Oct 31, 2011: Stones with Faces

[CaliforniaMama]

The eyes are most striking to me. They seem so . . . I don't know . . . piercing?

It also seems like there is more than one rock of the same person, or there are several who look similar. Such as the girl with the dark whisps of hair.

I also see more than one race - such as the guy with the glasses in the 2nd row from the bottom. There seem to be two of him side by side.

I can imagine how weird it would be to think you are pulling up potatoes and you pull up these rocks! It does seem kind of creepy since you don't know the history.

It's amazing that they have stayed in such good condition after having been buried for so long. You would think the water and bacteria in the soil would have deteriorated the paints more than they did.

(Why did the initial post come out wider than the rest of the posts?)

[footfootfoot]

Sandy, check out this link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outsider_art

Have you heard of Outsider art? You could be sitting on a gold mine. Get that to a proper art gallery.

[Clodfobble]

The burying to me suggests the desire to put it out of one's mind, to get rid of it but not in a destructive way. Many forms of therapy suggest turning a stressful event or person into a totem of some sort and physically removing or breaking it to help eliminate the mental fixation. I'm picturing a person--probably a woman--who has a difficult time with anger, or anxiety, and has been taught to habitually "bury" whatever issue is bothering her at a given time. Especially since many of the faces do seem to be repeats.

[Trilby]

Originally Posted by Clodfobble

The burying to me suggests the desire to put it out of one's mind, to get rid of it but not in a destructive way. Many forms of therapy suggest turning a stressful event or person into a totem of some sort and physically removing or breaking it to help eliminate the mental fixation. I'm picturing a person--probably a woman--who has a difficult time with anger, or anxiety, and has been taught to habitually "bury" whatever issue is bothering her at a given time. Especially since many of the faces do seem to be repeats.

That's what I said.

Voodoo.







they really are very cool. I'd have some local art person look at them like footy said. They are very...haunting

[HungLikeJesus]

Some of them appear to be stained with blood.

[Diaphone Jim]

The shape of the rocks is pretty uniform. Is there an obvious local source?
All blue eyes.
Simple technique, maybe minutes to produce.
I'd guess a kids' game with no value to prevent disposal in the yard.
By all means, let us know if you find anything more about them.

[classicman]

That is so awesome. How very interesting.

[sandypossum]

The shape of the rocks is pretty uniform. Is there an obvious local source?

Definitely not from the farm itself, but we're not far from the coast, and I'm pretty sure there are stones like that on the beaches.

Do the words Wolf Creek mean anything to you?

We live in Fish Creek!

was there a childless woman ever living in the house?

You know, I think the last woman WAS childless. I'll check into that. But most seem like adults, with the smaller ones more like kids.

I also see more than one race

The stones themselves are grey, and the face side has been painted with a base colour for the skin. They skin colour ranges from a yellowish to a light brown to peach-pink. So I got the impression it was intended to indicate different races too.

Incidentally, the majority seem to be female, but some are definnitely male.

And since you're our IotD gal:

(Why did the initial post come out wider than the rest of the posts?)

it's because the photo size was too big. I had already reduced it by half, and thought that was enough, but it's still too big.

[sandypossum]

OMG burns334! It's good you know your daughter did that and that it gives you happy memories. If I had found one like that amongst my stones I would truly have seriously considered moving out!

[burns334]

Sandy, she was 12 or 13 yrs old and majored in art in college. I looked at your stones as just some child fooling around with paints. I'll show yours to her and see what she thinks. I'm not really sure she remembers the stone I have.

[HungLikeJesus]

She was quite precocious.

[ZenGum]

Wow, whoah, whooooo! Freaky, creepy, yet fascinating.

Building on what Wolf, Brianna and Clod have said, perhaps the mentally ill repressive woman doing symbolic self-psychotherapy was not just childless, but also had had a number of miscarriages.

[/makingstuffup]

[sandypossum]

I looked at your stones as just some child fooling around with paints.

They are clearly painted with a brush, and the detail is so steady and fine that I can't see them having been done by a child, even though the style is simplistic.

And hey, it just occurred to me that your daughter put Amy Winehouses's face on the stone! The shadow gives it a nice beehive hairdo.

Also, I just found this link, in particular the quote

before we packed up and headed for home, we hid the finished faces in the house.

But not in a bucket buried in the woodshed or in a bathtub full of soil, I notice.

Sometimes, when I read about some ancient curiosity being dug up, I wonder if it isn't anything significant or mystical at all, and is just something banal that somehow lasted better than other more significant things that were done at the time, e.g. maybe the cavemen kids used more durable paints to draw bison on the cave walls, and the ones the adults did - incredibly realistic ones, or ones with explanatory diagrams, got lost because they preferred to use other paint.

[Aliantha]

Originally Posted by sandypossum

Sometimes, when I read about some ancient curiosity being dug up, I wonder if it isn't anything significant or mystical at all, and is just something banal that somehow lasted better than other more significant things that were done at the time, e.g. maybe the cavemen kids used more durable paints to draw bison on the cave walls, and the ones the adults did - incredibly realistic ones, or ones with explanatory diagrams, got lost because they preferred to use other paint.

I said something like this to my Dad last time we were up at his place.

His farm is on the side of a mountain that was a fairly recently active (in geological terms) volcano, so there's rocks everywhere on his place. In order to create better grazing for his cattle and ease of access in the little bush basher he drives around in, he chucks all the rocks into piles about the place.

Anyway, I said that one day when a new age of civilization comes along, they'll find these piles of rocks and attribute some meaning to them rather than just say, hey, that's just a pile of rocks.

[ZenGum]

Quote:
The shape of the rocks is pretty uniform. Is there an obvious local source?
Definitely not from the farm itself, but we're not far from the coast, and I'm pretty sure there are stones like that on the beaches.

Your picture shows the well-rounded stones with the faces and angular broken stones in your soil.
Are there any unpainted but rounded stones on the farm? Or are the painted ones the only round ones?

I'm trying to establish whether the person grabbed whatever stones were handy, or went and got stones and brought them home to paint, or went somewhere and painted the stones and brought the finished ones back.