A little bird

A bird in one's hand

It has the shape of a bird , specially the feathers in the back. The head is round and there is no beak, which is a bit of a puzzle. It stands on its belly.

It fits in my hand giving the wonderful feeling that whoever did this knew how a bird in one's hand would  weigh and feel.

Bas-relief

This is the first one and it is bigger than anything I have found so far.21/2 x 4 "

A couple of new faces

There is a notch done for the mouth, a common recurrence.

This next one has a fossil used for the mouth.

Then a line drawn deeply for it.

A small ball of clay was added for a nose. Very clownlike. It made me laugh!
Humor spanning generations...

Some comments any old how

-The rocks I have found are small and fit in my hand. They fit in my pocket and there is, most of the time, a rock of the day. I put it in my pocket, turn it during the day, pull it out and look at it several times. It's a companion and I am led to believe that these rocks were companions too.
- The images are many times not visible at first sight- they are on the side or hidden or very small.
- Some rocks stand by themselves. At first I thought they were meant to be on a ledge somewhere...I don't know now.
- A couple show a turned neck, a movement. There is nothing stiff about that design.

- Several faces on one little stone. The most I counted was 14. The thought came by that this could be a game, let's see who can carve the most images on a little stone or a game of guess what it is/ guess what's next.
- The light is most important. In one light, oh! this is amazing! in another, where is it?
- A tree at 6 am is different than a tree at 6 pm even though we know it is the same tree. Maybe in the same way, a rock was seen as different or having a life of its own because of the different angles of light throughout the day.    
- Sometimes, a color, a texture, a certain marking on the rock is used in the image. Not always.
- For the longest time, I struggled with the idea of such artwork being done with rough tools. I am reconciled with the idea of very small tools, little rocks which have a sharp point. At least this is the possiblity of the moment.             

Sticking to observation

Observation is the only thing I can do. There are too many questions , whys, whens, whos, wheres, hows.
When you take a drawing class, one of the first thing you are told is to forget what you think you see and to really look, fresh, like you would see a tree for example for the first time. Then you realize that the tree is not just green like you thought it was but it has lots of colors and shapes with the light playing on its leaves.
It is a challenge. Once I gave myself the goal of believing what I see. It came to a point recently of" what if I see something I don't like, or something scary? what if I see faces with elongated heads and I can't explain it?, what if...?"
I can only look, feel, observe, name what comes to me.

This, to me, is a delicate view of a horse or other, turning its head to peck at the fur in its neck. Beautiful.

One eye open, one eye closed

In several samples, I have noticed the same pattern of one eye open, one eye closed, or one side of the face of a live person, the other of a skull. The theme of life and death.

Noses

There is a wide variety of noses in all the faces I have found. It is an observation. From Mayan noses ( given away by their animal headdresses), to E.Ts to Parisian noses, this is a wide range! I didn't expect that. I thought they would be all American Indian noses. What do we know!

A mean tool

This tool has 3 sharp points. Two lumps of clay were added to make a handle. We can see that the base has been cut as a rectangle. The clay is not smooth, it has some texture and interestingly there are faces on the handle.

Ducky

A little duck with a visible wing. A part of the stone has been squared off, some clay added to mark the beak.

Front, back and top image of "Ducky".

Rudimentary classification of the portraits

This is where it's at. 2 trays of portraits classified by which side of the rock they are on: top surface, at 3/4 of the top, profile-left, profile- right.

The variety is such that it boggles your mind.

This is a first attempt at organizing and at making some sense of them.

My next project is to classify them by the nose as the noses are all different.- that was another big surprise.

Arrowhead

This is the arrowhead I found. I was so excited. It was in January 2009.

The rock that got me started looking at the ground. And actually the only arrowhead I have found. So far.

Sharp points

A series of them.

Larger tools

Assuming these are tools. 5 to 6" long.

2 eyes and 1 mouth

Here is a photo of a small clay rock found on the ledge of a wash nearby.

I don't know why the photo is coming sideways on the blog. In any case the right eye has been filled with a different color of clay, the left eye is hollow and the mouth is a thin rock added to the main rock which has a shape of a wedge.

V shaped

Triangles

Diamond shapes

This shape is in different rock materials. Sometimes it is the beginning of a bird or tool, but most of the time nothing has been added.

What is the meaning of this shape?

" Flats" or " Thins "

These thin and flat rocks of different rock material are the most recurrent.

Other tools

To cut, to make holes, to sand.

Tools

Here are what I have considered as tools so far.

Melissa's birds

As I started this blog, " out of the blue" Melissa from Ohio, posted a comment, sharing her similar experiences. How can it be? But here it is. With Melissa's permission, here are some of her comments shared via emails

+ a photo of her birds

"The little creatures disappear and then all the sudden I see a new image. I use the magnifying glass and very slowly methodicaly roll the stone top to botton side to side and then turn it upside down and do the same thing, I have some that almost look like they are telling a story, which I'm sure they are.

Oh, by the way, the creators of this art have a real sense of humor I noticed...I have a clown face complete with clown nose!! and some images show a tongue sticking out, tears in the eyes. The more I look at my pieces the more images I find hidden. Some are so tiny. Theme, nature and procreation....the faces are either what I call "ugly scarey face" or a neanderthal looking man, gorilla like images, or silly faces with smiles. Have seen some where they've enhanced the stone to add teeth for effect. I could go on and on....it's magic and it's so unreal to be smiling at creations of thousands of years ago. They know it too.

Building a visual vocabulary

This whole process didn't start with me having the intent of looking for birds in rocks. No. Seeing birds and faces happened after quite a while. Now I can pick up a rock that I suspect is " different", turn it and turn it, slowly and look at at all the angles and suddenly perceive one or more images. It took a while to train my eyes to look for the subtleties and build this visual vocabulary. There are still a lot of details I don't understand, don't know what they are about. I just know they are " something". It is like any skill or focused obervation, it gets better, more skilled and acute.

This one looked like a big bird's head. The I found out under the beak, a tiny human profile!

A tool with a face

It is one thing to find a tool. Made of rock. And it is another to find a face on its edge. Both fascinating finds. But of course finding a face opens up the field of questions. Was this tool made for that person I see? what is the face of the owner of the tool? was it an artist signing his work and putting his face on it? and other questions...

Handsome

Birds, birds, birds...

For some reason, birds are the majority of images I find. These are small rocks of different material, one inch or so. Each one is unique. There is no cookie style pattern. One can see a head, an eye , a beak. Sometimes, a color in the rock is used to shape a beak or a wing.

A puzzle

A puzzle= 1 something that puzzles; a problem; enigma.

2. A toy, word game, etc. designed to test on'es ingenuity or patience.

3. The state of being puzzled: a quandary; perplexity.

That's all the above.

Here are a sample.