Ahira's Hangar

Quote:"I was stone questing," she answered. "I am learning suru-pa-maerl. Do you know the stonecraft?" "No," he said between breaths. "Tell me." "It is a craft I am learning from Acence my mother's sister, and she learned it from Tomal, the best Craftsmaster in the memory of our Stonedown. He also studied for a time in the Loresaat. But the suru-pa-maerl is a craft from making images from stones without binding or shaping. I walk the hills and search out the shapes of rocks and pebbles. And when I discover a form that I understand, I take it home and find a place for it, balancing or interlocking with other forms until a new form is made. Sometimes, when I am very brave, I smooth a roughness to make the joining of the stones steadier. In this way, I remake the broken secrets of the Earth, and give beauty to the people." Vaguely, Covenant murmured, "It must be hard - think of a shape and then find the rocks to fit it." "That is not the way. I look at the stones, and seek for the shapes that are already in them. I do not ask the Earth to give me a horse. The craft is in learning to see what it is the Earth chooses to offer. Perhaps it will be a horse."

On my trip to South Dakota, where I saw the carvings of entire mountains at Mt. Rushmore and Crazy Horse Mountain, I remembered this passage from Lord Foul's Bane and began wondering what the people of the Land would think of our forms of art. Would they think Mt. Rushmore (where the sculptor spent years looking for the right rockface, then dramatically changed the design several times while in the midst of carving because he said the rock told him to) is a complete abomination or a masterpiece of this craft? Our lives are the songs that sing the universe into existence.~David Zindell
****Tavern Wench of DOGMA, the Defenders of George Martin's Art****<i></i>

That's an interesting and complex question Duchess...You would probably have 2 1st consult a master of rhadhamaerl (stonelore) about this issue. Sculpture is mentioned being displayed in the Hall of Gifts, is it not? And Elena did bone-sculpting in her practice of anundivian yajna (but that was a Ramen craft that was lost before the Ritual...).

If there was any direct sculpting on rock I can't remember (unless it was on a small scale--but still that would seem 2 go against a Gravelingas' connection 2 stone, would it not? And yes the Giants crafted Revelstone out of the sheer mountianside--but that practice wouldm had 2 have been approved by the High Lord and his equivalent of Heartrall at the time. I don't remember any representational art cut in2 the stone the Giants worked with. So yes I guess it would b considered an abomination.

Now who exactly was the HL when Revelstone was built?--Damelon it must have been...iirc...Ridjeck Thome is obviously a building abomination (as if gave a dern about that...). Are Coecri and RT considered exempt because they r on the other side of Landsdrop and not, technically, connected 2 the Earthpower of The Land? And now Danlo looked in that direction, too. He remembered that snowy owls mate in the darkest part of deep winter, and so along with this beautiful white bird perched in a tree a hundred feet away, he turned to face the sea as he watched and waited.

Ahira, Ahira, he called out silently to the sky. Ahira, Ahira<i></i>