Petoskey Stone

I love a time challenge.

An almost mystical sense of calm descends when I look at fossils, the sense of getting lost in deep time is palpable.

I have done quite a number of fossil pieces over the years, including several dinosaur skulls and trilobite parades, as well as some even more ancient crinoids.

However, my secret mission for myself in this cycle is pattern.

To this end, I decided to abstract Petoskey stone, which is a name for fossilized coral from the Devonian period found in Michigan.

I decided to use a resist process, and began by applying the resist to silk.

I kind of liked the blobby, oozy inexact quality of the resist, it seemed to provide the organic quality that living beings that were squashed for 350 million years would have.

After the resist dried, I began painting wet on wet, letting the colors flow and bleed at will.

This is what it looked at after painting, before the resist wash out. Kind of alarming.

and finished....

Petoskey Stone, 34x18"