Gemstones II by Kirsten Gould
The “Rock Steady” collection is an ode to the naturally forming minerals, rocks and gemstones that make up our landscape. Today, there are multiple art events happening throughout Los Angeles that pay tribute to the earth’s natural entities such as Michael Heizer’s ”Levitated Mass” at The Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and the Land Art retrospective entitled “Ends of the Earth: Land Art to 1974″ at the Museum of Contemporary Art.
In the late 1960s the art movement known as Land Art (or as Robert Smithson coined, “Earthworks”) began, in which the landscape and the work of art were inseparably connected. Works coined Earthworks focus on the earth and its natural materials, whether the art be created in nature, or using natural materials such as soil and rocks (bed rock, boulders, stones and gemstones) as a medium/object. ”Rock Steady” is not only inspired by the current resurgence of Land Art in Los Angeles, but also by the beauty of earth material in general.
Can’t get enough of rocks either? Check out the collection here.
Rocks and crystals were the main source of colour for centuries until the advent of synthetic pigments. Natural colour has a lower chroma than modern synthetic colour, but produces paint layers of much greater luminosity. I have now produced preparation protocols for most of the mineral pigments for used in natural resins and oil. It will still be some time before my manuscript is published.