Upon arriving at our Utah home of 5 weeks I was enamored with the boulders of black lava rock that scattered the landscape. I shuffled one of these boulders across the field, split it, and experimented grinding and polishing the face of the split side. I had been used to only seeing lava stone in a raw form I wondered how it would take to finer grits of polish.

Making my way from 40 to 6000 grit pads over the course of an hour, I finally hosed off all the broken bits and murky grey sediment revealing a mirror-like finish. The glassy surface was of course interrupted by pits from the air pockets created by the rapidly cooling lava, creating a contrast that would tell the story of the stones origin.

Named after Ceres, the largest asteroid in our solar system.

There is such a visceral equivalence in texture and form between this lava rock and something we'd deem otherworldly. 

The oblong shape felt unmistakably like something that had broken off and was later found floating through space. The pits feel as though they are the craters and evidence of a violent history.

Unlike my other pieces, I left much of the original form of the stone intact because of the story it was already telling : objects, relics, fragments left as the only evidence of another era.

Bringing Ceres into the home for its first trial indoors. It felt just right carrying both an organic materiality and a modern line of light. From bathing in sun to casting its own warm glow, the piece transitioned perfectly from day to night.

One of the surprises of this piece was the dimensionality it revealed at dusk. While the face presents the illusion of a single plane, the ring extends 3/4" out from the face, casting shadows down into its craters and reflecting off the white and red impurities of the stone, creating a crawling extension of texture.

The cast of soft, even light creates a warmth in the surrounding environment, transforming the stone from a cold and uncomfortable element into a source of life.