The American artist Charles Simonds created this stony miniature piece he calls Rock Flower . It appears in the Hirshorn Museum Collection at the Smithsonian.
It is made of clay and fine sand.
The tiny brick/stones, in what looks like miniature dry laid walls, are no more than an eighth inch across.
It has a distinct archeological feel to it.
In fact the sculpture creates a feeling of 'diminished time'. An imagined history appears to have shrunk as if it blossomed and had just recently faded, right under our noses.
This is the power of sculpture, of three dimensions. The objects of art we can walk around and perceive from several perspectives become more freely embedded in our imaginations and the space they take up alters our sense of time as well.
