The Pebbles I Carried Home from the Mediterranean
I will probably never do anything permanent with the pebbles I dutifully carried home in my carry-on, all the way from the Mediterranean Sea. The teen checked out on the project the moment there was no longer a sea accompanying it. And still I keep them, and sort them, and review my favorite pebble art pins AS IF I am capable of and about to attempt these very designs myself. I am not.
This is the story of our incomplete project. Because sometimes temporary things are just temporary pleasure, even when they are made of stone.
We sit, we sort
Sometimes the point of art is that there is no point. The point of creativity is just to let your mind wander and sit with what might be. Sometimes creativity is just waiting for inspiration and having a zen moment in the meantime.
My daughter and I sit and sort, like some tribal ritual I could have been doing in another life. We sit, we sort, we put things in order. Colors, sizes, shapes, types of rock. Then we re-order them. Someone bumps the board and it starts all over.
It's a metaphor for the entropy that is life. Things get set up the way we think we want them, and then something happens that upsets the picture. Or we leave the room, come back in, and see the image we just made from another angle, and our perspective shifts. We see new shapes, or the filling out of a half-made design.
Cliches abound about the process and the journey, and those are all easy to quote when we aren't confounded by a half-born bit of inspiration. In those moments, not seeing a final product can feel like failure. Like you aren't really an artist, like you have nothing left in the well. You might recommit, and feel guilty for stopping, because what kind of artist has 5,000 unstarted projects? The true answer is probably more than half of them. Being creative, making art, even defining yourself as an artist or any work you've made as art, can feel self-aggrandizing and even delusional. I stay inside my desk job and remind myself I am not really an artist.
Until I remember temporary art
Painted rocks. That puff pastry I got at Tartine. The handprint inscriptions in the driveway that get chiseled away with a renovation and become a childhood fresco on the walls of our memories. All real art. All meaningful. All of it took care and consideration. So who am I to judge?
I give myself these temporary art assignments to remind myself that attachment to things is materialism, not art. I can love the art, but coveting all of it is a creative sin, and there's not enough room in my garage for too much more evil. Enjoying the process means letting go of the guilt, the self-judgement, the need to make a thing. Sometimes what we need is simply to check out and give our minds a wander break. A little mind candy and a movie.
That is why this one lives in our temporary crafts collection, next to the slime with a one-week lifespan and the rice that ends up in the vacuum. The pebbles came from the sea. Eventually, one way or another, everything goes back.
My favorite pebble art pins
Meanwhile, I will keep reviewing these pins AS IF I am capable of and about to do these very designs myself. I am not. But the reviewing is its own hobby now.
- A glass-and-pebble couple in a sunshine scene
- Glass critters on a log
- Giraffes kissing? Who knew? 😭
- Adorable, simple, brilliant
- Intricately pretty
- I mean…
- The commitment to uniform collecting here. Deep respect. The time lapse makes it look so easy!
What is the project you keep almost starting? Tell me in the comments, and bring your pins, I clearly collect those too.
If this gave you an idea worth trying, there's more where it came from. Follow along on Pinterest (@CraftandBondCo) and Instagram (@craftandbondco) for new projects, recipes, and the occasional honest mess, and save this post so you can find your way back to it.