writ in stone

How permanent stone feels beneath the feet, the steps, the walls, the roof.  How permanent stone feels above the body as it begins its reclamation.

At the site of E.E. Cummings' grave the grass is not kept, the marker simple, lost in a city of monuments to others more self important.  Cummings recanted in an interview, " I am abnormally fond of that precision which creates movement."  Having come to this quote by way of Steve Martin, I cannot help but think of movement in terms of both physical and mental muscle contraction.  Where a shift in the eyes is a mile run over memory's terrain.  

As an artist, and specifically a printer who utilizes lithography, the concept of writing in stone is familiar and wrought with contradictions.  As a world culture writing in stone was our first more permanent method of passing culture in third person.

  In lithography the stone can be printed innumerable times, precision creating movement.  Content can be removed from context, recontextualized, precisely reorganized, continuing and producing new movements.

How permanent stone feels beneath your feet.  How permanently impermanent the name on a marker.  It is part of a conversation that moves us to pick up the torch to hand to another runner.