The Petriverse of Pierre Jardin: by Paul A. Harris Main Menu Paul A. Harris

Geophany

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…what is hidden from us is not something rare and occult, or even augustly sacred, but, too often, the Earth we stand on. I present to you a new word: “geophany.” A theophany is the showing forth, the manifestation of God, or a god; geophany therefore must be the showing forth of the Earth. –Tim Robinson

Pierre Jardin aspires to reveal the too-often hidden or forgotten beauties of stone and earth, to decontextualize and defamiliarize rocks just enough for their familiar presence to assert itself anew in a new context. As George Quasha observes, “there are two kinds of stones. There are the immediately obvious extraordinary ones, stones beautiful or strange or otherwise powerful in themselves…. Then there are the invisible stones, the stones we see as stone… These stones rarely appear as themselves."

In rock-fishing and displaying stones, Jardin works to discern distinctive qualities in “invisible” stones, such as striations, pocked textures, or coloring. He then creates simple compositions so that they “appear as themselves.”

In the events of this appearing—which happens when children stop and point at particular stones, or when parents inquire how and where the “unusual” rocks were acquired—the Petriverse becomes a “geophany," a showing forth of the earth.

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  1. The Path of Telluric Lurings Paul A. Harris

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