October 22, 2020
Painted Rock Art Stump
At some point early in the time of Covid, somebody in northern Herndon decided to turn the root ball of a large fallen tree into an art project, declaring it the “Folly Lick Rock Wall” and adding some painted rocks to it. Soon, many others followed, contributing their own painted rocks to the wall, and the result was glorious:
I used to run by the Folly Lick Rock Wall, and I was inspired by it. Then, in August, a major storm took out a smaller tree in my own neighborhood in southwestern Herndon. Tina and I decided to see if we could make our own art installation out of the stump that was left after arborists cleaned up the mess. We painted a bunch of rocks. Tina made a monarch caterpillar, snail, a froggy, a trilobite, and more. I made a peace sign, a Celtic triquetra symbol of the trinity, and a heart, among others. We printed a sign that said “Painted Rock Art Stump - Please Add Your Own! ☮️.” We added it all to the stump, and we waited to see what would happen.
A few days later, someone (or ones?) had added a few rocks to the stump! And then a few days after that…all the rocks disappeared. Oh well, we thought, I guess we’ll paint some more. But before we got around to that, one of our rocks (Tina’s monarch caterpillar) came back! And it was accompanied by a whole bunch of new ones: a ladybug, a rainbow, and some more abstract art rocks. After the next rain, the paint washed off some of the new rocks…but then even more rocks appeared, along with a pine cone and…a canvas strap of some kind?
I have to confess that we can’t wait to see what happens next.
– Mike Croghan