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Stone walls : personal boundaries
By Mariana Cook
Stone Walls
Stone Walls : Personal Boundaries was conceived by renowned photographer Mariana Cook at her home on Martha's Vineyard. After fifty-six cows strayed through a crumbling section of the stone wall she shares with her neighbor, Cook studied the tumbled wall carefully and was struck by its beauty. With that inspiration, she embarked on an eight-year journey, traveling to diverse locations such as Britain, Ireland, the Mediterranean, Peru, New England and Kentucky in pursuit of dry stone walls. Far from being a travelogue, these beautiful black-and-white photographs portray the wall in landscape, the wall as abstract form, and the return of rocks to nature. Cook is fascinated with the juxtaposition of stones and geometric composition, as well as with the resonance between walls of different cultures. The walls photographed range from 1 600 BC to the present time. With a tribute from Wendell Berry and essays providing a context for the walls of each region, this collection captures something fundamental about the relationship of human beings to the land.
