News / Blog

12/14/2011
A Work In Progress

12/14/2011
Autumn 2011 Haiku Contest WINNer Announced!

10/12/2011
My Dream

10/12/2011
Check This Out!

10/12/2011
Have You Seen Teddy's Fountain?

10/03/2011
Igneous Rock Gallery Haiku Contest Guidelines

10/03/2011
Summer 2011 Haiku Contest Winner Announced!

6/14/2011
WPMT FOX 43 Visits Igneous Rock Gallery!

6/14/2011
Video of Current Inventory

6/14/2011
New and Improved Landscape Lights

6/14/2011
Spring Haiku Contest Winner Announced!

5/03/2011
Fountain to be Auctioned at Derby Day!

3/24/2011
Simply the Best?

3/24/2011
An Enduring Tribute

3/11/2011
2011 PA Home Show Special

3/11/2011
Remembering Rick Alcorn

3/11/2011
Winter Haiku Contest Winner Announced! / Spring Contest Entries Welcomed

2/16/2011
Rest In Peace, Rick Alcorn

2/09/2011
Counting Past 130 and Balancing Rocks

2/09/2011
Autumn Haiku Contest Winner / Winter Contest Submission Deadline

2/09/2011
PA Home Show

2/09/2011
Igneous Rock Gallery Fountain Design Party Discounts!

2/09/2011
Sedimentary Rock Gallery?

11/17/2010
Current Special Promotions – Our Best Ever Offer!

11/17/2010
Autumn 2010 Haiku Contest

11/15/2010
One Thing Leads to the Next…

11/08/2010
I'm A Rock Star

10/15/2010
Sid and Gena's Indoor Fountain Sculpture

9/07/2010
Vacation Musings/Balancing Work and Play

9/07/2010
Igneous Rock Gallery Traveling Dog and Pony Show

9/07/2010
2010 Summer Haiku Winner Announced

9/07/2010
Igneous Rock Gallery Harrisburg Fall Home Show Exhibit/One Million Dollar Cash Giveaway!

8/10/2010
This One Could Be Yours

8/8/2010
Summer 2010 Haiku Contest Deadline Extended

8/2/2010
Jerry and Crystal Created Their Own!

7/13/2010
She Stole My Heart

7/13/2010
Table Top Fountain Workshop

6/17/2010
New Fountains

6/15/2010
Do You Want to Meet My Dad?

6/14/2010
The Year of the Creep

6/6/2010
My Impending Incarceration

6/6/2010
Spring 2010 Haiku Contest Winner Announced!

3/20/2010
First Quarterly Haiku Contest!

3/13/2010
Honorable Mention at 2010 Philadelphia International Flower Show

3/12/2010
Video of Valley Forge Display

Counting Past 130 and Balancing Rocks


Recently my five year old son, Grayson (star of my former blog post, Do You Want to Meet My Dad?), came home from kindergarten with an interesting homework assignment: Create a work of art with Mom and Dad’s help using one hundred of something. One hundred buttons. One hundred pieces of pasta. One hundred toothpicks. Whatever. Due on the 100th day of the school year.

The techniques used by his teachers are very effective. Grayson is constantly reading and doing math. He is figuring out units of measure and the passage of time, and it is so much fun to watch the world open to his understanding.

Not long ago Grayson came to me elated, almost ecstatic. “Daddy, I did it! I counted all the way to the top!” Upon further clarification I realized that he had indeed counted as far as you can, to the very last number beyond which there are no more – 130.

Grayson had counted higher than he ever had before, and for some reason he thought 130 is as far as numbers go. He was exuberant, and I wanted to understand what he was experiencing, what he meant, what he was convinced of -- before bursting his temporary bubble of mathematical euphoria.

Now he understands that, just as you can proceed from 30 to 31, you can likewise progress from 130 to 131 and beyond. It just keeps going! There will be lots of learning new numbers well beyond the foreseeable future for Grayson. New horizons continually unveil, and there is always something to look forward to!

So when Grayson came home with his 100th Day of School art project assignment, I decided to use this opportunity to introduce him to something new I am just starting to learn about at age 50 – the art of balancing rocks. Check out these pictures of balanced rocks.



No glue, no pins. Half the mass is on one side of the median and half on the other -- so it balances. The challenge is not only to make them balance, but also to use rocks that are aesthetically appealing when balanced. It is a temporary sculpture that will most likely not stand the test of time, so the enjoyment of the artistic experience is intensely in the moment. Then, but for the photographs, it’s gone forever.

Here is Grayson’s one hundred stone art project.

He can’t wait to take it to school. I hope you like it half as much as we enjoyed creating it on our dining room table this past weekend. We used our polished Chinese black pebbles that work so well at the base of our andesite fountains.

Hard to believe it’s possible to create such a thing without the aid of glue or dowels, is it not? Harder yet to believe Grayson could transport it to his school intact.

Well, truth be told, we cheated. We used a dab of Crazy Glue between each pebble! But Grayson will get credit for his assignment, and we had a lot of fun counting to 100.

We will save the honest art of rock balancing for another time and a separate blog post.