Stone sculpture park at sunset with large balanced rocks and lush greenery.

Gathering Stones

Jesse Salisbury (2020)

Large granite and basalt stones form Jesse Salisbury’s Gathering Stones. Weighing from 4,000 to 12,000 pounds each, the stones are split, and carved into different shapes. The shapes create a space that encourages interaction. Some stones are hollow inside, encouraging people to walk through them or sit inside them. Some are convenient for sitting on. You can step from stone to stone. Feeling at once primitive and futuristic, it encourages people to explore with others.

Artist statement

Imagine an arrangement of large stones magically appearing on the Eastern Promenade. It’s as if they levitated from nearby fields and beaches to surprise morning walkers. Mysteriously shaped, and playfully arranged, they become a gathering place.

We have an innate desire to collect and arrange stones that we find in nature. Arranging large stones creates a gathering place for people. Gathering Stones is a playful reference to both impulses.

Industrial workshop with large stone being lifted by crane.

Installation date

June 2020

Location

Eastern Promenade

Materials

granite and basalt stones

Stone grinding and polishing process at TEMPOart workshop.

Boulders for landscaping and natural outdoor design.

Excavator loading a massive rock into a bucket at a construction site.

About the artist

Jesse Salisbury grew up on the rural and rock bound coast of Maine and was influenced by this dynamic geology and natural beauty from an early age. He began carving wood with a local professional artist while in grammar school.

Jesse began his formal artistic training in Japan where he apprenticed with renowned traditional ceramic artists Ren and Mami Katayama, contemporary sculptors Katsumi Ida and Atsuo Okamoto and others. He worked as a professional assistant and translator at the Yonago International Sculpture Symposium in Tottori, Japan.

Beginning in 2005 Jesse founded and served as director of the Schoodic International Sculpture Symposium which organized the creation of sculptures by National and International artists for a public collection of 34 sculptures that spans three counties in Eastern Maine. After a decade of developing his own sculptures and founding a major public art event, Jesse is now focused on developing his sculptures on an even larger scale, and in the public realm, in projects that fuse landscape and art, and require collaboration, communication, efficiency, and integrity.

Gathering Stones was made possible through the support of the Maine Arts Commission.