Mother Nature Is The Ultimate Designer

With the stirring emergence of a large Jackson Pollock that recently hit the auction market and the eye-popping opening bid for a Mark Rothko painting, abstract expressionism is enjoying a grand-slam revival. Not that these blue-chip painters were ever ignored, forgotten or inexpensive, but their current values are rivaling the stratospheric prices they commanded in the mid 1980s.

Could it be a yearning for the visceral immediacy and emotional lushness of the expressive form of painting? Are we consumers yearning for the roar of the oil paint and smell of the turpentine?

Whatever the motive or reasoning behind this mad dash for the painters who had one of their first shows in the Springs’ Ashawagh Hall, abstract expressionism is red hot. This, of course, bubbles up to the world of interior design, and in particular, the selective process.

While wandering a marble granite yard last week, I was struck by the theatrical abstraction of the giant slabs of marble and granite now being imported.

A decade ago, politely flawless sheets of granite resembling the peppery consistency of laminate were all the rage. A quiet marble or limestone with barely a fissure or striation was snapped up by whispering decorators and confident architects.

The differentiation between a concrete sidewalk and provincial French limestone was discreet. In fact, dissatisfied with the glamour of the stone itself, we scored it, tumbled it, honed it, flamed it and etched it—reducing it to an ancient, worn, tread-upon substance almost unrecognizable as stone. Well, those days have been swept away.

The granite and marble yards of today are displaying igneous slices of Mother Nature that rival the abstract expressionists. Thundering slashes of color rip through these slabs, which hail from Brazil, Ireland, Turkey, Indonesia and Iran.

Rich purples, sumptuous crimsons, edible lavenders and even shocking pinks infuse these stones. Explosions of iridescent quartz wink at the passerby. Rivulets of sparkling amber wind their way across these cuts. A celebration of pattern and color has hit the market dead square on and dealers are fearlessly importing theatrical attention-grabbing stone, supplying designers, architects and builders with choices that were never thought possible before.

Carol Lind from Lido Stone Works in Calverton points out that the market’s dramatic shift in stone offerings has developed due to greater access to more and more remote locales.

“Italy used to be the primary purveyor of marble, but now through a smaller world and advanced technology in quarrying ability, we can get marble and granite from India, Iraq and Egypt, and all over South America, particularly Brazil,” she reported. “In fact, for years, it was a common misconception that many of these granites and marbles were quarried in the country of Italy. Because of its superior block-cutting capabilities, stone was shipped to Italy, cut, polished and then shipped on. Most retailers simply presumed that these marbles were quarried in Italy—but they weren’t.”

The Breche de Vendome, hailing from France, is a metamorphic marble with broken pieces of stone fused together, rich in tones of mustard, cream and maroon. Its abstract ebullience begs for a Pollock comparison.

The serene swathes of grey in the Italian Breccia Caldia reminds me of Helen Frankenthaler’s elegant, glacial brush strokes.

The tough-as nails quartzites, such as Fusion quartz, reminiscent of Morris Louis’s “Veils” works use of color calls for strange color combinations in yellow, cobalt and a rivulet of cream.

The fascinating semiprecious stones, such as the African tiger eye—with its amber iridescent and jumbled mosaic—are described as cryptocrystalline in structure. Cut from the inside of caves, tiger’s eye famously evolved from the slow mineral-rich drip of stalactites and stalagmites.

The flamboyant onyx family, used so often for its transparency, vivid color and luxe association, is everywhere in evidence at stone yards.

An afternoon meandering through your local stone yard will unearth unimaginable riches, as well as inspiration for both architect and designer alike, as Mother Nature lives up to her reputation as the greatest and most adventurous artist in existence. And stone purveyors are feeding our current appetite for surprise, whimsy, pattern and delight.