I read this the other day in the LA Times, and saved it for this week’s Good News.
I’d heard of this guy, but never seen his work; a homeless guy who builds sculptures of stacked rocks and found objects up and down the beach.
This time around, Stuart Finch hopes to stay in Ventura a few years.
Last time, he left after a few months. That was early in 2000, when success knocked him for a loop.
People loved the amazing stone sculptures Finch put up at the beach. They flocked around the soft-spoken, homeless ninth-grade dropout, donating money, food and clothing. They sent angry letters to City Hall when workers knocked down some of his taller creations, claiming they could fall on children. A hotel even gave him a room for 30 days and a job as a maintenance man.
That was the final straw.
“It took me away from my rocks,” Finch said, back on the patch at Surfers Point where his efforts as a rock-stacker started in earnest.
As suddenly as he vanished four years ago, Finch, 41, showed up again in the last couple of weeks — along with a new crop of stone spires and minarets and whimsical whatchamacallits that vaguely resemble frogs, penguins and you-name-it.
Here, the corner of a cinder block was impossibly balanced on a stone the size of a golf ball; there, a gravity-defying stack of rocks fringed with seaweed looked like something a bored hobbit might have put together on his summer vacation.
“People need this,” Finch said, surveying dozens of his creations arrayed a few yards from the waves. “It’s all about the smiles.”
Click here to see a photo of the man and his work.
In a world where most art is measured as a commodity, there’s something about this kind of ephemera…
Kinda reminds me of the Sufis…
Sufis. Yeah, I could see that.
A simple, happy man. Many of us are more fortunate, as society sees it, but few are as lucky as he seems to be.
Pretty cool.
In Korea, you’ll often see stacks of small stones that’re somewhat reminiscent of what Finch does. The stacks are called “t’ap,” pronounced a bit like the English word “top,” and can indicate a builder’s wishes or prayers. Sometimes other people will come along and add a rock or two to the stack. It’s neat to see when you’re wandering in the mountains and happen upon a hidden temple or shrine with these t’ap sitting quietly on boulders.
In Ireland and other places, don’t people have the tradition of building “cairn”s when they hike? One wonders how old and deep this human urge is, quietly rearranging the bones of the earth.
Anyway, I agree with the others: cool article.
Kevin
PS: Significantly, “ta’p” can also mean “pagoda.”
And there goes Kevin, stealing my comment. 😉
The Sufis and Buddhists would surely understand. Among others. Gotta follow your bliss.
Incidentally, the Inuit of northern Canada build “Inukshuks” as wayfinders on the tundra. They are sets of rocks piled in a shape that vaguly resembles a standing person with arms outstretched. “Quietly rearranging the bones of the earth” is an excellent description, one I suspect the Inuit themselves would heartily aprove of.
Inukshuk have become quite popular, and a Google Images search on the term will quickly show you what I mean.