“They talk to you ... You have to know them all."

Picked up a bag full (a few handfuls) of driveway pebbles this afternoon at a neighbour’s funeral in Zutphen. Eric Stynes had inspired me during our conversation. He wanted — or was tinkering with the idea — to order a few bags of larger stones for his final exhibition at MIARD. I thought: going into a dumpster or clearing out the PZI bins would be a more appropriate, localised version of walling material? Still — having pondered driving a trailer filled with Denice’s limestone north — I figured some local grind might do.

Martine and I sat together and cleaned (washed) the stones. We started building our wall. Initially together, but I was too direct(ing):
“Work on your own side.”
“Try this.”

Etc.

Martine started building her own wall. (Lesson.)
Better to work on your own wall — at least to start with?

Time passed. We looked at every stone.
“They talk to you.”
“You have to know them all,” Martine said.

This could be a great practice for a workshop.

Everything is in it — except the weight.

Reflection

* collecting stones from a funeral site transforms matter into meaning. Not just grind — carriers of memory, presence, and place.
Material holds emotional / spatial memory.

* We began building together, but my urge to direct. Martine's response — to build her own wall — a (continued) lesson in respecting autonomy within collaboration.
Co-creation requires humility.

* The process becomes a dialogue — not only between me and Martine, but between us and the stones.
Listening — to materials, people, time — is foundational in any practice.

* Picking up stones from a local driveway -> context. What belongs? What is enough?
Use what’s near. Localised, modest materials can be more truthful than imported ideals.

* “Time went by.” We weren’t in a rush. We saw the stones. We washed them. We built slowly. In doing so, we created space for thought, story, and meaning.
Slowness == depth ... take time!

This isn’t just about a wall or a workshop. It's about how we relate — to each other, to materials, to time.