Stone As Art

One of the highlights of our trip to the 2008 New England Spring Flower Show in Boston on Monday was seeing stone artist Lee Spiller again. He creates exquisitely beautiful vases and other items from stones. The finished product is clearly still a stone, but it has been respectfully transformed. We first saw Lee’s artwork on one of our trips to Bar Harbor, Maine. There’s a shop there, actually a couple of shops, called Window Panes. They carry home decor, furniture, kitchen and garden items along with Lee Spiller’s stone work. They have a separate shop for bath and body products on upper Main Street. Their main location is also on Main Street, but near the intersection with Mt. Desert Street. I believe they still have an annex over on Cottage Street. I couldn’t find a functional web link for Window Panes, but of the many shops in Bar Harbor, they are a “must do”.

Anyhoo, back to Lee Spiller. When you see his stone vases displayed you will feel immediately drawn to them. They call to you, inviting you to pick them up. Lee uses all different sizes of stones. Each one has a refined form by virtue of its having been tumbled over time in a river or an ocean. That natural shape is never diminished as Lee works with each stone to turn it into a vase, a candle holder, a “puddle stone” or a lamp.

Over the years we have been unable to resist a number of Mr. Spiller’s vases such that our collection now numbers ten. As we approached his booth in the Gardener’s Marketplace in the Bayside Expo Center Monday, we started telling each other we already had lots of his gorgeous vases at home. But then we saw his newest creation: stone pendants. They have the same simple, earthy, elegant qualities as his vases, just writ small and available to be worn around ones neck. One pendant fairly leapt off the driftwood display into my hands - really! Then Chuck asked if he had brought any other pendants, not yet on display and Lee graciously brought out the rest of his trove. Sure enough, another pendant flew right into Chuck’s hands! We slipped them on and immediately loved the weight and feel of them. I wish the photo below allowed you to experience them in person.