Collecting Color

There is a sign I've never noticed that explains we need to pay for parking. I would never consider this a beach, especially once the ropes go up, blocking almost the entire space off to protect the piping plovers in their nests.

The cold on this late spring day is keeping everyone away, so it's just me, the beach, and the calm sea—and the wind, which has me reaching for an extra coat before locking the car.

I climb over the dunes to see if the ocean is quiet today, which means I won't have to worry about wet boots. I walk towards Galilee, toward the two large houses high up on stilts that have survived the storms that have taken down so many others. Block Island and the wind turbines keep me company. The ferry has just left the harbor, and its wake makes larger waves in the sea.

At my feet, thousands of stones cover the sand. Worn smooth by sand and sea—they're in all shapes and colors. Beyond the tide line where the sun has dried them, the colors have faded, so I walk closer to the ocean looking for color. Dark reds, forest green, the luminous whites and oranges of agates. And moonstones—white stones shaped into perfect circles that glow like the moon in moonlight. I fill my pockets with cold stones, holding them until they dry.

When my pockets are too heavy, I take them all out and look for the ones that are still interesting. I drop the remainder onto the sand. I hope they don't mind being left behind.

I'm looking for specific colors: yellow, blue, green, and dark red. I'm planning a collection using those colors, and they haven't made sense to me yet. But seeing them in nature helps me envision how they'll stand together.

At home, I put the rocks on my desk. I hold them, rearrange them, and put them together in different combinations. Then, in the studio, mixing colors, I think of those stones. Not to match them perfectly, but to keep the spirit of them together.

This is one of the challenges of starting a new collection. Of course, there are the technical parts—buying panels and preparing them. But then there's choosing the colors, deciding on the composition, working, revising, finishing. So any help I can get, whether it's from my imagination, from books, or from walks on the beaches of Rhode Island. The stones sit in bowls in my studio and on my office desk, ready to remind me of how the colors work together.