Serpent Stones: after the rains

from the Banff Wastestream Series, 1991
Banff Centre, Banff
eggshell shards, each drawing approximately 18" x 36"

Serpent Stones was a series of ephemeral markers to evoke the element of water. Seven large stones around the grounds of the Banff Centre became the site of renderings in eggshell shards of dynamic, spiraling serpent-snakes. The serpent, the spiral and the egg are all primal symbols of creation and water. Each serpent was orientated to the site to represent a directional marker for the easterly flow of the watershed from the continental Great Divide. The Stones were open to the elements: the wind, the rain and the forces of time, soon to be faint traces, a memory for those who knew of their origins and an undecipherable mystery to those coming upon them for the first time.