Sue Rubel

After a long career in education and a shorter one in artisan cheese making, Sue traveled the world for the better part of a year before moving to Springfield, VT.  She developed a “Pandemic Pastime” of wrapping beach and river stones with cord and cane.  But she has been hunting for interesting stones for most of her life and even brought home 22 pounds of stones from Iceland once!  She has been inspired by the work of Andy Goldsworthy, who said, “There is life in a stone.  Any stone that sits in a field or lies on a beach takes on the memory of that place.  You can feel that stones have witnessed so many things.”  So while combing beaches and riverbeds, she often stops to build a cairn and to wonder about each stone’s story.  In her words, “I’m drawn to stone; it has quiet power and elegance, awe-inspiring endurance, a spiritual quality.  Each stone is unique.  I let the varied forms, colors and textures ‘speak to me’ during the design process.  For example, my choice of materials complements a stone’s shape or color.  Similarly, the design depends on a stone’s shape, color and/or size.  The knotting and wrapping techniques are evocative of Japanese basketry.”  The results may be used as meditative or prayer focal pieces, paper weights, door stops, worry stones, gifts for fellow rockhounds or a memento to honor a loved one, conversation pieces, or centerpieces.  Sue’s stones combine the beauty of art in nature with art manmade.