behind the pool to frame the picture in a perfect triangle and there, at the center of the triangle, is a perfect spiral of water. A circle inside a triangle? Isn’t that some kind of symbol? The all seeing eye? It almost seems as if I am using the power of the stones to call forth the gods of nature.