What Do Rocks Want?

This little spot in the college's library was my haven for several hours over the past two week-ends, my place to think about stone becoming statue which, really, is what I'd like to be thinking about all the time. I get to go back one last time to finish my Kalamazoo paper and sketch out the places I want to fill out. It seems impossible that there would be time to think now, but I've been killing myself to get the grading done so that I actually have a relatively clean slate this week-end. Which is good, because the rocks want some attention. The central idea of the paper is to ask "how the geological phenomena of alabaster manifested themselves to the medieval sculptor." How characteristics like its porosity (high), hardness (low), and water solubility (surprising) lent themselves to what medieval sculptors wanted to create between 1350 and 1530 (the heyday of alabaster carving). Everything about this paper has been delicious: discovery, fascination, beauty, awe - everything you want in what you'll be writing about. The challenge has been between the social historian in me who is excited to present the detective work that might explain why alabaster's heyday was so specific (the Black Death was a factor in its beginning (not its end), I believe) and the more evocative writer in me (who is mostly tremulous and sometimes maybe occasionally emboldened) who wishes to have my audience revel in the how of alabaster's transformation into St. Sebastian's pierced body or the breath of God. Who can't get over that alabaster hardens when air hits it, that it disintegrates into Plaster of Paris when rain hits it, that the best alabaster is just 2-3 feet below the surface, that the stone is the trace of Permian, Triassic and Jurassic oceans, and that a huge vein of it marks what is known as the Tutbury Seam (which, frankly, I just love to say: Tutbury Seam). I want the evocative writer to win, even though she knows that the audience will be pretty conservative, and even though W.J.T. Mitchell's first foray into image agency (in which the first question from a stunned audience was "Are you serious?") keeps replaying in her head. The evocative writer finds herself very quickly on the defensive (right around paragraph 4), claiming yes, agency for stone, but oh no, not will. I think that geology will help me break free of that - there is plenty to revel in there. And I do think about the audience members then going to see the show of alabasters that will be on display at the Kalamazoo Institute of Arts and hopefully knowing more about the stone before it became a statue, hopefully reveling in thinking through its metamorphosis from stone to statue beyond human agency. That's a good goal. Plus, if I can channel Jeffrey Cohen's elegant lithic courage, all will be well.

In the meantime, there are many little gifts. In waking up Oliver a couple of weeks ago, I told him excitedly that I was working on a paper trying to figure out what rocks want from us. "When did you become religious?" he asked sleepily. ??? "Why do you ask that?" I asked. "Because only religious people believe inanimate objects want things from us." I'm still thinking through that one. And then Mac giving me a small alabaster vase for Christmas (it's picking up the light in the image above, and yes it's Egyptian alabaster which turns out to be completely different from English, but it's the best gift nonetheless). And lastly, this rock cozy, that some witty soul knitted when we made a Hyperbolic Crochet Corral Reef here on campus for ArtsFest. When Mac was taking it down, he found this cozied rock at the bottom of it. If you're thinking well-tended Pet Rock, go ahead. But I love that this knit surface doesn't slip on and off, that it's for keeps on this rock, that this rock could possibly be warm, or want to be warm. Do I need to tell you of my pleasure in learning that alabaster has a rapid heat capacity?